Election woes show nearly 70 per cent of voters did not support Liberal or Labor

by Tom Marland*

“The Bradbury PM”

Anthony Albanese is Australia’s new Prime Minister.

I honestly never I thought I would have to say that but hey it’s been a weird few years and it’s about to get weirder.

Not since Steven Bradbury’s miraculous Gold medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games have I seen someone fluke such a victory.

Even Bradbury was some what embarrassed by his incredible fortune when every other competitor fell over before the finish line and thought about not accepting his medal but now still talks about the moment in humorous and humble terms.

Not so much Anthony Norman Albanese.

Albo and his Labor comrades are claiming this as the greatest electoral victory in Australia’s history.

Labor’s primary vote is a paltry 32.9%- lower than the 33.34 % in 2019 under Bill Shorten – who at least was honest about the chaos he wanted to inflict on the Australian population and economy.

Albo – lying lower than a wobbegong for the past three years – has hardly brought his head up for air let alone announce a cogent or costed policy.

Labor is now on track to be the Party to form government with the lowest primary vote since 1934.

The Coalition looks like they will end up with around 35.5% of the primary vote but will lose as many as 20 seats – only half of them to Labor with Green preferences and the other half to Independents.

The Greens (the party that hold hoses) received 12.1% – mainly in areas where the only remaining remnants of the environment are in zoos and they feel guilty about that so they want to turn the rest of Australia into a National Park.

The “Teal” Independents racked up 10.5% in areas that are so affluent the only thing they can find to worry about is climate change and the price of Brie cheese.

It’s not with some irony that the Teals and the Greens had been hoping for a hung parliament but all they have delivered is a majority Labor Government with the lowest approval ratings in the last 100 years.

They will all now sit on the cross benches in their corporate suits and designer high heels patting themselves on the back but achieving precisely nothing.

They and their constituents will learn the lesson the hard way that you can’t do anything from Opposition or the Cross bench against a Majority Government and instead of actually representing their voters in Parliament – they have just become very expensive seat warmers.

There is no doubt that this was a strange election with the results being both confusing and confounding.

After a tumultuous 3 years including all the bad bits from the Old Testament from fire, pandemic, flood and famine plus having half of the population locked up for nearly two years like flowers in the attic – it was never going to be business as usual.

No doubt Scott Morrison became as unpopular as an adult at a 16th birthday party.

People clearly don’t like kill joys that led Australia through the pandemic with one of the highest vaccination rates, some of the lowest per capita death rates, has the lowest unemployment rates in 50 years, who promote prudent measures on lowering carbon emissions while not strangling our economy and society, believe in the sanctity of our Federal Constitution, believes in the rule of law and the presumption of innocence.

The “Stockholm syndrome” was in full display in Western Australia with a 10.2% swing away from the LNP – the same state that Labor Premier Mark McGowan locked away from the rest of the nation for two years.

It’s very sad when someone like the highly respected Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt loses their seat.

The loss of Ryan, Brisbane and Griffith to the Greens also did come as a bit of surprise. No doubt the Greens are now looking to take over the Nation as long as it’s not further than 5km from a vegan deli and someone else has to pay for it.

But it is the inner city Teals of Sydney and Melbourne that really changed this election and through their nativity will change the country for ever and for the worse.

I listened to an interview of a few Teal voters on the ABC and they were all “super exciiiiiited” about now being able to “sort the climate out and oh the enviiiiiiiironment” and also “send a protest vote to the Liberal parrrrrtay”.

What a way to show those right wing conservatives of the Liberal party by kicking out every Liberal moderate that brought some balance to the “broad church”.

You know those moderates who helped bring in Marriage Equality, Net Zero targets, established the largest renewable project in half a century in the Snowy Hydro 2.0, and brought in increased funding for child care, health care and education?

Now we have seen the likes of Frydenberg, Wilson, Zimmerman, Evans, Falinski and Sharma being turfed out and being replaced with a bunch of self-interested Independents who are funded by a multi-millionaire in the form of Simon Holmes a Court who wants to cash in on a few of his own renewable energy projects.

Here is a bit of quick reality check for all those inner city greens and Teal voters who have clearly lost all perspective being surrounded by cement, high carbon emission lifestyles and their own bullshit:

Even if Australia stopped all of our 400 million tonnes of carbon emissions tomorrow – it would make only 4 days of global carbon savings.

And it would also do bugger all to stop the next bushfire, flood or drought.

Australia has also reduced its carbon emissions by 20% since 2005 – in the same period China has increased theirs by 50% from around 5000 million tonnes to 10,000 million tonnes today and will be around 15,000 million tonnes by 2030 – roughly 40 times greater than Australia’s.

Trying to change the climate from inner city Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne is like trying to change the tides with a silver spoon you just took out of your mouth.

Scomo was also brutally criticised for his treatment of women and his lack of action over the Brittany Higgins rape allegations.

Dr Monique Ryan a Teal in Kooyong claimed she wouldn’t want her 21 year old daughter to work in Parliament House for fear of being raped.

You would have a better chance of being eaten by a shark in Parliament House than being raped but that doesn’t stop the likes of Ryan and others playing politics on the issue.

Let’s now see how Albo handles his best mate Grace Tame’s demands to replace the presumption of innocence and burden of proof with the Higgins / Tame law of “I said it, so it must be true”.

To add another clown show to the circus – it looks like Pauline Hanson might lose her senate spot to the Legalise Cannabis Party.

This might not be a bad thing because the Country is clearly all off their heads anyway.

The only good news is that Kristina Keneally looks like her parachute has failed trying to get into Fowler and Jack “the Hammer” Dempsey picked up less votes in Hinkler than the number of hollow promises he made during his campaign.

Now Albanese is in the lodge he will have no where to hide other than to deflect his incompetence with a round table of reviews, consultants and Union aligned “experts”.

Let’s also see how he goes with the Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands and their Chinese Security pact.

And I am also sure they are shaking in their boots…with laughter in Beijing of the thought of going toe to toe with Albo and his sell out mate Richard Marles.

The French have already popped the bubbly and are still keen to supply those $100 billion submarines by 2040 which only go backwards.

One thing is for certain – Albo won’t be the PM by the next election. A few bad poll results and the Union heavy weights will have the knives out again. He is already starting from a low base and will slump to the cellar once everyone realises he was actually always been a dud.

In the mean time, Australia has one of the strongest economies in the world, has survived a global pandemic, has record exports and plenty of opportunities despite those who want us to think that Australia is the worst place in the world.

Let’s see how long it will take Labor to hit the wall.

You’ll know when – it will about the same time they start blaming Scomo and everyone other than themselves for their own failures.

• Tom Marland is a Brisbane solicitor who hails from Childers, SW of Bundaberg.