Commentator Paul Collits pronounces the election to have been a "disappointing, loud, and ultimately vacuous show".

More importantly, Collits mentions the "out-sized non-voting class" that made its feelings known about the poor quality of the offerings for the job of running the country: about a quarter of the votes were informal in some electorates. The "former magic" of election day is now "all but gone", with the outstanding number of pre-polling votes (many illegal) showing, in my opinion, that many people are no longer interested in hearing the full story because they don’t believe it will make any difference.

Seventy percent of voters did not want Labor. Collits asks when was the last time a government secured an outright victory with just about "70 percent of the electorate wishing they hadn't?"

Over a million voters went for the 'freedom parties'. Added to the number of informal votes, there is a substantial group who are sick of having their rights and freedoms stomped on, being lied to by all the current crop of politicians, and being subjected to stuff they never voted for. "Anger or indifference" is to be expected.

All this, Collits believes, has us "slouching towards both first-past-the-post and voluntary voting" without knowing it.

Dear Ttbn,

Well of course elections were vacuous, as always - what did you expect?

Another right winger crying in his beer about the election result. AND 64% of voters didn't want Morrison as PM, so he got the 'A'

GET OVER IT!

"about a quarter of the votes were informal in some electorates." ttbn do you make it up, or can you name one electorate where the informal vote was anywhere near 25%. In the Sydney seat of Fowler where there was a strong protest vote against Labor for parachuting Keneally in, the informal vote was 10.52%. The majority of informal votes at federal elections are caused by voters not numbering every square in preferential order.

ttbn, before the election you were crowing Hanson and Palmer, they failed to win a single seat, in fact Palmer lost the only seat his party held. deja vu for you from 2019 with your Corny Banana, did you join up and make a donation this time?

2022 was a breakthrough election.

The Liberal Party was turfed out, not just from
government but also from many of its blue-ribbon seats
and we saw a historic wave of climate-focused candidates
elected from outside the major parties.

Integrity in politics was a key issue that drove many
moderate voters away from the incumbent Liberal Party and
towards independent candidates in affluent urban seats.

Scott Morrison may have been an excellent campaigner, but
he was mistrusted amongst large parts of the electorate.
Then there was the issue of climate change, and the issue
of the woman's vote that added to the election results.

Thanks for raising this topical issue ttbn- sad that others use it in the way they do- it just proves that they can't be trusted. "Pre-polling votes (many illegal)" - I think the bar is quite low for compliance- personally I don't have a problem with pre-poll voting but I'm not sure how it skews things.

ttbn, Canem Malum and Donald Trump all have the same problem; "The election was stolen from the right wing nut jobs." Please someone give it back, before the three of them blow their piffle valves.

ttbn, don't forget the 25% figure for informal votes, was it another one of your porkies?

CM

There are good reasons to have pre-polling, but there are rules; rules which are not policed. The slackness and gutlessness of the AEC are fairly typical of Australian authorities these days.

Apart from the people with good reasons to vote early, the others are clearly idiots for voting before the campaign is over. The sort of idiots who keep banging on about how the Coalition deserved to be kicked out, when I agree that they should have been kicked out. The same idiots who are too thick to see the appalling state of our voting system when a 32% vote awards the government to one of the parties. And, the losing party gained only 4% more! A third of voters didn't want either of them. This is what led to Paul Collits' observation about first past the post voting, and the fact that so many informal votes, and votes for so-called freedom parties, indicate how fed up and disgusted with our political class people are. It's a good thing that there are people out there with more intelligence than the morons here, whose very limited ability to understand the written word, and their belief that it's all about one political party or the other, drives them to post the same tediously ignorant drivel that they do: just the same noise made by all of the cancel culture.

I don’t vote.
I will not support State sanctioned criminal enterprise.
It’s time for revolt.

Dan.

" about a quarter of the votes were informal "

Its probably the first time I've said this (probably because its the first time it happened!!) but Paul is right. I checked the AEC Tally Room and there isn't any electorate that has a 25% informal vote. Not even close. If that's what ttbn's source says then the rest can safely be ignored. Its rubbish.

I worked on the election and in my electorate the informal vote was 6.9%. Of that I'd guess about 40% just didn't want to vote so left the ballot empty or wrote inadmissible things or drawings on the ballot. The rest were just too moronic to follow simple instructions and probably didn't deserve to have the vote counted anyway. (When the instructions is to enter a number against each candidate 1 through to 9 and they enter 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,7,9 then democracy is served by ignoring their vote.)

As to pre-polling (where I worked) the rule is that the voter merely needs to assert that they may be unavailable to vote on the actual day in order to be given a pre-poll vote. Again anyone who doesn't know the issues two weeks out from the election day probably doesn't deserve to vote. So pre-poll is fine and reduces problems on the day.

