Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I’m just a talker, trying to find a channel!

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

This fight is for everything.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Not all heroes wear capes.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Food / Foreign Affairs Open Thread: Australian Election Results

Foreign Affairs Open Thread: Australian Election Results

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An Aussie commentor brought the election to my attention yesterday, so here is the Guardian‘s liveblog of the incoming results.

Also — and I say this with genuine admiration, not to mention drool — if ‘this is how the sausages are made’ culinary treats were to become an American institution, there would be a lot more interest from our notoriously lackadaisical voters!

Reader Interactions

51Comments

  1. 1.

    Viva BrisVegas

    It’s a disaster. The polls were utterly wrong.

    Labor (the centre-left party) was expected to win comfortably. Instead it’s vote has fallen apart.

    The Liberals (the conservative party) are getting swings of 6-8% in their favour in seats they were expected to lose.

    Still a lot of votes to count, but the trend is looking like a convincing win to the conservatives.

    I don’t get it. I feel sick to my stomach. The spivs look like winning, maybe easily.

    I’m going to need time to process this.

  2. 2.

    Comrade Nimrod Himperdink

    Not a good night if you care about climate. I guess the whole place will have to actually burn down for it to override worries about taxes

  5. 5.

    Jack Canuck

    On fucking edge right now. Can’t believe the goddamn Coalition is doing as well as they seem to be so far. At least there’s the bright spot that Tony Abbott (former rightwing fuckhead PM) is out in his seat. But I’m going to be feeling sick if the Coalition get back in instead of Labor.

  7. 7.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    @Viva BrisVegas: I’m not really sure where Labor goes from here. The votes didn’t materialize in Victoria, and voters swung conservative in Brisbane, which is doom. I’m not sure what needs to happen to bump the wingnuts out, and then I look at my little one and just hug her.

  8. 8.

    Mary G

    Welcome to our world. The right is taking over and I don’t understand it. The sausage looks nice, though.

  9. 9.

    Aussie Sheila

    @PaulWartenberg:

    Nah. Paper ballots and pencils.

    Bad result so far for ALP except for ditching of Abbott. I can’t believe that we might have lost to the worst rabble in living memory. Let’s keep hope alive ?

  12. 12.

    Baud

    @Mary G:

    I understand what’s going on in America. But there’s obviously something primal happening with white populations across the planet. And with left of center political parties. That’s more confounding.

  13. 13.

    Chyron HR

    I’ve been assured that the 2016 election results were entirely Hillary Clinton’s fault for being a female dog and/or sex worker who “can’t find Michigan on a map”, so how does the same thing keep happening in every other western democracy?

  15. 15.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:

    I’m not really sure where Labor goes from here.

    Labor ran on a redistributive platform of closing tax loopholes for the rich and using the money to improve services and infrastructure while providing tax relief for low income earners and paying down the debt accumulated by the conservatives.

    It didn’t work.

    The only thing I can think of is that they follow the conservatives playbook and lie, cheat and steal their way to power. But then they would be conservatives.

  16. 16.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    Even more of the Rupert Murdoch effect?

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In November 2018, Donald Trump tweeted: “Oil prices getting lower … a tax cut for America and the world! Enjoy! $54 … Thank you to Saudi Arabia.”

    Five months on, with oil prices more than $70, Trump will be in a less celebratory mood as Opec’s oil ministers and their allies gather in Jeddah on Friday, without Iran. The main agenda item will be the implications for oil of three interconnected American foreign policy crises – in Venezuela, Iran, and Libya. Together these crises, being played out simultaneously, have the potential to scrub as much as 3.5m barrels of oil per day from the markets.

    Rarely has there been a moment when a US foreign policy has had so much potential to cause such dislocation to oil markets, and as a result to hand so much market power to America’s Gulf allies to exploit that belligerence. The energy ministers will be in the enviable position of being able to survey both projected rising oil demand for the remainder of the year, just as US foreign policy forces a contraction in supply. The prospect is that the price of oil – which has already risen by 40% this year to more than $72 a barrel – could go much higher.

    For Saudi Arabia, needing an oil price greater than $80 a barrel (and in the range of $85–$87 for the current year) in order to balance its budget, this is a welcome gift.

    Quid pro quo.

  20. 20.

    Pete Downunder

    I was working a polling booth for Labor as well as a lot of door knocking. Labor had two major problems apart from a leader no one likes: first despite a strong environmental pitch they waffled on a major coal mine because it represented jobs in Queensland. Second part of their tax reform was to take away what amounted to a government hand out to both rich people but also relatively well off retired people. As George Bernard Shaw said a government that robs Peter to pay Paul can count on support of Paul.

