{"id":62537,"date":"2025-05-05T15:50:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T05:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/?p=62537"},"modified":"2025-05-05T19:35:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T09:35:45","slug":"australia-is-not-america-elections-after-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/?p=62537","title":{"rendered":"Australia is not America – elections after Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, the – 2025 Canadian federal election<\/a> – was held and the Liberal Party won for the fourth consecutive time securing 169 seats (in the 343-seat House of Commons), just short of a majority. They also won the popular vote (43.7 per cent of the vote – up 11.1 per cent), which was the first time they had achieved that since 2015. The Opposition Conservative Party leader lost his own seat in the election. On January 7, 2025, national polling saw support for the Conservatives of around 47 per cent and support for the government around 20 per cent. By the time the poll came, that had shifted dramatically in favour of the government. In between, came Trump. The UK Guardian analysis (March 19, 2025) – Canada\u2019s Liberals on course for political resurrection amid trade war, polls show<\/a> – said the shift “has little precedent in Canadian history, reflecting the outsized role played by an unpredictable US president”. To some extent, the craziness of the US political situation at present also impacted on the – 2025 Australian federal election<\/a> – which was held on Saturday (May 3, 2025). The incumbent government, which was well down in the opinion polls before Trump took power, won in a landslide achieving the highest two-party preferred outcome in Australia’s electoral history. The parallels with the Canadian outcome are strong despite the different voting systems in both countries. Moreover, the conservative Liberal-National Coalition in Australia, the dominant party in the Post-WW2 era has been reduced to being little more than a far Right populist party. Similar to the Canadian situation, the Opposition leader also lost his seat, which was the first time that has ever happened in Australia. So Trump is undermining the very movements he is trying to promote. But what is very clear is that Australia is nothing like the US, despite some commonalities (language – sort of!).
\n<\/p>\n

How crazy is the state of US politics right now?<\/p>\n

Answer: Very.<\/p>\n

I woke up early on Sunday morning (May 4, 2025) and read the ABC news report – Donald Trump posts AI image of himself as the pope ahead of Catholic Church conclave<\/a> – and wondered if I was reading a satirical story in the spirit of ‘America’s Finest News Source’ – the Onion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This photo, posted by Trump himself on his own Twitter clone, summarises just how demented the whole US situation has become.<\/p>\n

America’s early history as a revolutionary nation needs revival given the destruction the current Administration is causing.<\/p>\n

I am no supporter of the Papacy but it is inconceivable in the wake of the former pope’s recent death, that a national leader would think it appropriate to fiddle with AI to cast themselves in this way.<\/p>\n

It signals some deep mental fissure is at work.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

While Australia was not being declared the 51st or perhaps 52nd state (given aspirations over Canada) of the US by the US president, the craziness entered the Australian electoral environment as well.<\/p>\n

When Trump put out his plan to “level” the area of genocide in Gaza and create a “riviera under American control”, the conservative Opposition leader (Peter Dutton) praised the plan and said that Trump was a “big thinker and a deal maker”.<\/p>\n

Dutton also claimed that the Arab nations should resettle the Palestinians after the US and Israel clears them out of Gaza.<\/p>\n

Even the influential “Australian Jewish lobby” called Trump’s plan a “loopy proposition”, which amounted to “ethnic cleansing” (Source<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Dutton, thinking that Trumpism would appeal to the families in the outer metropolitan areas where the cost-of-living crisis was most apparent, then appointed a loud-mouthed colleague as the Shadow Minister of Government Efficiency (SMOGE), to clear out the public service agencies, mirroring Elon Musk’s ridiculous but damaging crusade through Washington.<\/p>\n

The SMOGE was to cut “wasteful spending” and he said this new role would see 41 thousand public servants sacked and those that remained would no longer be allowed flexible working arrangements.<\/p>\n

There were statements about public servants being lazy and abusing work-from-home rules.<\/p>\n

Women voters who were not already alienated soon joined the ranks of those who were.<\/p>\n

Flexible working arrangements have been very good for women in particular.<\/p>\n

The Opposition claimed that research proved work-from-home arrangements lowered productivity, when, in fact, the opposite is supported by the serious research evidence.<\/p>\n

