for the Australian political scene, let us be truly thankful

[tielan]

We have a state election coming up on the 23rd of March. That's...uh...one month.

(Dear Lord, let the Liberal/National party lose - they're the conservative/big business/ruralists/nationalists coalition for those of you wondering - not that Labor will be all that much better but I am so tired of Gladys the former Tranport Minister trying to put a nice shine on it. Seriously, it's not gonna work, Gladys. Seriously. Stop. Just, no.)

And there's a federal election coming up...sometime this year.

The Wikipedia page on the 2019 Federal Election says:

The next election must be held by 18 May 2019 for half of the Senate and on or before 2 November 2019 for the House of Representatives and Territory Senators. An election will not be held earlier than 33 days after it is called, and will take place on a Saturday.

Did you know that there was an election coming up in Australia? Because I sure didn't and I live here and I have to (legally, am registered, compulsory) vote. (On the other hand, you can hardly ignore the fact that there's an election coming up in America in....oh...18 months. Even in Australia.)

I don't always love my country, but DAMN sometimes I do.

On the other hand, our options are...not great.

Bill Shorten (Labor Leader of the Opposition - the opposition counterpart to the Prime Minister) is...whitebread. Like, not horrendous supermarket mass-marketed whitebread of Scott Morrison (or the fake-y trying-to-be-real-but-eurgh-no potatobread of Peter Dutton, or the dough-y half-bakedness of Barnaby Joyce), but maybe the Baker's Delight kind of bread that tries to sell itself as a cut above the rest but is really not all that different to the supermarket kind. Marginally less offensive. Just...nothing special.

I did rather like the mock campaign by SBS's The Feed that has presented Mrs. Shorten as the key figure in the Labor government: VOTE FOR CHLOE SHORTEN...'s husband.

Comments

[copracat]

Can I vote for Chloe Shorten's mum?

[tielan]

Only if it turfs the LNP...

[copracat]

Fair.

[velithya]

oh, is it that soon? Damn.

[tielan]

On the down side, us in NSW probably have about 5-6 months worth of political advertising ahead of us. You guys over in WA would only have a couple for the federal election.

On the up side, it could be 18 bloody months of it like in the US...

[velithya]

Oh, I thought it was actually illegal to campaign here in Australia more than 4 weeks before an election.... did I just imagine that?

[tielan]

I thought it was six weeks. And I think it's explicit ads - eg. "[party] is crappy, [party] has betrayed you, [party] doesn't deserve another term: DON'T GIVE IT TO THEM" kind of thing.

Although that doesn't explain Clive Palmer.

[velithya]

oh, six weeks. Well, that's better than multiple years I guess!!

I don't think anything can explain Clive Palmer, to be honest.

[eggsbenedict]

I did know, but we're in a marginal federal electorate so the increased activity usually clues us in pretty fast!

[tielan]

Well, you know how it goes up this way...

All that happens is that Mr Slick turns out to shake hands at every train station from Berowra to Beecroft...