Julia Gillard has been handed an opportunity to fix Labor’s problems while pursuing a new agenda forced on her by the hung Parliament.
Greens
Cross party consensus on climate change, it IS possible
The recommendations of the Climate Change committee will have pervasive impact. So it is appropriate to seek cross-party consensus, writes the University of Tasmania’s Professor Ian Marsh.
Scrutinising the Labor-Greens alliance
Crikey Media Wrap: Yesterday a strange event occurred in Australian politics: something actually happened, with the Greens and Labor forming a historic alliance. But was this actually a good move for Labor?
Common sense from independents has conservatives deeply unhappy
Against expectations, the rural independents have made a strong start in their quest for political and economic stability. And conservatives don’t like it.
Rundle: we’re entering a new dimension here, people
The independents and minor parties should push this process until the rivets are popping.
Pandering to the outer suburbs didn’t work
While the parties focused on trying to appeal to a minority of swinging voters, the rest of the electorate had other ideas — quite a few of them.
Pearse: Greens should let this government fall and learn
The Labor Party might ultimately agree to brave a carbon levy, but you can bet it will be one that is as polluter friendly as its CPRS, writes Guy Pearse.
Guy Rundle: Rundle: willing the Coalition to win
What all these votes have in common is that they surely must reveal how ridiculous this winner-takes-all system is.
Electorate send a message on climate change
The Australian electorate have chosen wisely by not choosing at all. The delivery of a hung parliament presents, for the first time in living memory, an opportunity to deal with the substantive policy issues that have been ignored in this campaign. This is something the three conservative independents, Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, […]
Poll bludger: minority government and the rise of the greens
Minority government was a frequent occurrence in the first half of the twentieth century, and has undergone a renaissance as the major parties’ share of the vote has declined in the past two decades.
Crikey Says: Australia’s second climate change election?
How can a hung parliament succeed in pursing any meaningful action on the issue when a newly elected Rudd government with an unprecedented mandate failed so spectacularly?
Victorious Bandt takes the stage to a “making history” mantra
Bandt, who stole a massive 11% swing from Labor candidate Cath Bowtell, declared victory well before the ABC had confirmed the fall of this 106-year-old ALP fiefdom.
It’s just a jump to the Left
And thus, from the most tedious, uninspiring and insulting election campaign in Australian political history, emerges the most fascinating of results.
Time to take back politics
Didn’t like the election campaign? Bad luck — you’re paying for it and you have no choice but to vote for the parties responsible for it. Unless we stop contracting out our politics and ramp up scrutiny of the media.
Bandt says a vote for the Greens is not a vote for Abbott
Greens lower house hope Adam Bandt has rejected Julia Gillard’s claims that a vote for the Greens in Melbourne is effectively a vote for Tony Abbott, telling Crikey he would work hand in glove with the ALP if elected tomorrow.
Keane’s Talking Points: this election is now the Liberals’ to lose
The first two weeks of this campaign evidently started with Gillard being given ground Valium on her cereal every morning. As of today, she’s off the meds…
Keane’s Talking Points: momentum shifts the Liberals’ way
Julia Gillard has to aggressively confront the leaking of alleged Cabinet confidences to Channel Nine and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Crikey Says: Campaign Crikey morning edition: Day 11
“I think Tony Abbott is welcome to have his wife on the campaign trail but Julia Gillard has been subject to some quite nasty attacks by the opposition and in the media. And I’m frankly disgusted by it.”
Crikey Says: The nation has spoken — it said ‘meh’
The nation is collectively suffering through a potentially fatal malaise, and it appears to be contagious.
The nerd vs. the bruiser
The 2010 election is shaping as the least inspirational political clash in decades. The key concern for Labor strategists is whether voters have simply stopped listening to the Prime Minister.
Crikey Says: Tasmanian Labor felled by a nine-year-old
Could Tasmanian Labor be felled by a nine-year-old girl?
Balmain, the birthplace of Labor, taking on a decidedly Green tinge
The knives are starting to appear in the Balmain electorate. If the polls are right, the suburb that gave birth to the Australian Labor Party in 1891 could fall to the Greens in 2011 — a stark symbol of the depth of the voters’ anger with the state government.
Political snippets: The Greens’ increasingly savvy Tas campaign
The Greens are getting much better in the money raising department and now in Tasmania they have grasped the importance of being seen as the underdog. Plus, Garrett’s off the hook and other political tidbits.
Rock rally strikes a chord with the Victorian Liberals
Many MPs are steeped in Melbourne’s music culture, but others instead listen to the bureaucrats who hate its disorderliness, to branch members from the pre-rock era, or to foreign ideologies that see rock as the voice of the devil.
Milne: A defeat of climate hypocrisy and a moment for hope
The Government and its backers will no doubt attempt to brand this as a victory for climate scepticism. But it’s equally a defeat of climate hypocrisy and a moment of hope, says Greens Senator Christine Milne.
