Like most Australians, I’m in denial any of that episode ever happened.
But, using the current circumstances as an example, Australia has a voting system that enables a party to form government even though 65% of voting Australia’s didn’t vote for that party as their first preference.
If the other party and some of the smaller parties could have got their shit together Australia could have a slightly different flavour of complete fucking disaster of a Government, rather than whatever the fuck Anthony Albanese thinks he’s trying to be.
Then there’s Susan Ley. The least preferred leader of the two major parties in a generation.
Susan Ley is Anthony Albanese in a skirt.
I would have preferred Potato Head, to be honest.
When there are only two choices, and infinite issues, voters only have two choices: Vote for someone you don't agree with less, or vote for someone you quite hilariously imagine agrees with you.
EDIT: Not being cynical about voters. But about the centralization of parties, in number and operationally, as a steep barrier for voter choice.
As a result, Australia tends to end up with governments formed by the runner up, because no one party actually ‘won’ as such.
Anyway, there’s a third option: spoil your vote. In the recent Irish presidential election, 13% of those polled afterwards said they spoiled their votes, due to a poor selection of candidates from which to choose.
https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2025/1101/15415...
Encourage people to vote for the candidate they dislike the least, then try to work out ways to hold government accountable.
If you’re in Australia, at least listen to what people like Tony Abbott, the IPA, and Pauline Hanson are actually saying these days.
Because the US has a “hard” two party system - third party candidates have very little hope, especially at the national level; voting for a third party is indistinguishable from staying home, as far as the outcome goes, with some rather occasional exceptions
But Australia is different - Australia has a “soft” two party system - two-and-a-half major parties (I say “and-a-half” because our centre-right is a semipermanent coalition of two parties, one representing rural/regional conservatives, the other more urban in its support base). But third parties and independents are a real political force in our parliament, and sometimes even determine the outcome of national elections
This is largely due to (1) we use what Americans call instant-runoff in our federal House of Representatives, and a variation on single-transferable vote in our federal Senate; (2) the parliamentary system-in which the executive is indirectly elected by the legislature-means the choice of executive is less of a simplistic binary, and coalition negotiations involving third party/independent legislators in the lower house can be decisive in determining that outcome in close elections; (3) twelve senators per a state, six elected at a time in an ordinary election, gives more opportunities for minor parties to get into our Senate - of course, 12 senators per a state is feasible when you only have six states (plus four more to represent our two self-governing territories), with 50 states it would produce 600 Senators
It was 5% last time I cared to be informed by may be different now, and they would receive $x for each vote, or what ever it is now.
She is the leftest left leaning leader of the Liberal party I’ve ever had the misfortune of having to live through.
She was absolutely on board with this recent Hitlerian “anti-hate” legislation that was rammed through with no public consultation.
Okay, that’s a bit uncharitable. We had 48 hours.