I hope the Australian public is better than to fall for this. Though I fear we collectively are no better than the USA… somehow Abbot and Morrison were both elected after all.
If mainstream acceptance of progressive ideas collapses, Dutton will sweep in in a landslide not seen since Howard. And anecdotally it looks like it’s happening: the broad popular rejection of the Aboriginal recognition referendum suggests that there’s a mood of having had a gutful of progressive ideas. Which may be an illusion caused by Murdoch/Rinehart’s command of the media, but Albo having conceded on the issue and playing small-target I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-LNP politics isn’t helping.
Another thing to watch for: Greens support collapsing outside of the core, with them losing seats.
I don’t think peoole are against progressive ideas necessarily. In times of financial hardship their tolerance is just very low for policies and objectives that aren’t targeted at addressing serious problems like the price of groceries, fuel, housing, etc. Progressive economic policy focused on these areas is popular, but left-wing politics has a bad habit of not reading the room and loudly advancing social minority causes when they should be focusing the public’s attention on everything else they’re doing.
I wonder whether the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, and the connection between Aboriginal and Palestinian causes, did quantifiable damage to the referendum results. Polls have shown that, outside of the inner-city left, Australians side more with Israel than Palestine, perhaps because both Australia and Israel are perceived as Western/vaguely American in a similar way. If so, the left’s rhetoric on Palestine may have doomed it, in the sense that “decolonisation” is associated with the black paragliders of Hamas and massacres of ravers at a doof.
I think most of the voters educated enough to have made that connection would have voted Yes anyway. Regardless, I don’t think the left was anywhere near as organised and loud about the situation in the Middle East as it has been this year. The referendum went down due to homegrown issues.
I wonder whether the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, and the connection between Aboriginal and Palestinian causes, did quantifiable damage to the referendum results.
I don’t think the crazy in Israel and Palestine had any bearing at all. In 2023, it was just more of the same back-and-forth the region has been under since the 1940s. Things escalated this year, but that’s a different story.
The polls were pretty clearly pointing to a “No” vote well before October 2023. No surprises happened on the day.
broad popular rejection of the Aboriginal recognition referendum suggests that there’s a mood of having had a gutful of progressive ideas.
I wouldn’t use that as an indicator. From the outside it’s progression and it’s certainly textbook but we are fucking weird about indigenous rights. We’d vote in a puce-haired enby and pat ourselves on the back for being enlightened before even considering an Aboriginal PM
