18 May

10 thoughts about the election. 1. It’s not sport, nobody actually won or lost. Any party who reads election results as being about them, win or lose, will always get smashed by the people eventually. 2. The old still have the power and wealth in society, attacking those is the reason the result went as it did, despite the LNP being utterly dysfunctional. Demographics and distribution of wealth predicted this election outcome, seeing elections as sport didn’t. 3. Those who voted in protest for minor parties had their preferences vacuumed up by the LNP. 4. As in the US and UK, the vote against politics itself is being channelled into power by ultra conservatives pretending to represent those people. We’re still on the way to our own Trump. 5. This is the first time in a long time a conservative government is coming to power as the ‘economy’ is trending downwards. This may finally re-position the Labor Party to a healthier part of the economic cycle, in government. 6. The LNP took no policies to the election, using this anger in the electorate as its campaign. The last time somebody did that - Paul Keating in 1993, winning the unwinnable election using a scare campaign against an opposition with a big policy program - the Labor Party was in opposition for over a decade. 7. Political parties don’t win or lose elections, different groupings in society gain more or less power and influence. The election should always have been read through that lens. 8. Over 4 million people voting before polling day was a sure sign that this election was like the US and UK - an election about politics itself. We’re splintering into 25 million separate individual islands of entitlement and anger. Ripe for our own Trump. 9. Many Australian regions and towns are now running out of water. No amount of ‘the economy’ will make it rain. 10. Polls lie because all people lie, all the time. Always follow the money and power, not what people say. See 2.