  23. 23.

    Pete Downunder

    @Baud: What I’m saying is that on the environment Labor tried to have it both ways and no one bought it. As to re-distribution it was just not well thought out and probably should have waited till they actually won. As to how it impacts Democrats in the US, I’ve been away too long to judge but my guess is that people want a clear, no BS message such as Prof Senator Warren is handing out and will ultimately back away from Biden and others in the fuzzy middle.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    Megan McArdle literally blames liberals for every bad decision by the Right wing in the last decade:

    The consequences of the counterreaction can go well beyond the issue at hand. If not for Roe, it seems eminently possible that the conservative-court project would have been less urgent, and the decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller on gun rights or Citizens United on campaign finance might never have happened. If it hadn’t been for Roe, evangelicals might also have balked at electing Donald Trump.

    They’re nervous about the abortion bans. They’re worried it’s politically damaging, I think. Not with “evangelicals”, but in the upper classes to which they belong.

    It was wholly predictable though- this is exactly what happened when they gutted the Voting Rights Act. Exactly. Except the voter suppression laws that proliferated after they gutted Voting Rights Act didn’t affect their class and religious zealots overseeing every pregnancy and labor and delivery does. This trickles up.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    When asked about the Alabama ban, Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) (who lost her race for Senate but was then appointed to the seat originally held by the late senator John McCain) ducked. “That’s a state issue. I’m focused on my work here,” she insisted.

    They frame this as Alabama so you’ll say “oh, well, it’s Alabama” but the Ohio law is nearly as restrictive. The one and only reason there aren’t more of them in the midwest is Democrats won some governors races. Democrats lost the governors race in Ohio so they have a law nearly as restrictive as Alabamas. When they overturn Roe you don’t have to be in a far Right state to get a band of religious zealots snooping into your medical care and entire pregnancy- you just need a majority R legislature and an R governor. Exactly what’s happened to voting rights. If the far Right Scott Walker had won these abortion laws would be moving in Wisconsin.

  35. 35.

    Immanentize

    This thread is Classic Balloon Juice — wicked depressing but with great humor!

    Good morning, folks.

  36. 36.

    Immanentize

    @Kay:
    And the right wing judges in Wisconsin would have let even the most restrictive law sail right through. I actually wonder if the State courts in GA, AL, OH etc. might do the right thing regarding these laws? I bet at least one of three will. Which one is hard to know.

    Frankly, if a State wanted to get their statute to the Supreme Court fast, the way to do it would be after a State Court upholds — or knocks down — the ban on Federal constitutional grounds. That’s like a ticket straight to the Supremes.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    She’s about to find out what the “right to privacy” that conservatives sneered at for 50 years means, as far as healthcare. It means she just gave the state the right to investigate every aspect of any pregnancy. It’s a murder investigation! My only question is whether they use the state laws that apply to abuse neglect and dependency (which aren’t criminal and are probably easier to craft) or the criminal code. If I were a religious zealot I’d go with the child protection statutes. Those can probably be changed administratively, by the executive. They have anonymous reporting too, because they’re not criminal so don’t have the full due process protections. I think the mandated reporting statutes will apply too- if the entire pregnancy is a “child” everyone who is a mandated reporter has to report on pregnant women who may be abusing or neglecting a pregnancy.

    I thought about this when they harassed women going into clinics, the “privacy” aspect, because to me that’s health care access and should have been protected by the privacy laws around health care information. That’s why there were there- to find out which women were going into a clinic. That’s the same as accessing health care appointment information. I should be able to access health care without strangers monitoring my entrance and exit.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think they have to collect data on miscarriages and decide which medical interventions in which miscarriages were medically necessary. This is a real question! Could “the child” have been saved with extraordinary intervention or no intervention at all?

    These decisions between women and medical people have been completely private- no state intervention at all except for ordinary health care safety regs- now it’s a choice between life or death of the 8 week fetus, set against the health of the mother. Logically, anti-abortion people have to treat any intervention in a possible or actual miscarriage exactly the same as ending a later term pregnancy and there are tens of thousands of early stage miscarriages and medical interventions every year.

    None of this occurred to all these great thinkers on the elite Right. There was no thought at all to the incredible implications of redefining every pregnancy at every stage as “a child”, but that has consequences if laws are consistent and logical. It has to.

  41. 41.

    J R in WV

    @PaulWartenberg:

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    Check for Russian hacking.

