Lockdownunder Update: Election fallout.

The short version:

Australia’s Liberals, UK’s Conservatives, America’s Republicans. All have been afflicted by the delusion that they can win the voters by moving further to the left. Large factions in all parties cling to the notion that being more like the opposition is the answer.

Dave Pellowe said it loud and clear:

Dear Liberal Party, don’t preselect ‘moderates’. Don’t campaign to impress the ABC, Guardian or SMH. Don’t think being kind of Green impresses climate alarmists.

The Nationals didn’t lose any seats, and they are clearly perceived as climate realists, not given to tokenism or ‘action’ at any cost.

But your virtue-signalling, Christian-hating ‘moderates’ offered zero differences from their leftist or radical leftist competitors, & many of the seats you long considered ‘blue ribbon’ and ‘safe’ have been trashed by their smug disregard for your conservative grass roots.

Liberal Senator Alex Antic, one of the courageous few in Canberra during lockdown, agrees.

John Roskam from the Institute of Public Affairs describes how traditional party loyalties have become inverted.

Scotty From Upfucking has stepped down. The new Liberal leader, at this point standing unopposed, will be Peter Dutton. I made Mr Dutton internet famous in this meme a few years ago.

Dutton, unlike his predecessor, isn’t desperate to be everybody’s best friend. As shown in last week’s update, when Morrison made a bold statement you could be sure that he would backtrack on it. Dutton stands his ground. His views on illegal immigration made him unpopular (and that’s putting it mildly) among the SJW brigade.

But if there’s anyone who sets lefty heads on fire quicker than Peter Dutton, it’s Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Imagine a female Australian Larry Elder – Jacinta is half-aboriginal and has no time for the victim industry. Listen to her interview with Sky’s Paul Murray.

Jacinta won a Senate seat for the Northern Territory and will join the aformentioned Alex Antic in attempting to rein in the worst of the Labor/Green feelgood fuckwittery that lies ahead. Gerard Rennick and Malcolm Roberts are also still in there to speak for us.

Unfortunately we lost two strong campaigners against the covid madness. Craig Kelly and George Christensen, both ex-Liberal MPs, shifted to United Australia and One Nation respectively but failed to win their seats.

Which brings us to the big question of the election: what happened to the freedom friendly parties? In spite of the widespread resentment against both the major parties – ‘Put the majors last’ was the catchcry – many voters gave first preference to their favourite and then apparently voted as normal for Lib or Lab.

The vote for the FFPs was about half what was anticipated. This can be explained to some degree by their messages being swamped by the majors’ well-funded advertising campaigns, but there was another factor at play too. I handed out how to vote cards for the Liberal Democrats on Saturday; I was the sole party representative at my booth. Labor, Greens, and the Liberals had teams – paid or unpaid, I don’t know, but they had a presence. The FFPs simply couldn’t match it. The major parties reinforced their ads with people at the front line on election day. This show of strength was seemingly enough to sway voters who were disgruntled with the majors but uncertain about the FFPs.

The picture isn’t entirely bleak. The LibDems nearly doubled their Senate vote across the country. And the covid freakshow of the last two years has attracted rising membership. The same can be said of other FFPs as well. We in Lockdownunder still have a few good people in parliament.

2022 will be remembered as a missed opportunity, but also historic. While the support for FFPs indicated by opinion polls was not borne out, loss of support for Labor and Liberal was. Labor won on their lowest vote since 1910. Neither party attracted 40 percent of first preference votes. This is unheard of, and a start towards building a new political framework for The Great South Land.

The immediate future, though – I’m not looking forward to that.

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