[ Despite years of media support by Murdoch for the unloved and
self-appointed bulldozer Scomo and Murdoch’s daily attacks on Labor,
Labor still won. Worse, Australia is a country that is known not as a
democracy but as Murdochracy.]
[[link removed]]

WHY LABOR WON IN AUSTRALIA  
[[link removed]]


 

Thomas Klikauer
June 3, 2022
CounterPunch
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Despite years of media support by Murdoch for the unloved and
self-appointed bulldozer Scomo and Murdoch’s daily attacks on Labor,
Labor still won. Worse, Australia is a country that is known not as a
democracy but as Murdochracy. _

,

 

Widely ridiculed for this secret Hawaiian holiday escape during
the 2019 bushfires
[[link removed]],
former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison
[[link removed]] –
also known as Scomo
[[link removed]] or Scotty
from Marketing
[[link removed]] (he
is a failed marketing manager) – suffered a resounding election
defeat. Labor’s Anthony Albanese had won the 21st May 2022
election.

Yet, in a country with a North Korean style media dominance of Fox
News
[[link removed]] owner
and Australian-born Rupert Murdoch
[[link removed]],
the country’s Independent Australia
[[link removed]] news
network saw Labor’s win as _Anthony Albanese defeats Rupert Murdoch
to become 31st PM of Australia._

Despite years of media support by Murdoch
[[link removed]] for
the unloved and self-appointed bulldozer
[[link removed]] Scomo and
Murdoch’s daily attacks
[[link removed]] on
Labor, Labor still won. Worse, Australia is a country that is
known not as a democracy
[[link removed]] but
as Murdochracy
[[link removed]]. Yet,
Labor still won. And, it won against its two formidable adversaries:

1) The incumbent prime minister Scomo and his conservatives, fired up
financially by Australia’s all powerful coal, gas & oil
[[link removed]]lobby;
and

2) the ultra-conservative and reactionary Murdoch Press
[[link removed]] and its media
dominance.

Decades ago Rupert Murdoch
[[link removed]]’s daddy – Keith
Murdoch [[link removed]] –
made it very clear who holds the real power in politics when saying
about an Australian Prime Minister, _I_ _put him there and I’ll
put him out!_

Yet, Keith’s son Rupert Murdoch’s deeply ideological media power
had failed in 2022 – for once. Yes, it “can” happen and
very occasionally [[link removed]] it
indeed does happen – as in May 2022. It also happened despite the
overwhelming spending power (Scomo is backed by the coal industry
[[link removed]]) as well as very
serious pork-barrelling
[[link removed]] of
Scomo’s conservatives.

With 27 million people, Australia is roughly the size of Texas in
terms of population. And with compulsory voting, 17.3 million
Australians were required to vote – up 5%
[[link removed]] from
three years ago. Australia votes every three years in 151 local
constituencies. This means that the party winning 76 seats will
govern. By 30th May 2022, Labor had reached that goal, winning 77
seats
[[link removed]] –
an absolute majority
[[link removed]].

Since Australian voters and political parties can issue preferences
– if you vote Green for example, and the Green Party does not get
the most votes, your preference (i.e. your vote) can go, for example,
to Labor. In counting all these preferences, Australians call
this two party preferences
[[link removed]]: Labor vs.
Conservatives.

On that base, Labor won about 5.7 million votes or 52%
[[link removed]].
Australia’s Labor party is a kind of social-democratic party with
many policies somewhat similar to Elizabeth Warren, superstar AOC
[[link removed]],
Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and perhaps the most sensible of the
lot: Bernie Sanders [[link removed]].

On the conservative side is Scomo
[[link removed]]’s
neoliberal coalition. It consists of the Liberal Party and
the National Party [[link removed]] – known as the
Coalition. Despite bitter fights between the nationals (it is strong
in regional Australia representing farmers) and the conservatives
[[link removed]](voters
are city-based urban elites), the “not-at-all-harmonious”
Coalition received 5.3 million votes or 48%. Scomo’s party had
lost 3.2%
[[link removed]] since
the last election in 2019.

Even though its electoral system favors two parties, among
Australia’s parties are also the called “minor parties”. Mostly,
these are the environmentalist
[[link removed]] The
Greens receiving 12% of the popular vote while holding four seats in
Australia’s parliament. Yet, there are also the even more
important independents
[[link removed]] with
5.4% while holding ten seats. The independents are mostly disaffected
ex-Liberals who managed to take moderate liberal voters with them.

