Jesus.
Albo has been pretty useless, when he hasn’t been an authoritarian dickhead, but who else is there? Dutton is always an authoritarian dickhead, and a divisive Neanderthal wrecker thug. The Nationals are the hypocritical hayseeds they’ve always been. The Greens have lost the plot, and their little antisemitic minds. And then you’re down to the Olympic level fruitcakes, the likes of Hanson and Palmer.
Is there any minor or micro party out there that, in sum, is sort of sane, that one might stomach voting for? Or, does one just hold one’s nose and vote for Albo?
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Check carefully in your individual electorates. There are a number of Voices of (electorate) candidates that are wholly independent but have followed the “Indi” model to survey their electorates for what really matters to them, and have full intentions of truly representing their voters. They stand for integrity and issues the matter, and not for following party lines. There are about 45 of the Voices type candidates around Australia.
Not all of them will align completely with your individual views, so do your research and engage with them. We can see the great gains independents with vision and electoral support can achieve. A hung parliament can be very useful, not something to be feared.
Don’t just vote Labour as the “least worst” option. Look into who is running in your electorate. If you don’t know what the independent stands for, contact them and find out! But the best ones will have media presence and will be telling you what they have found in their electorate to be the most pressing issues.
And if climate isn’t in their top three seek further candidate! (Just my opinion)
It must be nice to be so well-off to be able to make destroying energy reliability and doubling power bills for the sake of virtue signalling a top-three priority!
I’m always impressed by people who signal their virtue by chanting “virtue signalling”.
The point is that “net zero” achieves exactly that
Maybe stop it with the cheap humour lines, stop presuming what other people believe, and instead argue against what people have actually written. Or, better, leave it be.
For someone who’s entire blog is doing basically that, you’re being a surprisingly bad sport.
If you think my blog is doing that, you’re misreading my blog.
I’m quite happy for you to express your opinions and to criticise others’, even if and particularly if you disagree with the blog’s Company Line. But you were engaging in cheap snark. You have no idea what Michelle thinks beyond that she regards climate change as a key issue.
Perhaps I’m just extrapolating from this exchange? Genuinely disappointed.
Seemed fair to assume Michelle was in favour of net zero but you’re right, that was an assumption. Would love to hear more from Michelle on the matter!
Yes, you extrapolated, and you may be close to the true value. But what it means is that you’re arguing against a cartoon opponent, and pretending that Michelle is that opponent. This is very very common now, in social media and in Big Shot media. It helps no one.
It’s totally up to Michelle if she wishes to argue the stuff here.
Thanks, Michelle. No need for the “just my opinion” disclaimer. Opinions, and counter-opinions, are welcome here, although it seems that I will have to be watching people’s manners.
I pretty much do what you suggest. I very much appreciate the relative sanity of Australia’s preferential voting, something the faux-democratic idiots in America and England could learn about. I always look for the saner minor candidates to vote up the order. But the reality is that the votes almost always funnel to the Usual Suspects. In the past, I was happy for my vote to funnel to the Greens, with Labor as back-up. No longer. Labor ha gotten wore, and I’m not sure that the Greens are not now grouped together with Hanson and Palmer, in the Worse Than Liberals category.
The Libertarian Party, Marty! David Limbrick and John Ruddick are the only adults in the Vic and NSW parliaments, respectively. A few libertarians in the federal parliament will do us good. (Heck, Gget enough libertarians in the federal parliament and we might not even have to have a federal parliament anymore!)
Thanks, Suppiluliuma. You’re welcome to try to convince me, and others here, but I think it’ll be difficult.
I’ve never been impressed by libertarians. They typically seem to have all the wisdom and real-world sense and humility of first-year philosophy students. I took a quick look at Limbrick and Ruddick, and they seem no different.
I don’t know who those two guys are but I do know who the Libertarian’s Craig Kelly is and he is most definitely not an adult.
It is interesting that the Libertarians dislike (if not abhor) some branches of government but the militarily they are fine with and want to expand it.
Craig Kelly is not a Libertarian (or even a libertarian, as far as I can tell).
Just saw he’s running in NSW. I was not aware of this.
The Australian “libertarian party” is much like the American “libertarian party” in that they are both just repackaged conservative parties with little to do with actual libertarianism outside of a couple policies like free speech or cannabis which they don’t seem to even care that much about anymore. Just look at what they think of trans people or immigration and that will give you a hint to how “libertarian” they are.
Total nonsense. The Libertarian position (and in my experience almost every libertarian’s personal thoughts) on “trans people” (your words) is basically “I couldn’t care less what an informed adult does with their body, so long as it does not negatively affect others”. Many libertarians (perhaps most, but not all) are in favour of open borders.
Click to access A_Libertarian_Vision_2025.pdf
See page 28. Preventing trans people from having their gender on legal documents and banning them from public bathrooms that align with their gender identity seems transphobic and un-libertarian to me.
I concede on the borders point. I thought the libertarian party was anti-immigration but I was wrong about that.
This may sound like sarcasm, but I am totally serious…
You can always run as an independent yourself.
If nothing else, it gives your family and friends someone to vote for.
Be my guest.
I actually meant you, Marty, run for office so I have someone to vote for.
Run for the senate if you can, we are in different electorates otherwise.
Yeah, ok. It’s on the to do list.
Hi Marty
I always shy away from talking about political leanings as invariably this draws a critical response. I do tend to follow Michelle’s excellent suggestion of looking for good independents. I loathe the thought of my vote eventually drifting down to one of the main parties but there are a couple of minor parties that I’m looking at in the Fusion Party and Sustainable Australia.
I won’t go into details too much but both parties seem to have their heart in the right place
Thanks, Simon. I’ve never heard of them. I’ll look.
i generally preference independents/minor parties first, for a few reasons:
1) it’s generally easier to seek support or communication, and to have a greater ‘impact’ when voicing issues of concern
2) not needing to toe a party line seems much more conducive to properly addressing the needs of the community you represent
3) if nothing else, helping potentially promising candidates reach the 4% threshold for funding incentivises potential indeps/minor parties to run in future, which generally seems a good thing.
not that i want to abolish political parties or anything! but people like david pocock and andrew wilkie (who i often disagree with politically) seem to be doing great for their people.
Thanks, dunce. I agree with you on Pocock and Wilkie, and on independents generally. They tend to have a preachy self-righteousness attitude, but a lot of them seem good and principled.
But it would be nice to have a whole football team to cheer for, not just individual players. This election, they’re all Collingwood.
Try and keep up – it’s Hawthorn, these days, that everyone loves to hate.
I’m a traditionalist. And if I were to update, it’d be to bag one the AFL’s special pets, like GWS or the Suns.