Now that it has happened, we all must hope for a Labor majority government to save us from the excesses and lunacy of the Greens and the Teals.

The election has rid the Liberal party of their biggest problems, the wets, Sharma, Wilson, Frydenberg, Zimmerman etc. It is now up to a Dutton-led party to repair the damage of the Turnbull/Morrison years and regain its conservative supporters.

Where were these so called "Liberal Party progressives" to be found when push came to shove... where... in bed with the reactionary right of the Coalition, dutifully voting with the likes of Joyce, Christensen and Canavan that's where they were to be found. The Nationals may well be overwhelmingly popular in the village of Hicksville (pop 30) where they get every vote, even those of the sheep and cattle, but where it really counts with the majority, they are on the nose, and got what they deserved!

As for the Liberal Party founder 'Pig Iron' Bob Menzies, he espoused 10% unemployed, to suppress wages, and he viewed working women as an to be underpaid cheap labour. Yes, the Liberal Party should bring back the Bob philosophy, and wind back the clock to 1952!

"Yes, the Liberal Party should bring back the Bob philosophy, and wind back the clock to 1952!"
Thought they had....

Cry over the defeat of a coalition of grubs, never!
Unfortunately though, one species of grub usurped by another holds no solution to endemic problems of a systematic plunder by the leaning tower of “ bumbledom” .

Remember “robodebt”? Too many haven’t forgotten obviously, the event exemplifying the core values of politicians. The ruthless and wrong plunder was early called for what it was, but pleas for mercy were ignored.

The results, a successful class action:

Key points of Robodebt Class Action
The Representative Applicants commenced the Robodebt Class Action on 19 November 2019. On 16 November 2020, the scheduled first day of trial, the Representative Applicants and the Commonwealth agreed a settlement.

Since the commencement of the class action, more than $1.7 billion in financial benefit will have been provided to approximately 430,000 group members.

The benefits to Group Members include the following elements:

*…The Commonwealth will pay $112 million in compensation to approximately 400,000 eligible individual Group Members, including legal costs;

The Commonwealth is repaying more than $751 million in debts collected from Group Members invalidly and will continue to provide refunds;

The Commonwealth has agreed to drop claims for repayment of approximately $744 million in invalid debts that had been partly paid back, as well as dropping claims for $268 million in invalid debts where no repayments had been made.

Gordon Legal is proud to have achieved this historic result which resolves the claims of hundreds of thousands of people who were issued with Centrelink debts calculated wholly or partly on the basis of averages derived from ATO income data…*

Have things improved? Definitely not. Now it’s the plunder of a home, engineered by the same ruthless warriors of power and prestige.

Good riddance I say.

Dan

Those libs who lost their seats didn't demonstrate a courage of conviction to show their alleged progressive colours? And paid a price in urban seats for a party that had moved too far to the right!

As for labor they won with the lowest primary vote since Adam wore nickabockers! Elbow won because he is not Scomo! And because he came with a bag of progressive policies, policies reflected by the teals?

The libs may compound their distruction a la the Australian Dems by choosing leader leaning too far to the right? And down to them!
Alan B.

OMG, if the loony right think they will make wider appeal by being even more loony, then heaven help the conservative side.
This is Australia, not the USA, so dream on if you think Australia is going to be more like the yanks.
If they want to sell God, deny global warming, and even bag legitimate MPs who were elected, then they obviously have a poor insight on how Australian politics works and have evolved in recent decades.
It is amazing how out of touch Sky Tv after 6pm is with reality. LMAO.

The obvious solution is to introduce Proportional Representation in the Lower House. This would have given us more or less one-third each of Labor, LNP, and those outside the duopoly's tent.

The political culture would change overnight. No more gladiatorial spectacles on the floor of the house, no more winner-takes-all behaviour and mentality, no more the deluge of royal offsprings from the political nurseries of the two old parties.

Legislations would be negotiated and not shouted through Parliament. Who knows, no more pork-barrelling! Community and nation-building projects are to be agreed upon in the course of the Parliament by joint committees and not announced during election campaigns, as if in a bribe-bidding war involving the two mafia groups fighting for their common territory.

If only God were benevolent! Give us Proportional Representation.

I should have added in my previous post the following.
For the Liberal Party, it would mean a new lease of life, unindentured to people like Barnaby or Clive Palmer. No more "teals" to worry about - they would return to a reformed liberal Party with principles.
Minority governments would be normal, and the quality of MPs would improve out of sight. Just think of the Teals - mature, well-credentialled women, with a CV punctuated by exploits in their party nurseries

I do not think there will be any reconstruction of parties until
after the looming problem of how global warming legislation is to be handled.
Albo has announced they will start work on that legislation immediately.
We can see what effect the suggested legislation will have by how
similar legislation overseas has multiplied electricity charges and
the effect on industry.
The industrial branch of Labour will have different needs to the
climate branch of the party.
I think it will be impossible to avoid large industrial disputes.
How the Labour party with its background will handle the contradiction
will be interesting to watch.
The coalition party will probably stay on the sideline and urge them on.

The Industrial branch will require protection of mining jobs and the
threatened jobs in industrial companies. Aluminium production will
probably cease unless taxpayers front up. Steel production will be in the same boat.
Cement production will also be looking for support. This also affects
the building industry via concrete and timber.

The Climate Branch will demand immediate reduction of CO2 emissions
by aviation and other transport areas. Agriculture also will need to
reduce by 43% or by 8% per year.
Fertiliser is another area of concern. Note Sri Lanka.