Many independents were also able to collect female voters
[[link removed]] who
were extremely angry
[[link removed]] with
the constant mistreatment of women
[[link removed]] by
the Liberal Party
[[link removed]],
the culture of sustained bullying
[[link removed]],
outright misogyny
[[link removed]],
frequently reoccurring sexual harassment, and a rape case
[[link removed]] only
a few offices
[[link removed]] away
from Scomo
[[link removed]].

It remains imperative to understand that Scomo’s “Liberal” Party
is not at all a liberal party
[[link removed]] in US understanding
[[link removed]].
Perhaps, Australia’s Liberal Party is not even a liberal party in
the liberal understanding. Rather, it is a staunchly conservative, if
not deeply reactionary party.

The party also features several – and often very deep and spiteful
– internal factions. For once, it has a Christian fundamentalist
wing represented by, for example, the former prime minister and
Catholic fundamentalist Tony Abbott
[[link removed]] –
known as the Mad Monk
[[link removed]]. This wing also
has the Pentecostal
[[link removed]] Christian Scomo
[[link removed]] who seriously believes
that The Lord
[[link removed]] called
him to become prime minister
[[link removed]].

The Christian fundamentalist wing fights against the hardcore
neoliberal
[[link removed]] wing
represented by former Prime Minister and war monger John Howard
[[link removed]] as
well as free-marketer Malcolm Turnbull
[[link removed]]. Beyond that, there is
also the deep hate between the Victorian Liberals (Melbourne), the New
South Wales Liberals (Sydney), and the Western Australian Liberals at
the “other side of Australia”.

On top of all that is the fight inside the conservative/national
coalition. At this level, the fight is between the Nationals that are
strong in regional Australia among farmers and Scomo’s city-based
conservatives. This is also just a fight between global warming
skepticism (conservatives) and global warming denial (nationals). Yet,
it is also a fight between two ideologies.

On the one hand, there is the ideology of neoliberalism
[[link removed]] (conservatives)
and on the other hand there is the authoritarian populist nationalism
(nationals). Over the past decades, the conservatives had a solution
to all these factions, cruel in-fights, back-stabbing, animosities,
ideological cleavages, and at times outright hate. Murdoch’s
newspaper empire has assured that the coalition appears, as former PM
John Howard likes to pretend, as a broad church
[[link removed]].

Yet, the power of Murdoch seemed to have worn a bit thin lately. In
2022, Howard’s so-called broad church lost 18 seats
[[link removed]] while Labor
won 8
[[link removed]].
The Greens gained three to arrive at four seats. As one might expect,
all four Green seats are affluent inner city seats (the educational
elite). The Greens won one seat in inner Melbourne and a whopping
three in the city of Brisbane located in the flood and drought
affected state of Queensland – now called Greensland
[[link removed]].

Most surprisingly and rather devastatingly, Australia’s
conservatives lost
[[link removed]] plenty
of seats in very rich areas in Melbourne, Sydney, and the Western
Australian city of Perth
[[link removed]].
These seats did not go to Labor or the Greens but to
so-called independents
[[link removed]].
In many cases, they are the so-called small-L-liberal
[[link removed](Liberal_Party_of_Australia)]s.
In other words, these voters did not betray their class. They remain
somewhat conservatives. They are supportive of neoliberalism
[[link removed]] but
with a dash of an environmental and social touch.

Independents have successfully given themselves the exterior of
a socially and environmentally progressive appearance
[[link removed]].
These small-L liberals are also known as moderates or modern liberals.
They are economically conservative, sticking to Hayek’s catechism of
neoliberalism. Simultaneously, they are somewhat progressive on social
and environmental issues.

One might like to argue that some urban conservative voters have
somewhat “parked” their vote away from Scomo’s Liberal Party
[[link removed]]that rejects
global warming, has an anti-women orientation, and is social
conservative representing Christian family values rather than modern
professional women in employment. Some of these voters might return to
the party once the conservatives have done one of the following two
things:

OPTION 1: the party has learned even better than in previous years to
pretend to be environmentally and socially conscious – usually, this
occurs with the kind assistance of the Murdoch press
[[link removed]];
or

OPTION 2: the party has truly modified their policies on women and
the environment. Yet, option 2 incurs two problems.

