Trump boosts the other team
What do we get in return?
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has secured a second term in office in a disastrous night for his conservative rivals, as voters chose stability over change against a backdrop of global turmoil inflicted by US President Donald Trump.
Australia’s return of a left-leaning government follows Canada’s similar sharp swing towards Mark Carney’s Liberal Party, another governing party whose fortunes were transformed by Trump. The loss of Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton’s seat mirrors that of Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre.
I’m happy for Australia and Canada, I really am, but the price is too high.
Peter Dutton is the first opposition leader to lose his seat. As late as January all the polls were predicting he would be the next Prime Minister with a sizeable majority. Then he announced an Australian DOGE to be headed up by a woman wearing a MAGA hat, an uncosted plan to build 7 nuclear power plants around the country, sacking 47,000 unspecified public servants, and most tellingly, insisting that women would be forced back into the office instead of working from home, and if they didn’t like it, they could quit or job share.
He would announce a policy today only to reverse the announcement tomorrow. Sound familiar?
He would not appear at media events all previous party leaders attended, would only do interviews with Sky (our Fox, also Murdoch owned) and refused press conferences with other media. Sound familiar?
And his team? Well, who could blame Angus Taylor (shadow treasurer) for foregetting to log into his sock puppet account before tweeting in reply to himself “Well done Angus. Good job, Angus.”? It’s not like he planned to manage a multi billion dollar economy, is it?
To them Australia would be God’s Own Paradise, if it wasn’t for the immigrants stealing Australian jobs, if it wasn’t for the loss of manufacturing to China, and if it wasn’t for the Australian people preferring their nationalised health system over the US model Dutton wanted to impose.
I didn’t change a single person’s vote, I am sure, but I was still pleased to do six hours standing in the sun handing out Labor How To Vote Cards in a seat Labor will never win, but where the fight is all about as many Senate votes as we could garner.
Queensland mining magnate Clive Palmer created a party called ‘Trumpet of Patriots’ which by possible accidental coincidence incorporated Trump’s surname into its title.
$60m would be loose change for Palmer.
The Trumpet was no doubt honking all the way down the gurgler. Come to think of it, ‘Gurgler of Trumpists’ would be a good title for that party next time around.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/may/04/clive-palmers-trumpet-of-patriots-fails-to-pick-up-single-lower-house-seat-despite-text-spam-and-ad-blitz
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