The opposition will probably make the point that only they can make
any changes needed by introducing more measured legislation.

By that time mpre people will be saying; "Well where is this global warming ?"

I love the idea of a trial seperation of the L and NP (particularly in Queensland where it would have to be structurally torn apart, but we are in opposition in the QLD as well).

If the idea in politics is to appeal to voters by convincing them your policy mix is appropriate to meet the challanges they face, it is impossible for Trevor Evans and Barnaby Joyce to be joined at the policy hip.

What has either party to loose when so deep in oposition, with such a progressive range of target seats to win back.

(For the avoidance of doubt, I'm one of the afore mentioned progressives)

The Labor Party will ignore the Greens and Teals entirely and attempt to paint them as the enemy wherever possible. Those seats are potentially ALP seats in three years.

Case in point - aircraft noise in Brisbane. Terri Butler lost with the Greens promising caps and curfews. Labor won't let the issue be resolved until it is one of thiers that can claim the credit. No way they want to fix the problem and allow the greens to bask in that glory.

Anthony, your stock standard conservative LNP message really resonated with the voters in the state seat of Bulimba, hummm you need a new message me thinks.

In my view the nationals and their support for fossil fuel i.e., coal gas, is the reason the libs did so badly. And the coal-fired nats only got in on lib preferences!

Should the libs fail to preference the nats they wouldn't hold a single seat! The nats are now an albatross around the libs neck and unless jettisoned will take them further down!

Ditto the hard right conservatives who wouldn't win a single vote as a party of hard right conservatives if they stood alone as hard right conservatives/neo Nazis, as opposed to sliding into power on the coattails of moderate libs! It's a broad church that folk no longer want!

It's like the communist and the socialists combining as broad church of the left and expecting the voters to wear that!

Hard right, Peter Dutton, as leader of the libs will not help them to rebuild but in all likelihood take them down even further! That choice as leader demonstrates as nothing else can, they are a party of tin ears! Tin ears who never listen and believe all they need do is sell their poison pill message!

The demographics have changed and more young people are casting their ballot. And the libs are not listening to those they claim to represent, never have, never will unless there is huge structural change and along with a new breed of pollie, they can't! It's not in their privileged and entitled, we know best, DNA!
Alan B.

ttbn, there's a good chance of that outcome. Anyway the teals are just moderate libs and will likely support most of labor's agenda. Which as usual will never ever consider nuclear power

A more educated and erudite people sent a message on Saturday. Hard right, white Supremists, neo Nazis, eff off!

What we need is a nuclear power party of the moderate middle, taking huge swathes of votes from the old parties, to change that!
Cheers, Alan B.

Bazz, steel and aluminum production could increase as green steel and green aluminum using hydrogen instead where the trick is to completely exclude oxygen, We can make better stronger long-lived concrete without coal using the waste flux from steel and aluminum smelting instead.

What we need is arc furnaces and cheap 24/7 power! With the ideal candidate being MSR thorium!

Can't use solar or wind without huge expensive battery backup or even more expensive pumped hydro! and thereby pricing our steel and aluminum out of the market!

If pollies weren't so consumed with winning and retaining seats, they'd see that, or do the independent research that would allow them to see what they are not being told!
Alan B.

Alan, if nuclear is available anything is possible, but the greens
won't allow it, just not possible for them.
I think eventually they will accept nuclear because it will be put
to them, its coal or nuclear.

By their own definition, the teals are a mixture of Liberal (Blue) leaners with some added Green interests in relation to climate change. That's why they chose that colour to represent themselves,

Time will tell how they will perform but they already seem smarter than some of those they replaced, but the previous government is likely to be more concerned with the findings of an ICAC when it's created or a Royal Commission into Robodebt.

Hi rache,

Labor is going to have to get in and have a look at the books, the real set of books that is, not the phoney set ScuMo and Friedbrain have been peddling for the last couple of years.

Hi Alan and Bazz,

As a GREEN I am willing to listen to rational debate about nuclear energy production, particularly if there is new technology available that makes it safer. Its not a win win situation and there would be strong argument against it. I try not to have a closed mind on anything, this included, but I do support a strong drive for renewable's.

The climate debate has gone on for years and I believe the science has settled the argument, and human induced CC is real. The debate phase is finished, and real positive action is now needed if we are going to avoid future catastrophes, many of which are with us now.

Remember “robodebt”?
diver dan,
What a horrible & insensitive thing that was, it was akin to Robosalaries !

The Libs could try to replicate what they did well in the '70s, esp. Victoria, before they went lurching right and north with Murdoch & Howard, the state government of Rupert 'Dick' Hamer, a 'liberal' (from Wiki):

'Hamer, assisted by key allies ... moved to modernise and liberalise government in Victoria. Environmental protection laws were greatly strengthened, the death penalty was abolished, Aboriginal communities were given ownership of their lands, abortion and homosexuality were decriminalised and anti-discrimination laws were introduced.'

Hi Andras,

That's not the Federal Liberal Party of today, that's progressive liberalism. A Liberal Party under Peter Dutton will lunge further to the right, they would love to embrace progressive ideas, but unfortunately they will have excuses why such can't be so.

But then again, just this week, "Hard Line Dutton" has morphed into 'Softy Pete" with a completely new persona, he has become a lover of butterflies and a smeller of flowers. The poor chap has been completely misunderstood for all these years. Some will say; "But Dutton boycotted Rudd's apology to the 'Stolen Generation', that was the old Dutton, the new Pete will not only embrace Aboriginalism, but may well be seen to be kissing black babies at election time in marginal seats.