    @Aussie Sheila:

    @PaulWartenberg:

    Nah. Paper ballots and pencils.

    Bad result so far for ALP except for ditching of Abbott. I can’t believe that we might have lost to the worst rabble in living memory. Let’s keep hope alive ?

    The fact that the actual ballot casting and counting can’t be hacked doesn’t mean that sly outsiders didn’t use social media to lie to voters about the issues and candidates. That’s most of what happened to the USA in 2016, brain washing to use an old cold war term, but using Facebook, Twitter, on-line ads, and plain old lies spread by the MSM.

    Best wishes for all your down under Aussies!!! To think we were considering seeking amnesty to enter AUS…!!!

  42. 42.

    Skepticat

    The small town of Hope, Maine, gives voters homemade goodies. The last was a small jar of excellent blackberry chutney. I lived there in the summer the past few years but wasn’t a resident voter, but I understand their turnout is pretty high.

  43. 43.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    @Kay: What does the process of a lawful miscarriage look like when it happens outside of a medical facility? Or will it be illegal to have one at home? Do you need a notarized permission slip from the local authorities? And what does evidence collection look like? My wife’s been through a fair few, and the notion of turning them into a crime scene on top of everything else makes me want to break something.

  44. 44.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    @J R in WV: Social conservatives don’t carry a lot of sway here, though there’s plenty of ‘isms (at least in Melbourne). What I find particularly disheartening is that the country is burning up but they voted to keep the same guys in power that play with the matches because taxes. That’s an oversimplification obviously, but if nothing else tonight Aussies made it clear that climate change challenges cannot be seen to be funded from retirements, regardless of whatever other promises you might make. I give Shorten credit for trying, but I think a different approach will be needed. Don’t mess with old people

  45. 45.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

    But wait… this is health care. There’s a federal law about health care information privacy. I can’t find out how a friend who had kidney surgery is doing, even if I’m the guy who will pick him up to go home.

    How can a religious nut job frothing at the mouth even know I’m pregnant if labs, hospitals and doctors are federally prohibited from telling them?

    IANAL, dunno all that much about HIPPA, if that’s even the right abbreviation. So depressing, fascists winning everywhere allatime!!? Is it the carbon dioxide in the air poisoning people’s ability to think straight? Spring is my favorite part of the year, yet here I am… blech, Ozark, blech!!

    Good morning all. At least it isn’t sleeting, right?!

  46. 46.

    J R in WV

    @Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:

    Thanks for the explanation. I read both the BBC and Guardian information, and it was nonsense to me because there was just labels and people’s names, with no meaning attached to any of it. Useless babble to anyone not already expert in the in and out trivia of AUS politics, parties, and people running.

    Your short notes here told me more than BBC and Guardian put together.!!!

  47. 47.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @J R in WV:

    Your short notes here told me more than BBC and Guardian put together.!!!

    Once again confirming B-J’s status as a full-service blog.

  48. 48.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    @J R in WV: Basically Labor wanted to throw a bunch of cash at climate change, schools, hospitals, re-establishing weekend penalty rates for hospitality/retail workers, etc, and wanted to pay for it by eliminating future use of ‘negative gearing,’ (I don’t have a rental property but as I understand it this is basically the practice of claiming everyday operating expenses associated with a rental as tax writeoffs), knocking over ‘franking credits’ (tax credits given to people below a given marginal tax rate for share dividends, which does effect some retirees obviously), removing some other tax perks attached to capital gains, and siccing the Tax Office on multinationals. The wingnuts banged the table about taking grandma’s retirement away and sabotaging a softening housing market, and you can see who won that argument

  49. 49.

    Duane

    @OzarkHillbilly: I don’t believe the lying pig for one minute. He blames the women for their rape and these pregnancy laws (thanks Kay) are a way to punish them. The Missouri legislature is full of idiots like him.

  51. 51.

    Brachiator

    An Australian commenter had mentioned the upcoming election earlier, so I was poised to look for some international news. But what a shocker.

    From CNN

    Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison has claimed victory in the 2019 election, with results showing the Liberal National coalition is on track to be returned to government.

    “I have always believed in miracles,” he told jubilant supporters in Sydney. “And tonight we’ve been delivered another one.”

    It was a stunning turnaround after every opinion poll over the campaign pointed to a Labor victory. Analysts are now saying Labor lost an “unlosable” election.

    I appreciate the comments so far and look forward to more to put this into perspective.

    It is interesting that the polls were so consistently wrong.

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