A Labor win could have a cathartic effect on the Liberal party and put them back on track. Getting rid of Morrison would be their first task.

While many people - and I am one of them - generally recoil in horror at the thought of a socialist Labor government in a possible unofficial coalition with the Greens (yes, Albo says 'never', but nobody believes him), but, things are no longer normal in that there is barely a cigarette paper between them and the Liberals, particularly now that Morrison is putting Labor climate/renewable policies into action. What a hypocrite and big fibber!

It seems that, apart from replacing its leader, the Liberal party needs a good, hard kick in the pants to remind it what it stands for. And that won't happen if it is allowed to fumble along, with a weak, indecisive leader, for another three years after the election next year

the Liberal party needs a good, hard kick in the pants to remind it what it stands for.
ttbn,
It all has to do with too many politicians being as ignorant as dog$hit in matters everyday life.
Be they Liberal or Labor & to a lesser degree National, they all have the same symptoms, they're of Academic upbringing !
Fortunately, LNP aren't quite as saturated with these ignorant/arrogant types as Labor.

It doesn't make any difference anymore.

Dear Critic,

«It doesn't make any difference anymore.»

Indeed, not on the macro level, but if you have a specific niche issue like I do, then perhaps it can. I am still waiting to hear whether Labor will allow me to pay for my COVID vaccines.

Not since the days of Gough Whitlam has there be a defining difference between Labor and Liberal. Labor today presents itself as a progressive reform party and not one of a socialist party. The Liberal Party moved away from being a quasi-conservative party to become a social reform party around the time of Malcolm Fraser. The D and A of both parties on social justice issues is very much alike. The Liberals to differentiate themselves from Labor tried to present as conservative economic rationalists, but given their track record since the John Howard days they have failed on that score.

There have been many attempts to establish a viable third party in Australian politics from the centre left Aust Democrats, Greens on the left, to centre right Aust Conservatives, DLP and One Nation on the extreme right. All these minor parties have had varying degrees of success and failure over the years. The Nats (Country Party), has existed as a niche party successfully for over 100 years. The Nationals true success has been in coalition with the larger Liberal Party.

Regardless of the result of the next election I cannot see either Labor or Liberal attempting to redefine themselves. The outcome of the election will be nothing more than the normal of the cycle of power in Australian politics.

"The Best Thing For Australia Would Be A Labor Win?"

That's a bold statement and sure to get reactions.

However,it appears that the voting public are not much
enamoured with either side of politics. Predicting anything
at this time is rather ill-advised.

When the Coalition won the previous
federal election (May 2019) in spite of its disunity and the
polling predictions, the result was readily construed as
miraculous. As "Morrison's miracle."

In reality it was a narrow squeak. The Morrison government was
returned with the slenderest of margins.

The Coalition's victory was largely the product of its
dominance in Queensland. Labor won a majority of seats in
both NSW and Victoria. This is not to dispute that 2019 was
a demoralising and disorientating result for Labor.

Can Labor succeed under Albanese? Certainly Albanese does
not generate the antipathy that Bill Shorten did.

Albanese exudes an egalitarian ordinariness legitimised by a
back story of being raised in public housing by a single
mother. Even his blustering attack lines are delivered
affably rather than angrily. This is leadership -
shorn of pretension - but also not much in the way of
inspiration. There are few rhetorical flourishes, and little
to quicken the pulse.

But perhaps that's being unfair. Perhaps Labor's direction
under this leader is focused on the achievable,
disciplined and determined to find its way back
into government benches in the sure belief that
only then can it change the nation.

We have to wait and see which party has the wit and imagination
to champion a big bold reform program. At present it's too
soon to tell.

Labor has a very poor track record & LNP has an only marginally better one !
LNP has a chance to improve if they reduce the number of academic educated & lawyers in Govt.
Labor unfortunately, has no chance of improving as long as their voter base is the Public Service
& those who depend on incompetent bureaucrats !

ttbn, you have been sour on the Liberal Party ever since your Fuhrer with his wombat party, The Australian Conservatives, were comprehensively rejected by the voters at the last election. Is One Nation your answer now?

individual,

The Liberal party has had years to get rid of Leftist judges, officials and, in particular, the ABC. But they have done none of these things. They have even gone along with Labor's climate/renewables nonsense, without consultation, and despite the fact these Labor policies were rejected by the electorate at the last election that the pundits told us Labor win.

