Another new PM!

Our 6th PM since 2007! ScoMo.

What a time to be alive, when I get reminded to change my smoke alarm batteries each time we change PMs!

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I remember a time when Scott Morrison was considered too far right, too lacking in compassion, too unfeeling to be PM. Better than Dutton? Maybe. I am not sad to see Malcolm go, as his promise to be a kindler, gentler Coalition after Tony was nonsense. Honestly I have no hope ScoMo will right the ship. Still mad Julia and Kevin decided to go to the knives instead of actually governing.

If you’ll excuse me, I am off to go watch old episodes of The Chaser.

bring on an election!!!

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Double dissolution for spring cleaning. Throw the bums out.

yeah nah. dd election is how we get losers such as malcom roberts, fraser anning, and jim molan.

…Okay, fair enough. But there must be SOME way to make Penny Wong Prime Minister (yeah, I know, that isn’t how it works, but…)

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Penny Wong would make a great PM I reckon, but she’d need to have the ALP find her a safe labor seat to move to.

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Hells yes she would. I’ve been Team Penny for a long time, but yeah, she’d obviously have to leave the Senate.

The LNP refused to put my local member up for preselection this year despite her doing a fantastic job at a grass roots level for the electorate for the last 8 years. They did this so they could install someone who’d support the hard-right.

The LNP are too busy fighting amongst themselves, and damned be the people they’re meant to be serving.

All this latest spill has done is strengthen my resolve never to vote LNP again.

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I voted against Abbott and Turnbull for their disastrous murdoch-inspired NBN shambles. I have historically been a swinging voter, but Labor will get my vote again at the next election and would have to do something really bad to make me swing back to the Libs

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I haven’t been a swinging voter but I think these days that might be the smart way to play it :man_shrugging:

Coalition was a major factor in my choosing not to stay in or return to Australia, and now I am too old to qualify for the points system like I could in my late 20s (cutoff was before my 32nd birthday, at least for that immigration path). I’m not the only one for whom LNP nonsense was a factor and I was recently discussing this (as we waited for the party room votes to come down) with another individual here in Tokyo with the same story. He even said he had a chance to tell Howard this to his face.

Of course, it’s not like as an American I have any room to talk, not that I’ve ever voted anything but straight ticket Democrat and I’m not personally responsible for the oompah loompah in the oval office.

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I’m not really a conservative person, or at least I don’t consider myself one.

I grew up in the country, and most of us out there vote for their national party representative and typically that’s someone from the local region who knows the issues and fights for the locals.

At the grass roots level, a lot of these party members are doing great things for their electorates. But at the macro level, it’s a whole different ball game.

I personally don’t like the pull that the unions have over the labor party, but the thought of far-right policies scares me more. That Abbott/Hockey budget was a glimpse at what the old boys want to turn that party into, and that ain’t me. I hoped Turnbull would tone them down a bit, but the only thing he ever fought for was his own job security.

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Well, I have always felt the Libs and the Nats have been strange bed partners historically and mostly associated by short term desires and opposition to Labor. I’ve always thought they’d eventually fall apart over something, but Coalition has lasted a lot longer than I ever suspected. And I was shocked that they let One Nation get into the mix, and that’s a whole 'nother subject entirely, but I feel is part and parcel of this constant march to the right.

I’m a unionist here in Japan and maintain networks and ties with Australian unions (follow and am followed by folks in AMWU, TWU, etc), so you and I may have some disagreement there, and had I the vote, theoretically, I’d be preffing Labor followed by Greens.

I think we can all agree that Tony was the beginning of a downward spiral. But then again, I’ve been surprised before, and politics is a good way to upset people.

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Gillard did govern though. She was quite effective at getting policy through despite being in minority government.

Agreed.

Another vote for Penny Wong as PM here.

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No, no, good point. I was angry when Rudd decided to try a take-backsies, it really hurt Labor and in part at least helped deliver Abbott.

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Yeah, I agree. Gillard should have been left there. I do believe though it saved some seats. I think what JG did was pretty fantastic given the circumstances. I have a lot of respect for her and only wish she’d come to government in a different way. People really really really hated her and rarely ever are able to give reasons why. The “She lied” thing is usually the only one I hear, and these are the same people who supported 11 years of John Howard’s lies.

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She’s the only PM I ever got a chance to communicate with, and it felt nice, given that I was a non-citizen who wasn’t even sure I was going to stay.

Also, relevant:

7. When 48 people died in the Christmas Island disaster of 2010, Morrison objected to the Gillard Government offering to pay for families’ fares to the funerals in Sydney.

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I’m really not a fan of him. He voted against SSM and he just seems to be nasty in general.

Turnbull if allowed to have his own views would have been a much better PM than the right of the liberal party allowed him to be.

Him being ScoMo? ScoMo is terrible.

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