The election is fair beyond belief and returned the government most Australians wanted. Now the nation has to live with that decision.

"I don’t vote."

Then you have no right to complain about whatever happens over the next three years...but I bet you will.

My guess is that most people who refuse to vote just don't want to take responsibility for their views.

mhaze,

As Paul Collits is a known author and blogger, and you are not, I am of a mind to stick with him. Sorry.

Even if he got it wrong, that doesn’t mean "the rest can safely be ignored. Its (sic) rubbish".

Not voting, voting informally, is a legitimate expression of protest - if you don’t do it all the time, when it becomes pointless. The way things are going, I might do it next election, given the appalling state of the political class and the parlous state the country is now in. I sometimes think that a voter strike might be the only way to get politicians to take notice.

mhaze,
ISTRa few years back, when everyone had to fill out al the boxes, putting the same number in more than one box was seen as a legitimate way to exhaust the vote. Has that ceased to be the case? Why?

Dear Dan,

«I don’t vote.
I will not support State sanctioned criminal enterprise.
It’s time for revolt.»

Very well, but if you want your revolution to succeed, then the first rule is to camouflage and lose yourself in the crowd, so nobody suspects. That includes voting (informal if you rather).

The trojan Horse has limped in !

ttbn,

"about a quarter (25%) of the votes were informal in some electorates"

Your right wing cry baby simply made that up, the electorate with the highest informal vote was Fowler with 10.52%. A simple check would have established that, relying on a lie to strengthen his argument, shows Collits lacks credibility. However its more than likely he didn't make that simple mistake, but it was YOU who put in the erroneous "quarter informal" lie.

I asked you for evidence, and you avoided the question, says something about YOU. I doubt you have any political experience what so ever, I have some, doing authorised scrutineering at many federal elections. After sorting the challengers, the informal's, few are completely blank or have some message written on them. The number one problem is people try to number the boxes but get it wrong, numbering one or only a few squares, double numbering, or indecipherable numbering. Just by the way,if there were three candidates and you numbered them 63, 75 and 99 that is a legal vote, you don't have to number them 1,2,3, so can A,B and C be legal, but not pictorially smiley face, neutral face and sad face. Then there is the question of numbers not in the square, is that legal. a "gollywog" vote where you golly in the ballot paper is definitely illegal, as is drawing gallows on the paper as well, it shows your intention, but not an ordered intention.

Hi Paul,
Pauline Hanson still retained her seat in the senate.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/17/pauline-hanson-retains-queensland-senate-seat-as-amanda-stoker-misses-out

When they indoctrinate they young to think a certain way instead of teaching them to think for themselves;
When cancel culture censors opinions it doesn't like;
When forced immigration creates 2 camps of immigrants v's nationalists;
When preferential voting means its a 2 horse race between the majors
(passing the baton and forever shifting the goalposts);
When the younger generation aren't taught how to vote properly;
When both parties are bi-partisan on major issues and leave on scraps for everyone else;
And when everything is divisive and there's no foundation that unites us;

Then it means the systems rigged and not really much of a democracy at all.
- And its no wonder people don't take it seriously, both major parties are essentially the same.
Forever blaming each other, and consistently failing to deliver good policies that matter.

Also, the more that the left opposes sensible initiatives from the right and keeps things hamstrung;
The more they can run the country into the ground and force people to move further to the left,
- towards bigger government and a welfare state.

This leaves no choice other than the right having to move further towards the left.
- I'm not whether the same works the opposite way.

Either way, it means the system can be weaponised in a way that is a 'race to the bottom'.
- This could be why with each successive election the bar is continually set lower.

Hi AC,

I may not agree with the politics of "Horrible" Hanson, but she won her seat fair and square under the rules, just as did the Green's candidate and the others. BTW Hanson was fighting for 6th position, but the quirky voting system seen he finish 5th. I was pleased the intelligent extremist "Hard Boiled" Newman didn't get a look in, he would be far more dangerous than Hanson can ever be.

Yes, our Constitutional Fathers (they were all men), framed the voting system so the two major parties, actually it was framed later, of which they were all members, would come out on top. Although at the first federal election three states, NSW, Victoria and WA opted for a first past the post system, Queensland and SA used the preferential voting system and Tasmania used the Hare-Clark system. The first Federal election was held over two days 29th and 30th march 1901. It was based on the voting rules that applied in each state at the time, there certainly was no uniformity. The Commonwealth Electoral Act, the one we used today, didn't come into force until 1924, and was used for the first time at the 1925 general election. Before then the States were running their own federal elections.