Morrison is an ingrate, biting the hands of the people who elected him. Morrison is self-serving, has no values, knows zero 2050 is unachievable, but also knows that he won't be there to take the flak when Australia sinks to the bottom without cheap coal.

On the matter of Morrison adopting a similar climate/emissions policy to the one that lost Labor the last election and won it for himself, it should be remembered that he was able to cost the Labor policy minutely, and scare everybody into voting him back; but he is unable, or unwilling, to cost the one he is off to Glasgow with, which, as Shakespere wrote in ‘Macbeth’, “is a tale by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

During the 2019 federal election campaign, as Scott Morrison and the Coalition attacked Labor’s promise to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 45 per cent by 2030, he and his ministers had every detail and fact about the cost of the ALP’s plans at their fingertips.

Two years later, when it comes to information about the Coalition’s own policies – not so much.

Although the highest income households emit around three times as much carbon as the lowest income households, they have incomes that are more than”eight times greater than average” and housing and utilities are the most important sources of emissions for lower income households, making up around half of their emissions, compared to around one third for the highest income households.

For the next 30 years to 2050, already very rich people will get much richer because of this scam, and the rest of us will pay.

ttbn,
>Morrison is self-serving, has no values, knows zero
So far so accurate!

>2050 is unachievable
You've blown it!

You remind me a bit of the Socceroos coach who said "winning the friendly will be good for team morality!"

I just watched Clive Palmer claim that the United Australia Party had had 3,000 Greens switch to it. Maybe. That would leave the Greens with 12,000 members if true.

Australians are not a political lot, and are certainly not interested in party membership, but I thought that I would check the numbers, and was surprised to find that the United Australia Party shares the largest membership with the Nationals.

National Party 100,000
United Australia Party 100,000
Labor 53,500
Liberal 50,000
Greens 15,000 (not sure if that's before or after the big desertion).

The total of registered voters who are members of serious political parties is less than 2% of registered voters. There are no figures for the odds and sods, but they would need at least 500 hundred members on the electoral roll to be registered.

It's a good thing in one way for people not to be too intense about politics, but it could also be why politicians get away with so much, particularly their current whittling away of democratic freedoms, and sucking up to globalised activists instead of listening to, and serving, the people they are supposed to represent for the very good money they are getting to do that.

That will be the day that 3,000 Greens join Palmer! Palmer and his lying leeches, at the last election I was talking to a bloke doing HTV's for Palmer, he was promised $100 for the day, I wonder if he ever collected, Knowing Palmer most unlikely.

ttbn, yep 500 "members" to form a political party. In the case of your Australian Conservatives there must have been "rats in the ranks" as the party only scored 488 votes Australia wide. Yep, a dozen rats deserted the cause! Were you one?

From my experience less than half of the party membership are active. The National Party with 100,000 members, I assume 3/4 of them are the sheep in Barney's back paddock, the party would find it difficult to muster 10,000 including supporters at election time, probably a lot less. In the good old days, many unionists would be invited to join the ALP, in reality they were simply making a donation. At branch meetings the same small group turn up every month. In strongly unwinnable electorates even the big two find it difficult to get people on election day to take on the incumbents, often having to bus them in from other branches.

tweedle dum and tweedle doo. Is there a difference between the parties today? The media have most of the say and both parties jump saying what the media minority want.

Palmer and his lying leeches,
Paul1405,
I don't think Palmer would want hypocritical morons in his party !

Good statistics ttbn. Kudos.

CM

You would know as much about political parties as ttbn, and that's nothing. Included in those figures for membership are both financial and non-financial members. Political parties tend to keep non-financials on the books, under the rules, unless there is a written resignation. Since non-financials have no voting rights, a better indicator of membership would be how many vote at pre-selections. In a hotly contested pre-selection in a 'gun seat' as many as 100 or more members might vote, but in a unwinnable seat as little as 10 members choose the candidate, usually there is only one nomination in those unwinnables anyway. In most safe seats the incumbent is not challenged, so the pre-selection is a formality.

In the case of Palmers Party which is strongly based in Queensland, I would say in that 100,000 there might be 99,000 free members, whose bona-fides are questionable. Same goes for the Nationals, since they contest a relatively few seats, they should have no problem at election time throwing 1,000 members behind each candidate, I suspect they would be lucky to have 100 to 200 members support on the day.

Once a Greens member came up to me at a meeting, and all excited proclaimed; "We now have 30,000 members!", I replied; " They must be in the Tasmanian rainforest, they're sure not here tonight".

The best thing for Australia would be kicking out the hierarchy of the Education Department which are all Labor !