The real march is the conservative one at the polls today, not the kooky one outside Federal Parliament on Monday
March 15th, 2014 at 09:13am
Voters in Tasmania and South Australia go to the polls today for their respective state elections, and the opinion polls indicate that conservatives are likely to win which would put conservative governments (or right-of-centre at least…I struggle to characterise the Victorian government as “conservative” although they are “to the right”) in power in every state, territory, and federal government in the country except for the Australian Capital Territory. Meanwhile, not surprisingly within the ACT, there is going to be a protest march against the conservative federal government on Monday, which is going by the name of “March in March”.
State elections are not generally fought on federal issues, but federal issues have an impact. It is fair to say that after Kevin Rudd and Labor took power federally in 2007 and all of the state and territory governments also went to Labor around the same time, the Liberal Party brand was on the nose and that was largely due to federal issues. The same thing appears to be happening now, just the other way around, and even Labor Party “elders” agree.
LABOR Party elders are calling for the party to embark on a new debate about key values to restore its economic credibility, as it faces the possibility of wall-to-wall state Coalition governments in its darkest electoral days since the defeat of Gough Whitlam in 1975.
(h/t Sid Maher and Mark Coultan, The Australian)
On that point there is an issue which has damaged Labor at all levels: reckless spending. Federal Labor did the most damage with it and dragged down their state and territory counterparts, but the state and territory Labor governments did it on a smaller scale and reinforced the image of irresponsibility.
The Liberal Party should win in South Australia today. Newspoll yesterday had the Liberal Party ahead of Labor 53-47 on a two-party-preferred basis. With a number as close as that, it’s possible that the Liberals might win the most seats but not take an outright majority, but the numbers look pretty good for a majority government.
In Tasmania the margin is much bigger. Liberal 53%, Labor 23%, Greens 16%, Palmer United 4%. This easily creates a two-party-preferred figure around 55% for the Liberal Party. Oddly enough though, Tasmania has the same curse of an electoral system as the ACT (Hare Clark) and numbers like that can very easily lead to nobody having an outright majority and Labor/Greens together having enough seats to form government. The margin should be large enough to avoid that, but Hare Clark is an awful electoral system which delivers results which quite often have very little to do with the intention of the way people voted.
The mood across the nation is clearly a pro-conservative and anti-left-wing one, but trust the ACT to supply many of the people who will attend the “March In March” on Monday, where people will express their “no confidence” in the conservative federal government. They seem to be lacking confidence in the federal government on three main topics:
1) Gonski school reforms
2) Illegal immigration and social justice
3) Climate change
Well, on the first point, objective evidence from around the world shows clearly that centralised control of education of the type Gonski proposed results in worse educational outcomes than school which have general autonomy over curriculum and staffing. On the 2nd point, under this government there have been no illegal boat arrivals in about three months, with only one death which actually didn’t happen at sea but in a detention centre, whereas under the previous government our shores and maritime authorities were being overrun by illegal arrivals and multiple people were dying at sea each week and often each day. And on the third point, the planet has not warmed in nearly 20 years, and the theory of man-made global warming caused by carbon dioxide has been proven to be a complete and utter nonsense, and yet these people who will march on Monday want the federal government to tax people’s carbon dioxide emissions to stop warming which isn’t happening, ignoring the fact that carbon dioxide is an important part of life on this planet.
It’s quite clear where the real march is and the real mood of the Australian public is. It’s in a conservative direction, in the direction truth and sensible government and government keeping out of people’s lives as much as possible. The people on Monday can march and get media attention to their heart’s content…and make a dumb spectacle of themselves in the eyes of the sensible majority of conservative Australians.
Good luck to the voters of South Australia and Tasmania today. May your votes be good, and the outcomes match your votes.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: General News,Samuel's Editorials