I say bring back the Protectionist and Free Trade parties so we can once again have good if not stable government! Sir Edmund Barton and Sir Alfred Deakin were both Protectionist PM's and Sir George Reid; PM was a Free Trader. BTW they both called themselves liberal parties, and they were both gone by 1909.

Albozo and his bunch of clowns are starting to wake up from their vacuous promises after being faced with reality.

https://hbnshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/fist.face_.png

Talking about things vacuous, how about the wackjob, Adam Bandt, refusing to stand in front of the Australian flag. But that’s more treasonous than vacuous, of course. To think that elections in Australia can through up rubbish like him!

Terry Barnes has described Bandt in Shakespearean manner, as:

"You elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog", and adding that "even that description’s too good for him".

Dear Ttbn,

«how about the wackjob, Adam Bandt, refusing to stand in front of the Australian flag.»

Adam is supposed to represent his electorate - neither Australia nor his Greens party.
Suppose Adam's voters opposed the Australian flag, then it would be part of Adam's duty to refuse standing in front of it.

Dear Yuyutsu

I love talking to you, your “way out there”.
I’m also “way out there”, but on a different branch of a different tree!

I think on this issue of revolt, your behind the times.

It’s impossible to hide from the X-ray vision of the State. Look at China for example.

The consequence of that reality is, one must be up front and in plain sight. The best place to hide.

Dan

Aidan,

I think you are confusing State and Federal voting systems. In the state system (at least here in NSW) you are allowed to exhaust the preference vote. So essentially, so long as you had a 1 against a candidate (but only one 1) then what happened thereafter could be ignored if it were wrong. I've only been working on elections for the last 10 years but don't recall a procedure in the Federal system like the one you mention.

The laws governing Federal and State elections are different and reflect different issues and different power structures. Its unlikely they'll be harmonised.

Just a couple of points about Paul's post. It is not valid to enter numbers like 63, 75, 99. If there's no '1' then the vote is informal. But you don't have to enter 1. Writing "one", "two" etc is valid. Roman numerals are also valid. "A, B, C" etc isn't. Putting numbers outside the box is valid. Drawing on the paper makes it invalid. Making any marks (eg signature) that might identify the voter makes it invalid.

The AEC's policy is to favour the voter. So any ambiguity as to whether a vote is informal or not is resolved in the favour of the voter. If numbers are not written clearly, all efforts are made to give the voter the benefit of the doubt. Informal votes have to be confirmed as such by at least 4 different AEC officials - if even one thinks it's formal, it's accepted.

As I said, informal votes will come in at about 7% and more than half of that number are intentionally informal. So inadvertent errors at around 3% seems pretty good to me.

ttbn wrote "Even if he got it wrong, ..."

If? It's not hard to check for yourself. Go to the AEC website (http://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionalResults-27966.htm) and see for yourself if you can find even one electorate that comes within cooee of a 25% informal vote. Then try to work out why your source chose to mispresent the truth and what other truths they might be prepared to mispresent.

I find this anxiety to be lied to, to be fascinating. I've often advised Foxy to check her sources rather than just beleive that which suits prejudices. You might want to think about doing the same.

You say Collits says (no link so I can't be sure) "70 percent of the electorate wishing they [the ALP] hadn't [won]?" That's rubbish. I didn't give them my first preference but still wanted them to win. 75% of Green preferences went to the ALP. They wanted them to win. In a preferential voting system, its possible to vote for others while still ensuring the party you want to win, gets you final vote. In a first-past-the-post system I and millions of others would have voted differently. But the same people would have won.

Terry Barnes, another nutter dredged up from far right field. While the displaying of the Union Jack on the Australia flag is entirely inappropriate as it represents murder, genocide and the destruction of indigenous people wherever the British invaded and hoisted their flag.
Just as it would be inappropriate for Germany to incorporate the NAZI swastika into their flag. Good on Adam Bandt for standing up on this issue.

ttbn, how are you going with 25% claim of yours, got any evidence yet?

Mhaze,

Just because you "still wanted them to win" (pretty dopey of you not to give them your first preference if that is true) doesn't mean that other voters felt the same. Sane people actually vote for parties or people they want to win. Clearly you are different. 'Protest votes' against people you 'really want to see elected' are baloney.

You are certainly in no position to be "advising" Foxy to do anything, being as you are the egoist equivalent of her for the other side.

As I said, I will be sticking with Collits, who has qualities and qualifications that you don't. He is a publicly recognised academic, easily found online, while you are just another anonymous poster who has made all sorts of claims about himself and his experiences, but who cannot prove a thing.