Firstly, the party’s new leader
[[link removed]] – Peter Dutton
[[link removed]], successor of Scomo and
already ridiculed as potato head
[[link removed]] and
as Prime Minister for Potatoes
[[link removed]] –
is an arch-conservative. He is likely to continue the party’s
misogynistic stance on women as well as its rejection of the
overwhelming scientific evidence of global warming
[[link removed]].

Secondly and potentially worse for the party is the split between
global warming skeptics (Scomo/Dutton’s conservatives) and outright
global warming deniers (the nationals). For potato-head Dutton this
means that if the conservatives accept the fact of global warming,
they will re-gain votes in Australia’s cities.

But it also means that getting serious about global warming will
alienate their global warming denying coalition partner, the
Nationals. It is a true Catch-22
[[link removed]] situation for
Australia’s conservatives – whatever they does, they cannot win!
[[link removed]] Because
of this, some optimists suggest that Labor might govern for more than
the usual three years.

This might happen, unless the Murdoch press can shift the emphasis
away from two key issues: women as well as global warming. Yet,
bushfires, flooding
[[link removed]],
and the ever increasing impact of global warming
[[link removed]] on
Australia is ever harder to camouflage with Murdoch’s tabloid
gossip, sex, crime, sport, and celebrity news. Overall, it does not
look too good for Australia’s conservatives. Time is working against
them as the negative – if not ever more devastating – impact
of global warming
[[link removed]] is
growing in Australia.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Australian politics, there are two
political parties – Labor and the Greens. To different degrees, both
political parties take global warming
[[link removed]] seriously.
Labor takes global warming somewhat serious, while the Greens
[[link removed]] take
it very serious.

Sadly, an absolute majority of 77 seats in Australia’s parliament
means that Labor can govern without the need to enter into a coalition
government with the Greens. This diminishes the environmental voice
when it comes to global warming. Yet, the Greens remain strong in
Australia’s senate.

Unlike the US senate that, for example, gives a senator from an
inconsequential state like West Virginia with 1.8 million people
disproportional power compared to a senator from California
(population: 40 million), Australia has a more representative senate
[[link removed](Senate)].
In the Australian senate, Labor will need a majority to
pass legislation [[link removed]].
In the recent election, 40 out of the 76 senators were newly elected.

Australia’s senate is elected via proportional representation
[[link removed]]. This not
only gives a fairer representation of the “will of the people”, it
also favours diversity and the plurality of minor parties. In the
senate, Labor
[[link removed]] did
not win an outright majority in the May 2022 election and will have to
depend on the Greens and a few other parties to pass legislation.

All in all, Labor has achieved a stunning victory over Australia’s
conservatives. The Liberal Party even lost former PM John Howard’s
old seat of Bennelong to Labor with a 7.8% swing to Labor.

Most devastatingly, the designated successor of Scomo and rising star
in the Liberal Party – Josh Frydenberg
[[link removed]] –
was also defeated by an independent with a 9.5% swing against the
conservatives. This marked an extremely bitter beating for the
talent-starved conservatives.

In the end, Labor can govern in its won right
[[link removed]] with
a slim majority of just two, surpassing the 75 mark by gaining an
overall number of 77 parliamentarians. Yet, the task for the next
three years will largely be a repair job restoring the damage
[[link removed]] done
by Scomo’s conservatives
[[link removed]].

Over the coming three years, Labor will also need to remain watchful
of the all powerful Murdoch press
[[link removed]] as well as the
cashed-up coal, oil, and gas industry
[[link removed]],
its adjacent PR
[[link removed]] apparatus,
and its skillful lobbying. Worse, the Murdoch
[[link removed]] press
is not alone
[[link removed]].
The vast majority of Australia’s newspapers
[[link removed]],
tabloids, as well as TV stations remain conservative
[[link removed]].

_[THOMAS KLIKAUER is the author of Managerialism
[[link removed]] (Palgrave,
2013).]_

_Thanks to the author for sending this to xxxxxx._

* Australia
[[link removed]]
* Asia
[[link removed]]
* Asia/Pacific region
[[link removed]]
* international elections
[[link removed]]
* foreign elections
[[link removed]]
* Rupert Murdoch
[[link removed]]
* women voters
[[link removed]]

*
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*
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*
*
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