SMOGE would also purge so-called cultural Marxism and woke agendas in the public service.<\/p>\n

The SMOGE Minister provided the foreword to a newly published book, which demanded Australians realise that an (Source<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n… insidious cultural Marxism is not just the barbarian at the gates, but it is in fact inside the gates. It\u2019s wreaking havoc everywhere, undermining the West\u2019s Judeo-Christian heritage, a heritage which has given us the most prosperous society the world has ever known, thus putting in grave danger the hard-fought freedoms we take for granted.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The newly appointed SMOGE MP was then exposed wearing a Trump MAGA cap and claimed it was all a joke.<\/p>\n

It might have had the effect of signalling a ‘Make America Go Away’ message because the Opposition conservatives soon found out that its lurch into Trumpism was toxic in Australia but by then it was too late.<\/p>\n

Message received – and the polls turned hard against them.<\/p>\n

However, these characters cannot help themselves and at various times during the 35-day election campaign they lurched back into the Far Right messaging with attacks on indigenous Australians, attacks on young people, attacks on women, and more.<\/p>\n

They also signalled they would turn to nuclear energy despite it being obvious that the cost would be prohibitive relative to a further investment in renewables and that the Earth would be fried before the new reactors were built and made operational.<\/p>\n

Australians have a long dislike of the nuclear industry and the promise to buck that dislike was imposed on the Coalition by the junior partners – the Nationals – who represent the well-to-do farming communities and are now the epitome of Far Right crazy.<\/p>\n

They forced the unsalable nuclear option as the price of them staying silent about a zero emissions target by 2050.<\/p>\n

None of them believed in the climate issue and some actually were caught out telling followers that they were for ‘drill, baby, drill’ policies.<\/p>\n

But in coming out with the nuclear plans, the Opposition looked more bizarre than they have ever looked and that is really saying something.<\/p>\n

They couldn’t have designed and executed a “please don’t dare elect us” message any better.<\/p>\n

The blue suit wearing Opposition men (the party is dominated by males) – in their Trump look-alike outfits – were declared unelectable by the Australian voters.<\/p>\n

What all the evil woke Marxists were up to on Saturday is anybody’s guess, but notwithstanding the relentless messaging about these Marxists skulking around in shadows ready to do us all harm, the Labor government created history on Saturday and as a first-term government actually increased their majority.<\/p>\n

A rare feat.<\/p>\n

To put the rest of this post in context, I was happy when the Labor Party retained government on Saturday even as the landslide in their favour emerged.<\/p>\n

But that is in the context of they are the lesser evil.<\/p>\n

It is clear that Australia (and probably Canada although I am not an expert on that country) is not America.<\/p>\n

We outrightly reject American cultural imperialism.<\/p>\n

I recall some years ago when neoliberalism was taking hold here that the Pentecostal lot tried to make those religious TV crusaders from the US viable voices on Australian television.<\/p>\n

We had midnight to dawn religious programs for a short while.<\/p>\n

They disappeared as quickly as they came as no-one really could be bothered watching comedy at that time of day.<\/p>\n

There is no thirst in Australia for the types of narratives that seem to elect Presidents in the US.<\/p>\n

We just think they are crazy stuff.<\/p>\n

To understand the next graph, readers should be aware of the particular voting system we use in Australia.<\/p>\n

Many countries, including Canada use the ‘First-past-the-post’ system where a candidate is elected if they receive the most votes in a single count.<\/p>\n

So with many candidates, a successful candidate might get say 20 per cent overall and still win.<\/p>\n

The problem then is 80 per cent of voters didn’t want that person elected.<\/p>\n

To overcome that issue, the – Electoral system of Australia<\/a> – uses preferential voting, where, in the case of the lower House of Representatives, voters must “mark a preference for every candidate on the green ballot paper” (Source<\/a>).<\/p>\n

So, primary votes are cast for the voters preferred candidate.<\/p>\n

But the voter also nominates or ranks the other candidates.<\/p>\n

If on the primary vote there is no absolute majority achieved, the Electoral Commission then excludes the least popular candidate and their preferences are distributed to the remaining candidates.<\/p>\n

A process of attrition occurs until there are only two candidates left and the successful one is the candidate with the absolute majority.<\/p>\n