From my experience of nearly 40 years, the majority of people who vote informal, actually wanted to cast a valid vote, but cocked it up. The problem would be easily overcome with optional preferential voting, simply vote for one or more candidates. Add in a "candidate" called "no choice". In a very rare instance should no choice win then a non voting administrator be appointed to manage local constituent affairs, until the next general election is called.

Pre-poll doesn't usually favour the minor parties, but its obvious that's what Australians want as part of their democratic process, so I'm for it. With new technology, the next logical step is voting online.

The only ones here opposing pre-poll voting is the forums Trumpster mob.

So ttbn,

That's a hearty "NO" to check the data for yourself. As I said, I don't understand the type of thinking that just believes what you're told because you want it to be true. What's the view like down that particular garden path?

I also get the impression that you don't actually understand how preferential voting works. I wanted Labor to win in the contest between them and the Libs - the only contest that mattered. But by voting for someone else as a first preference, I show where my true feelings lay AND the party that I most favour gets the funding attached to my vote.

"As I said, I will be sticking with Collits, who has qualities and qualifications that you don't. He is a publicly recognised academic, easily found online,"...and who has demonstrably lied to you. But if you want to be lied to, then...good call. Just don't pretend to know what's really going on.






Paul wrote: "The only ones here opposing pre-poll voting is the forums Trumpster mob."

I'm a Trumpster but favour pre-polling. The difference between here and the USA is that pre-polling here was tightly controlled and devoid of fraud. The opposite occurred in the USA - little control and an abundance of fraud. (http://2000mules.com/)

Hi mhaze,

You are actually making a great deal of sense on this issue. Preferences only come into play when no candidate has reached an absolute majority on first votes, then it become academic as to the two party preferred vote is. We wait about 3 years to exercise our democratic right, then some people cock it up with bad handwriting, or a silly mistake. I recall the "table cloth" ballot paper for the Senate in NSW back in the 70's, there were something like 183 names and each one had to be numbered in preferential order, it was a nightmare. At one early election in Australia there was no ballot paper, the voter had to write the name of his preferred candidate on a piece of paper. At another election only one voter at a time was let into the polling station, for privacy, that was until they got the idea of voting cubical's.

On Trump, both VP Mike Pence and Trump's hand picked AG William Barr, both believed there was insufficient evidence of voter fraud to overturn the result. But US elections are as rigged as anything the old Commo's ran in the Soviet Union.

I think I could specify a near foolproof voting system that should work.
The AEC officier in charge brings to the site the number of laptops
required already loaded with the electrol roll.
The person operating it when a voter turns up enters the name &
address and an attached printer puts out a ballot paper.
The voter takes it to the booth and numbers the squares which he then
feeds into a mark sensing reader in the booth.
If he has not numbered each square it returns the ballot paper.
If the ballot paper is indecipherable it returns it torn accross or marked invalid.
The voter can then go to the desk and ask for another (weak point
here) or just leave the site as an invalid voter.
A valid vote transmits the info to the central computer.
The desk laptops transmits the identity of the voter and ticks him
off the list on the central roll.
If the ticking off was done on line duplicate voting would be impossible.
The duplicate voter could only use that name once.
The laptop would have no USB ports and the roll would be in eproms.

I can see why the US has not used a system like this. Cheating would
be very difficult.

"On Trump, both VP Mike Pence and Trump's hand picked AG William Barr, both believed there was insufficient evidence of voter fraud to overturn the result."

Yes they did. But a mountain of new data has emerged since those early days - see my link above. Barr now says he'd vote for Trump if he runs again.

Bazz,

All the pre-poll sites ran computerised rolls (ECL - Electronic Certified Lists). The one I was at for example had 6 laptops, four of which could access the rolls for the electorate we were in and 2 could access the data for the whole nation. All data was was updated each morning and periodically through the day over secure propriety WiFi. All data was wiped each night AFTER the central database was updated. Once people voted, their name was flagged so that they couldn't vote again.

As to having machines determine if the vote was valid, I see problems in cost and maintaining voting secrecy. FYG, all Senate papers were scanned to extract the voting data. The papers were sent to a central AEC bureau and were run through a scanner and character reader. Indecipherable ballots were sent to a human to check and try to work out the votes. My understanding is that about 18% of all papers needed human intervention to work out the vote. Doing that in the 6000 or so booths Australia wide on election day would be an horrendously expensive and time-consuming system.

Hi Bazz,
"I can see why the US has not used a system like this. Cheating would be very difficult."

