Australia’s about to vote.

Most don’t know there is an election in Australia on Saturday 18^th may. This week. 
The current PM is Scott Morrison. We got rid of Malcolm Turnbull 7 months ago. Scott Morrison was seen as a compromise candidate between the factions in the Australia Liberal party but he seems to have been a deep cover conservative. The Australian Liberals are on the right; we never gave away the terms liberal & progressive to the loony left. The Liberals do have a left faction derogatorily called ‘wets’. The conservatives call themselves ‘drys’.

The Liberal party never has a full majority in Parliament to rules in coalition with the National Party a rural political party.
In the Senate there are several right of centre parties:
The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party: gun lobby.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation: Nationalist.
Australian Conservatives: Cory Bernardi [I’m a member].
United Australia Party: Mining magnates.
Liberal Democrats: libertarian. Note: The party name libertarian is taken by a leftist and locked up.

These balance the greens in the Senate.

On the opposite side the major party is the Australian Labor party. Note the American spelling of labor that was intentional back in 1890. The leader is Bill Shorten a unionist that prone to really dumb statements. Like this one from 2012.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2012/apr/27/bill-shorten-loyal-politician-australian

Labor is promising the world and waffling about how to pay for it. They have actually proposed new taxes on land, pensioners, resource industries.

The liberal Party is running three advertising themes:
“The BILL the country can’t afford.” {playing on Shortens name. }
“We have delivered Jobs, stability and lower taxes; lets not reverse course now.”
“Don’t let the Greens control the balance of power.”

One building association is running an anti-union ad that is not counted as election ads but is very good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr41LpAsnio
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai7IcK6T64o
The left is screaming about it. Its effective. The legislation they are talk about has the effect similar to right to work laws in the USA.

Last month the polls have Labor winning with a small swing which means the Coalition is actually wining. The polls are always wrong in the direction of the left. However the latest Polls show the liberal leader in the lead with 4 days to go. There is also record prepolling which is usually a good sign for the coalition. Conservatives are decided and vote early. The left generally vote at the last minute.

Australia has central voter rolls that are hard to manipulate. We have paper polls that are signed when you pick them up as your names crossed off. There is a strong ethos of political neutrality in the electoral commission. Voter fraud is very hard. People try and fail. About a dozen people, mostly new parties and Americans over here to help the left, get charged and fined or jailed each election. Pauline Hanson has done time in jail but won appeals.

The polls are open now for prepolling. The Main election day is Saturday. Most polling places are schools. The schools generally hold a sausage sizzle and fund raising fete at the polling place. By the time the Queue gets to the door your on your second sausage sandwich. Why Americans never do polls on a weekend is the greatest mystery of US politics?

Normally the capital Canberra goes left with only one liberal, Zed Seselja, a friend, winning but with labor winning all the other seats. This year it may be different.
The local government is controlled by Labor and the greens in coalition. As a green house response they have built a light rail down Canberra’s main north side high way. To make this work they have scrapped half of the bus routes and discontinued all school buses.
They also redesigned the main bus interchange at Civic, the cities business centre. The idea was that its going to be a wonderful new system launched the month of the election to win votes at the national level. This is their logo. 

Nothing works!
No one seems to have checked what proportion of labor voters used the school buses or the private schools. Over 50%.
The bus routes don’t connect so people are half hour late to work or school.
The first month is free so the tram and buses are full and the transport ministry is broke. 
In the process they forgot to pay for proper accreditation for drivers and maintenance staff so that’s expired. So they’re short handed.
You need to cross busy roads to catch the tram, it is in the centre median strip, several people have been clipped by cars already.
The drop off points for most buses and civic are 140 m, across a busy highway, from the main bus everyone wants to catch.
The stated intention is to make people walk, cycle or run for the bus more. That’s open policy! The active part of the logo.
Worse still, the transport minister is just saying:
“You’ll get used to it. Plan your trip better and leave earlier.”
Her staff is calling people who can’t run for the bus lazy. Its a political disaster on the eve of an election. The news papers have run out of synonyms for arrogance.

My guess is that for the first time in years there will be two or more Canberra liberals in the Australian Senate and House. Hopefully Scott Morrison will win. That will also give him the authority to get rid of the remaining wets.