The so-called ‘Two Party-Preferred’ (TPP) measure is thus the final distributed outcome.<\/p>\n

That is what the graph shows for the nation as a whole and recognises the dominance of the two major parties – the Labor Party and the Coalition (which is a combine).<\/p>\n

The graph shows this statistic for every federal election since 1949.<\/p>\n

Saturday’s election gave Labor party the largest TPP outcome and the Conservatives the lowest TPP outcome since that data was available.<\/p>\n

The lower house comprises 150 seats in Australia.<\/p>\n

Going into the 2022 federal election, the conservatives were in government with 77 seats and lost office at that election, gaining only 58 seats and a TPP vote of 47.87 per cent (after a primary vote of just 35.7 per cent).<\/p>\n

While the 2025 election results are not fully finalised, at the time of writing, the conservatives have lost a further 18 seats and had a TPP of 45.29 per cent (with a primary vote of 32 per cent).<\/p>\n

The Labor government improved from 77 seats in 2022 to now holding (so far in the count) 86 seats.<\/p>\n

First-term governments just don’t improve majorities historically.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The Oppositional leader lost his seat as did a number of touted future leaders, leading to what the press is now calling a leadership vacuum.<\/p>\n

There was one headline in this morning’s Age newspaper (May 5, 2025) – The Liberal Party does not need a renovation. It\u2019s a knockdown rebuild job<\/a> – a ‘knock down’ means it is worthless.<\/p>\n

The author of that article was a former conservative party federal treasurer.<\/p>\n

He admitted that the Liberal Party “is both organisationally moribund and dysfunctional” and assessed Saturday as “one of the more lamentable election nights since Federation” (Federation was in 1901).<\/p>\n

The point is that the once dominant Liberal-National Coalition has over the course of two elections been reduced to a rump as a Far Right populist party with little credible policy narrative, who tried to win the election with a string of Trump-like culture and hate statements.<\/p>\n

Australia is not America.<\/p>\n

We don’t fall for that sort of narrative.<\/p>\n

Australian politics has been recast over last weekend.<\/p>\n

The disarray that the Liberal-Coalition now finds itself in is breathtaking.<\/p>\n

Already, the recriminations have begun and there are influential elements demanding the Coalition go more Trump-like (presumably they saw some Marxists lurking in alleys or somewhere).<\/p>\n

There is no real leadership left in the Liberal party.<\/p>\n

The proportion of women in the party is low and the voting women dislike the misogyny of the blue suits.<\/p>\n

The youth of Australia dislike the conservatives who are basically climate change denialists writ large.<\/p>\n

Is there a lesson for the rest of the world here?<\/h2>\n

We now have two observations in the recent period – Canada and Australia.<\/p>\n

While the electoral systems are different, the resonance between the two outcomes is high.<\/p>\n

It is plausible that Trump and his crazies are actually providing fertilisation for a return of social democratic political forces.<\/p>\n

I am not saying the Australian Labor Party is a desirable social democratic force.<\/p>\n

But they resemble one, even if they have been infected with neoliberalism.<\/p>\n

The conservatives have gone so far to the Right that they had made themselves irrelevant despite their dominant history.<\/p>\n

Could the great socialist and social democratic parties of Europe, for example, see a similar trend by not kowtowing to the Trump bullying?<\/p>\n

I am not convinced yet.<\/p>\n

My fear is that the authoritarian sentiment is more rooted in European countries than it is in the English-speaking countries (excluding the US).<\/p>\n

The performance of AfD in the last German elections tells me that the far Right is anything but dead in that nation.<\/p>\n

The far Right didn’t win a seat in the 2025 Australian election and gained around 8 per cent of the total primary vote.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

Two good election outcomes – Canada and Australia – demonstrate how isolated the US has become in the English-speaking world.<\/p>\n

Trump would get nowhere here.<\/p>\n

That is enough for today!<\/p>\n

(c) Copyright 2025 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, the – 2025 Canadian federal election – was held and the Liberal Party won for the fourth consecutive time securing 169 seats (in the 343-seat House of Commons), just short of a majority. They also won the popular vote (43.7 per cent of the vote – up 11.1 per cent), which was the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-us-economy","entry","no-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}