If you were to incorporate your ideas, with voter ID's or even Drivers licenses for example to verify a person identity, and that data was kept on a blockchain, which could not be hacked unless you simultaneously hacked all of the nodes, then yes, it would be an absolutely foolproof system, unhackable and unbreakable.

mhaze,
As I recall, the intention was that the vote could not be exhausted, so you had to number all the boxes. However someone discovered a loophole: the boxes didn't have to have unique numbers for the vote to be valid, so the votes could be exhausted by giving different boxes the same number, and I think someone confirmed it in court.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Armchair,
Both parties moved right in the 1980s and 90s, and it's taken this long tor the results of that to become obvious.
I can't think of any sensible initiatives coming from the right for a very long time!

Aiden said "Both parties moved right in the 1980s and 90s, and it's taken this long tor the results of that to become obvious."

Answer- In my view both parties have moved to the far left. But perhaps they've moved far from Traditionalism.

Some people clearly cannot tell left from right.

There are no right wing parties in Australia, apart One Nation, which barely exists.

Liberal and Labor have barely a cigarette paper between their brands of socialism. Dutton, the great white hope, is saying 'of course we need renewables - but', and the rest of them - what's remaining - are still bragging about their sacked government’s 'biggest investment in renewals ever'.

I wouldn't piddle on any of the Australian political class if they were on fire.

If what 'The Australian' says is true, the daft Liberals will do their best to get Lefty Frydenberg back into the fold; which is why genuine conservatives like me have decided once and for all that the Australian Liberal party is a genuine small 'l' liberal, or left party, never going to get our votes again.

The fact that Dutton has put Birmingham in the shadow cabinet shows that he would be like the NSW premier, Perrottet, conservative until he gets the top job, then turns to wet left water.

When is this mob of way out wackos going to get over their "shock" defeat at May 21st election. Labor will not be doing anything different that the Liberals weren't doing, except they wont be in the Treasury vault on a Wednesday afternoon stuffing their pockets with $100 taxpayer bills. Nah, that's going to be done on Thursdays from now on.

ttbn, before the election you were crowing One Nation and the Fat Clive Party, they were totally rejected by the electorate, like your Corny Banana Party was in 2019. Australia does not want your brand of conservatism!

"Australia does not want your brand of conservatism!"

Yet.

"Australia does not want your brand of conservatism!"

Yet... still many people cling to the notion that it's something Australia must want!

IMO there are four enormous problems with conservatives. The first is intolerance, It's always a bad thing, and PC intolerance is as bad as traditional intolerance. But conservatives tend to be more intolerant overall.

A second, related, problem is their opposition to social justice. Social justice = a fair go for all, and that's one of the quintessential Australian values, yet conservatives tend to think we're better off without it!

And the third problem is their irrational opposition to debt. However important anything is, they think it's unaffordable because the government has too much debt.

And the fourth is their contempt for the environment.

If the conservatives were willing to address these flaws, I suspect they'd have a lot more support.

No right wing parties in Australia?
I think rather there are no left-wing parties.
There's something called The Overton Window that explains it.

Labor was dragged to the right away from their traditional values because they tried to capture some of neo-conservative Howard's turf but are now trying to get back to the centre - an area where the Liberals used to occupy.

What used to be conservatism is now neo-conservatism, transferring public assets and public wealth into private hands while cutting back on services and removing protections through rampant deregulation.

There is now no party to the right of the Liberals and One Nation are just a reactionary hate cult riding on the coat-tails of disaffected Liberals - always angry about something but in the end voting along Liberal Party lines and producing nothing of substance.

Likewise the Greens are just a populist conscience-driven group and like One Nation are inherently powerless to implement meaningful policies.

The so-called socialist Teal independents are actually Liberal-leaning candidates who simply wanted to remove the previous government because of their failed policies in certain areas.

The shortcomings, corruption and lies of the previous government are gradually coming to light and bold announcements are useless without implementation. This once-satirical clip from 5 years ago demonstrates they were wasted years -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELaBzj7cn14

"If the conservatives were willing to address these flaws, I suspect they'd have a lot more support."

So if conservatives were more like progressives then the progressives will support them? Sounds reasonable. But then everyone would be wrong.

My view and hope is that the Libs and their fellow travellers will return to true liberalism. Currently the tenets of the last 20 year progressive experiment are unravelling and people will come to realise that some of the attitudes of 'conservativism' are not only valid but vital.

We've been through a period where the progressives decided that they'd borrow against the future to satisfy their insatiable desires. But the chickens are coming home to roost.

Renewable energy fantasies will evaporate as the lights go out. Massive over-spending, massive debts, massive deficits, won't look quite so appealing when inflation approaches 10% and mortgage rates double (or worse). A generation used to never ending 'wealth creation' via rising housing prices, will look askant as prices fall.

