Australian exit polls suggest big win for Liberal Party/Coalition in election

[Flying Purple People Eater]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...tt-s-coalition

Australian election exit polls suggest big win for Tony Abbott's Coalition
Sky News/Newspoll survey suggests Tony Abbott's opposition Coalition will win 97 seats, with Labor dropping to only 51
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Oliver Laughland in Sydney
theguardian.com, Saturday 7 September 2013 17.34 AEST
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Opposition leader and election frontrunner Tony Abbott at a polling station in Sydney on Saturday.
Opposition leader and election frontrunner Tony Abbott at a polling station in Sydney on Saturday. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images

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Polling stations have closed across the eastern and central states of Australia, as two exit polls suggest the opposition will sweep to victory and oust Labor in the federal election.

A Sky News/Newspoll survey suggests Tony Abbott’s Coalition will win 97 seats – a gain of 25 in the 150-seat House of Representatives – while Kevin Rudd's Labor will drop to 51, a 21-seat loss.

A Ray Morgan Channel 10 exit poll predicts the Coalition will pick up 42.5% of the primary vote with Labor at 33.5%, while the Sky poll gives 45% of the primary vote to the Coalition and 36% to Labor.

The Sky News poll predicts only two crossbench MPs will keep their seats, Andrew Wilkie in Tasmania and Bob Katter in Queensland, with Greens MP Adam Bandt predicted to lose his seat in Melbourne.

The Sky News/Newspoll result suggests that the Coalition will pick up 14 seats in New South Wales - including key seats in western Sydney: Lindsay, Greenway and Reid. It suggests the Coalition will pick up seven in Queensland, with Wayne Swan losing his seat of Lilley – and it says prime minister Rudd’s seat of Griffith too close to call.

It also predicts the opposition will pick up three seats in Victoria, and one in Western Australia.

The Morgan poll also puts the Palmer United party on 9% of primary votes in Queensland and 5% in New South Wales and Western Australia. It predicts an 11% primary vote for the Greens.

Senior Labor figures have already said the election has been lost by the party. The former defence minister Stephen Smith spoke five minutes after polls closed on the east coast. "The government will be defeated tonight," he told ABC news.

Labor member and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Anna Burke said she had thought over the past two weeks that Labor would lose.

"The Liberal party will win this election," she told Fairfax radio. "It will just depend on the numbers that it falls to whether it is a landslide or it's a comfortable majority."

The former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke told Sky News that impending defeat was the fault of the Labor party itself. It was a sad day for the party, he said. "Sad, because we had a very good period back there in the 1980s and 1990s."

He added: "It's been disappointing to see the way in which the sort of standards and values which we established and which were embraced by the Australian people seem to have been, to some extent, lost.

"I really believe this is an election lost by the government rather than won by Tony Abbott."

Some senior Labor members were not yet ready to concede. Health minister Tanya Plibersek told ABC news “I'm not conceding defeat yet.”

Fuck.

FUCK.

[Bardo]

This just in: Blue bourgeois party defeats red bourgeois party in landslide victory!

[Comrade Jacob]

This really doesn't mean anything.

[Red Commissar]

I wonder when the revolving door will bring Labor back around the bend. Speaking from a political standpoint it didn't really seem to benefit labor much in the public eye with their musical chairs, going from Rudd to Gillard back to Rudd.

One thing that disturbed me though from an outsider's perspective is how Abbott was able to use xenophobia to push this anti-immigrant campaign revolving around preventing boat people to deflect people's attention- Labor had played their part too in capitulating to this mess but still, not comforting.

I suppose for bourgeois greens their conceptions of a "carbon tax" are likely delivered a bad defeat.

[Hiero]

This really doesn't mean anything.

The Liberals have not talked about industrial relations reforms during the campaign, which is a worry given that Liberals major difference to Labor revolves around industrial relations. Business have lobbied government to hand them power to negotiate with their employees around penalty rates. It could be possible that Liberals plan to adjust negotiating powers in favour of the employee and make penalty rates an individual condition rather than an award condition. The liberal government will be very sneaky if it does reform industrial relations, as IR reform destroyed the Howard government.

They have already stated they are going to change right of entry laws for unions to make it harder for union officials to come on site. It is already a struggle for unions to come on to work sites especially in the construction industry. That reform will damage unions ability to represent and grow membership. The trend of Howard was to damage the Union movement to make it basically useless. Abbot as Howard's successor will be aiming to finally put away the union movement, it may only survive as an effective force in the growing service, welfare and government sectors.

One thing that disturbed me though from an outsider's perspective is how Abbott was able to use xenophobia to push this anti-immigrant campaign revolving around preventing boat people to deflect people's attention- Labor had played their part too in capitulating to this mess but still, not comforting.

Australia being a British colonial colony on an large island created a belief that government can actually control undocumented (or whatever you want to call it) migration of people. Most Australian's could not comprehend the migration and human traffic that occur in European countries. During the campaign it was just a stock question "how are you going to stop the boats". There was not even a moderate framing of the asylum and migration question like "how are you going to deal with influx of war refugees via boats". It came simply an un-reflexive discussion around stopping 'boats'.

The Australian public really hasn't entered into the frame of mind to understand world migration and basically accept that nation states are not going to be the one cultural and ethnic make up. It comes down to the laziness of political leaders not to convert Fraser's, Hawke's and Keating's acceptance of Australia as being part of the Asian region into public opinion and that we will ultimately become more intertwined political and culturally.

Hanson and Howard began to stir public opinion away from an Asian focus. Hanson advocated strict migration rules and strong assimilation politics, Howard emphased British history and connection to White Anglo countries (Howard paid for this when he the International Cricket Councial blocked his nomination to the board). Basically Australia is quite politically and culturally immature when it comes to understanding nationhood in a globalised world.

[Watermelon Man]

Plans to scrap negotiated wage increases for 350,000 aged and childcare workers are just the beginning, methinks. It's a good time to join a union; the Coalition has never been good for workers.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

This just in: Blue bourgeois party defeats red bourgeois party in landslide victory!

This really doesn't mean anything.

yeah no, it does mean a hell of a lot. There's a very big difference between the political spectrum in Australia compared to the one in America. Political parties changing will actually end you up without a job or school here. And then there's the union liquidating and blatant racism, as Hiero outlined.

I mean, no love for Labour (which has been moving rightward since the 80s - maybe even longer), but please don't apply American political frameworks to other countries and then act as if you're the authority on the subject because it's usually ridiculously incorrect. As shitty and homogenous as it is and is continuing to get , the Australian political system still comes down to much more at stake than a gay marriage bill.