Howard's about to claim victory on the ABC. Must resist urge to put heavy object through TV...
One piece of good news: the Greens have doubled their vote, and have done extraordinarily well. This was partly at the expense of the ALP (who didn't present enough of an alternative), and partly at the expense of the Democrats (who showed themselves to be too driven by expediency, something that not even Buffy Stott-Despoja's glowing charisma could gloss over). Given that they're probably the only party with both integrity and sanity, I hope that they'll keep up the good showings.
(Whom did I vote for? In my seat, I voted for the Greens, with preferences to the Democrats and Labor, and the Liberals last. Interesting to note that the Greens got 15% there, taking a big chunk out of the (ultra-safe) Labor member's margin.)
Another thing I noticed was that, in their Senate how-to-vote card, the Liberals gave their first and second preferences to the two Religious Right parties, the Democratic Labor Party (conservative Catholic anti-Communist crusaders turned "family-values" stalwarts) and the Christian Party. Goes to show how much they have left the idea of "liberalism" behind.
I can't get too excited about it. Neither party is going to do the right thing on the big issues. Always had a hunch it might take civil war to get rid of the conservatives in this country... (Good news re: the Greens.)
As for the Liberal party being liberal. It was probably the best move the party ever made when it formed to call itself (a strictly conservative party) the Liberals.
Dunno. Ironically enough, it was the Liberal party that killed off sectarianism in Australia, by allocating some funding to Catholic and other private schools in the 1960s. (You know, the piss-poor ones like your average Christian Brothers College) Which of course pulled the rug from underneath the anti-communist DLP which had a lot of clout amongst conservative Catholics, and all that.
BTW, I didn't know you got a TV.
I had the TV for a while, but it didn't work properly (then again, I got it for free, from someone who got it for 20c some time earlier); I got it fixed a few weeks ago, so that I could watch video tapes and the Election Chaser.
Welcome to the 20th century....err.
Not that I agree with it, but it needs saying that liberalism is not always associated with the liberals - much the same as "labour" is not the same as Labor. having said that it shouldnt always (also) be associated with religious proclivity, nor religious observance, one may "religiously" vote for a party without neccesarily holding similar religious ideologies (as you almost certainly must agree with) yet to be "tarred" with that brush is almost the same. so where are we left? (a rhetorical question)
having "Family Values" isnt that bad, really. especially at Christmas Time. and I know you all probably think I am being residivist, but it's true. or is that revisionist? anyway... it's important to respect the family, no matter what, because at the end of the day, that's pretty much all you've got. ask your uncle or aunt. ask your grandparents if you are fortunate enough to have them still just ask them.
Mihaly: true; however, everybody's values are different and personal to them, and having a central set of values enshrined in legislation (i.e., tax breaks for leading a particular lifestyle, religiously-motivated censorship, or laws saying that gay relationships cannot be as valid as some heterosexual relationships, for example) is in my book wrong. In a free, pluralistic society, there should be no laws to coerce people into falling in line with a specific set of values.
I'd put it even more strongly. The "family values" ticket is a Trojan horse, in which dwells the conservative agenda: a catalogue of progressive inhumanity which, if unchecked, leads to the excesses so thoroughly explored in the 20th century. Sadly, the conservatives have a stranglehold in the First World at least, as we are marched into the 21st. Family be damned. What good is family if they're all locked up? Or dead? Our ancestors might have something to say about totalitarianism - if we weren't too busy VOTING IT IN to listen.
What did you expect?
I thought the DLP was going to be deregistered because they wouldn't let those reds at the AEC see their list of 10,000 party members. That was what has been stopping new parties from registering for the last year, because they might be using members who were also part of the DLP's mighty ranks. In fact I suspect they make the CPA (M/L) look numerous.