At that point, the true cost of the progressive spending spree, the true cost of the lockdown fantasies, the true cost of the climate fantasies will become both apparent and decried. The teal generation are happy to save the planet from the evil CO2 when it was cost free or someone else was picking up the bill. But when the bill is closer to home then demands for petrol subsidies, coal subsidies and the like become shrieks.

We have growing inflation locked in. We have growing interest rates locked in. We have power crises locked in. The international destabilisation is locked in. International famine and growing refugee crises are locked in.

In crises, when people realise that they've been sold a pup, the conservatives will be (hopefully) waiting with open arms.

Rache said

"No right wing parties in Australia?
I think rather there are no left-wing parties.
There's something called The Overton Window that explains it.

Labor was dragged to the right away from their traditional values because they tried to capture some of neo-conservative Howard's turf but are now trying to get back to the centre - an area where the Liberals used to occupy.

What used to be conservatism is now neo-conservatism, transferring public assets and public wealth into private hands while cutting back on services and removing protections through rampant deregulation.

There is now no party to the right of the Liberals and One Nation are just a reactionary hate cult riding on the coat-tails of disaffected Liberals - always angry about something but in the end voting along Liberal Party lines and producing nothing of substance.

Likewise the Greens are just a populist conscience-driven group and like One Nation are inherently powerless to implement meaningful policies."

Answer-

Looks like Rache hates a lot of people- she even seems to think that the Green Watermelons are nothing more than "useful" idiots that aren't Left enough for her. This seems to indicate that Rache sides with the far left socialists like "Socialist Alternative" on the border of what the AFP would call Marxist Terrorism.

An understanding of the Overton Window does seem critical to an understanding of politics- on that I agree- but...

But sadly some governments seem to support Marxist Terrorism in the form of support of Dengist China. There has been a lot of talk in certain circles about banning so called right wing extremism- but not much talk about banning left wing extremism. At least the Federal Agencies under Scott Morrison were acting against China and advising state governments of the dangers of agreements with China.

I believe PM Albanese is taking a different position with respect to China.

Just for the record. I believe that rache is a male.

Question: Could the 25% be not only informal votes but people registered on the rolls who failed to vote. I was in Hospital at the time and no votes were taken from Hospitals or Nursing Homes as were usually the case in the pre-covid days.

It's not just the Overton Window,
People also get bombarded with with info they cant easily process,
- and then move to a position of cognitive dissonance.

Hey mhaze,
"Renewable energy fantasies will evaporate as the lights go out. Massive over-spending, massive debts, massive deficits, won't look quite so appealing when inflation approaches 10% and mortgage rates double (or worse). A generation used to never ending 'wealth creation' via rising housing prices, will look askant as prices fall."

The pain hasn't even begun yet, but it's coming.
And when it does, they will change the whole entire system.
Cashless society, digital currency.
They spoke about the coming Fedcoin at Davos
- 3 years away possibly.
That's why we had the main forum topic a few days ago about plans to change the way money works, maybe after they get a war going first, who knows, but changes are definitely coming.

The US is in too much debt to stop printing money
I got the info here a few days back.

"The Fed Will Seize All Your Money In This Crisis" — Robert Kiyosaki's Last WARNING
http://youtu.be/zrSzxGsinZg

Michael Burry's Warning for the 2022 Stock Market Crash
http://youtu.be/Cpq7T-v52n8

- People should probably check out the bail-in laws if they have any significant amounts of cash in the bank.

I actually don't "hate a lot of people". Hate is what fuels a lot of right wingers and can easily be witnessed in some of the comments they make and the things they do.

Lefty extremists tend to blockade roadways, chain themselves to objects and inconvenience the public with their protests but globally it's the right wing extremists that shoot up Mosques and Synagogues, bomb abortion centres and seem all too eager to violently overthrow governments as we have seen on TV.

Foxy is right. I am a male - in my late sixties in fact and have seen and experienced a lot of politics and can spot self-interested fakes quite well and when politicians are "yanking peoples chain". The strategy of dividing people up into groups to fight among themselves as a distraction is a proven political tool.

I've seen the Liberal and National Parties of the sixties and seventies turn from bland middle-of-the-road conservatives into corporate-controlled self-serving power mongers interested in personal advancement and the execution of power for it's own sake and the ALP blindly drift into the space the conservatives vacated and sadly it's a global trend.

Trumpism and it's fake news and fascist media-hating tendencies wasn't a political aberration, it was an inevitability.

Regardless, I feel happier and more at ease than many of the angry people that prowl the world of social media and lap up conspiracy theories.

Hi rache,

I know you as you have said before, a male in your late sixties, same. The "girly" jibe from one of the forums Usual Suspects was meant as a put down, in the Arthur Dunger (Paul Hogan character) style; "Heeee's nothn' but a bloody sheila" . The one who posted it, would know who you are, just looking for that insult, nothing to worry about, they are a pathetic bunch at the best of times, and that one thinks of himself as the superior of the superior, he is apt to quote (cut and paste) Arsethrottle, and give out krumpet, but only to the deserving ones, that's not us. I tend to stoke them up, by attacking their "sacred institutions" and their sanctimonious ways, they are just full of it, and the one who "called" you tends to be the fullest of the full.

"The strategy of dividing people up into groups to fight among themselves as a distraction is a proven political tool."

I find myself in agreement with Rache. The way the 'progressives' have divided people by race and/or by sexual orientation and then sort to set the more favoured races and/or 'genders' against the less favoured has been very successful in regards to their control of society. That it hasn't been of much benefit to the actual society really doesn't seem to bother these 'progressives'. End justifies the means and all that.

..." lap up conspiracy theories."

Speaking of conspiracy theories....it seems that the head of the WHO is now privately admitting that the most likely cause of the Covid outbreak was a leak from the Wuhan labs. It is truly said that, these days, conspiracy theorists are just people who know the truth earlier than the gullible.

mhaze,

The hard right conservatives are the most divisive in society, they oppose progressive change, and in turn this divisiveness has them opposing minorities and other groups in society, who seek justice for themselves. They opposes change because they fear it will advantage those they see as undeserving and it will result in a loss of what is rightfully theirs. If its not that, it's simply that lot trying to protect their privileged self interest position in society at the expense of others.

"The hard right conservatives are the most divisive in society, they oppose progressive change,"

Paul, that's just hilarious. Do you even hear yourself. Conservatives are divisive because they refuse to agree with you. Are you really saying that? If only everyone agreed with me, then we'd be united.....sheesh.

This is, of coarse, stand leftish thinking. I'm, smart and good, therefore anyone who doesn't agree with me must be dumb and/or evil. It never occurs to these dolts that it's possible to look at a problem and see different solutions - or not see a problem at all.

Divisive is just one of those weaselly words the left has suborned to avoid having to prove their case - which they can't. Disagree with a so-called progressive and you're racist, you're divisive, you're transphobic, you're islamophobic and so on. They throw the adjectives around because that's all they have.

Truly it is said that if you scratch a 'progressive' you find an authoritarian.

Oops! The cracks are appearing, as the crossbench meddlers threaten to block Labor legislation as Albanese says he will cut their advisory staff from 4 to 1.

Three months down the track when our CMO - of all people - couldn't define 'woman', his overpaid, useless department still can't answer the simple question with the simple answer - a woman is an adult female human being. They have put out 78 words of complete rubbish that could have come from any old loony Green activist nutjob. This mob of vacuous goons has said, in short, that they "do not adopt a single definition".

While Albanese is cutting advisory personnel from crossbencher regressives, he should also be looking at cutting some of the rubbish personnel in health, starting with their boss, Professor (would you believe) Brendan Murphy. If a clown calling himself 'professor' cannot say, straight away, when asked, what a woman is, he should be stripped of the title. When a whole department can't help out the fool, it needs cleansing.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said:

" Great minds discuss ideas
Average minds discuss events
Small minds discuss people."

Perhaps she might well have been referring to the
topic of sex and gender being discussed on another
thread. To why or why not we should discuss the
topic of what "a woman" is - and why some seem to
find it difficult to discuss. If you don't like
Roosevelt's quote - at least it's pithy.

As for the definitions?

The following two links may help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_gender_distinction

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-using-phony-science-to-justify-transphobia/

If you scratch a progressive you find an authoritarian?

And here I was thinking that the opposite was true that
if you scratch a conservative - you find an authoritarian.

Compared to progressives, the thinking skills, emotional
regulation and moral competence of conservatives are not
the best. Conservatives have a higher desire for security,
predictability, authority, order, closure, and
certainty. That they are overly cautious and scientifically
less literate.

Conservatives have relative difficulty processing evidence
even at a perceptual level. They tend to think about the
world in black and white terms and are more drawn to
authoritarian ideologies - because they simplify the world.

What the research says is that conservative minds are drawn to
simplistic ideologies. And the prejudice lies in these black
and white ideologies. The fear center of the conservative
brain (amygdala) is enlarged. This explains why conservatives
have a heightened sensitivity to fear, threat, and disgust and
why their hackles go up so quickly.

I'm not suggesting that we should be against conservatives.
But we should be against voting them into positions of power
in this country - where they are totally out of their depth.

In place of thought, plans, and ideas, they just market stuff -
we might think that they're thinking, but it's all just
practiced spin.

Hi Foxy,

There is nothing wrong with our old conservative "brains" on this forum.They take their "brain" out of their mouth every night and pop it into a glass of water with a 'Polident' tablet beside their bed, its fresh and clean the next morning, all ready for their daily feed of 'Coco Pops'.

Foxy wrote: "And here I was thinking that the opposite was true that
if you scratch a conservative - you find an authoritarian."

Well I'd suggest you misunderstood two things: (1) the point I was making about Paul's silly comment and (2) the 20th century.

BTW, this is the article Foxy plagiarised in her comments.
http://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/right-and-left-the-choice-between-dumb-and-dumber,15130

We shouldn't be too hard on Foxy's penchant for using other people's words to make herself look erudite. She really can't help it, it seems.

But given that less than 30% of psychology studies can be replicated, treating their results as 'fact' really does show an appalling lack of understanding - see above.

mhaze,

Thank you for pointing out my error in not acknowledging
the link from which I cited. I was in a hurry at the time.
I usually do try to give links from which I cite - even though
I still get criticized even for doing that - as not having a brain
of my own.

So again Thanks for your concern about me.
Just remember - do try to be perfect yourself and work
at not seeing things just in terms of just black and white

Hi Paul,

maze kindly provided the link that I overlooked
in my previous post - so now I can safely continue to
cite from it. We're told that"

"Progressive minds have a larger volume of grey matter
that helps detect errors and resolve conflicts (anterior
cingulate cortex). In contrast the fear centre of the
brain (amygala) is enlarged in conservatives. This would
explain why conservatives have a heightened sensitivity
to fear, threat, and disgust and why their hackles go up
so readily."

"These findings help explain why Piers Morgan, (Alan Jones)
Andrew Bolt (and co), carry on about nothing much."

As does a tiny minority on this forum of course.

"Is this song and dance just for the money and influence?"

Or in our forum contributors - an attempt at looking good?

"Either way what matters to them..." is whipping up antipathy
against their targets - and trying to make themselves look
good. Which of course is a lost cause in many cases.

My apologies to mhaze for the typo - in which I
referred to him as maze - having accidentally
dropped the h.

I really, truly, absolutely, did not mean to do it.
But what can you expect from a person without a
brain of their own? Don't get your hackles up so
readily this time, please Sir?

Foxy,

My critique wasn't that you didn't provide a link but that you lifted whole sentences from your link and passed them off as your own in the search for seeming erudition.

I'd also again point out that psychological studies are miles away from actual reliable data.

Finally, as an example, the amygala has been shown to NOT be the sole fear centre. The Amygala is also "Shown to perform a primary role in the processing of memory, decision making, and emotional responses". Memory and decision making? Well maybe it is true that it's bigger in conservatives.

mhaze,

I appreciate your explanations.

Feel free to continue to give them.

Research does show us that the brains of progressives
and conservatives are very different. And we know
that from observation and experience.

We know that certain political parties are big
on national defense - they magnify perceptions of threat
be it from foreign aggression, immigrants, terrorists,
or invading ideologies - such as communism, Islam, et
cetera.

We have political parties that want and encourage change.
And we have those that don't and are comfortable with
the way things are. So we can deduce that to
conservatives the world really is a frightening place.

So given that they think differently - its no surprise
that progressives and conservatives do spend so much
time talking across each other and rarely are able to
reach a consensus or achieve any real dialogue.

However, with a newly elected government which appears
willing to negotiate - perhaps things will be able to
change. One can only hope - that the conservatives
will try to make an effort.

Hi Foxy,

He is a bit corny.

mhaze, just to be pedantic isn't it spelt Amygdala, that's with a "d" for dunce.

My Uncle Horace1405 had a really big bunion on the side of his head, it was the size of a basket ball, but you couldn't really notice it if the lights were turned off. Uncle Horace was very self-conscious about it, so we all used to call him Bunion Head just so he would feel better.

By any chance is having a really big Amygala sticking out of the side of your head like Uncle Horace's bunion. If it will make you feel better we can all start calling you Amygala Head, a bit corny ah.

Kudos mhaze.

Foxy keeps quoting Scientific American- in the past I've been more of a fan of American Scientist- but looking at a recent cover I suspect that both have become degraded- possibly due to the slow death of print and other media. Still if they manage to keep editorial standards higher maybe they can rebrand themselves- as they say "content is king".

Armchair Critic- Yes Robert Kiyosaki is interesting- the last video I saw he was promoting metals. In some crises metals would be useless. But maybe it's part of the mix in insulating against government and ideologically based instability.