Australian Federal Elections 2025 discussion.

[brad465]

Moderator note-split from

Thoughts on the Trump presidency

As I write this we are in the last hour before insanity starts to rule: I thought that we ought to have a new thread to comment on what happens during the Trump, or Trump/Vance, presidency. Personally, my feeling is that there will be all sorts of chaos at first with Trump trying to carry out...

www.railforums.co.uk

For the second time this week, a right wing opposition party leader has lost their seat in election, as Peter Dutton of the L/N Coalition has lost their seat. Australian Labor Party are projected to win the most seats again; a majority is not clear yet, but once again an election that a few months ago looked a cert for the right/centre right opposition to win has been lost in the wake of Trump doing his thing:

Australian opposition party reeling after Albanese's landslide election win

Anthony Albanese's left-leaning Labor Party has won an outright majority in parliament, according to the latest counting

www.bbc.co.uk

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has lost his seat - ABC​

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The night has gone from bad to worse for Peter Dutton.

Moments ago the ABC declared his Liberal-National coalition had lost the election, and now they say he has lost his seat of Dickson, in Brisbane, to Labor's Ali France.

Labor has won the election - ABC reports​

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Labor has won the election and will form government, either in minority or majority, Australia's national broadcaster the ABC has declared.

 

[Purple Train]

I'm quite surprised by this, though not necessarily disappointed! Both Carney and Albanese have run exactly the same kind of campaign as Labour ran last year - encouraging an anti-opposition vote rather than a pro-government one - and it'll be interesting to see whether they lose popularity as catastrophically as Labour have. I'm cautiously optimistic that Albanese will be able to enact an ambitious programme and some real change, as goodness knows Australia could do with it, but the emphasis is very much on the word "cautious".

 

[Magdalia]

Both Carney and Albanese have run exactly the same kind of campaign as Labour ran last year

I disagree here. There is a significant difference between the UK election and the Canada and Australia elections: the UK came before the US election but Canada and Australia came after. International affairs, especially trade and security, played a much bigger part in Canada and Australia than in the UK.

The next UK election will be after 4 years of President Trump and maybe with a prospect of President Vance: that will make the next contest very different from the UK election in 2024.

 

[sor]

There is perhaps also something to be said about the fact that Australia uses AV for its federal lower house elections, so it is a little more difficult for spoiler parties to get in and split the vote in the way that can happen in the UK or Canada.

It says a lot that Dutton was actually pretty reasonable in his concession speech, apparently quite a turn from the rhetoric of the campaign.

 

[Gloster]

An inconsistent and somewhat chaotic campaign which, despite attempts to avoid the comparison, seemed to be Trump-lite. And a few howlers: being wildly wrong about the price of eggs when the cost of livin is a major theme and when the rise in their price in the US since Trump took power is much talked about. Having a Shadow Minister for Government Efficiency who wore a MAGA cap also worried people. But it really seems that Trump is toxic in many countries and politicians who have shown their admiration for him are going to be in difficulties.

 

[Purple Train]

I disagree here. There is a significant difference between the UK election and the Canada and Australia elections: the UK came before the US election but Canada and Australia came after. International affairs, especially trade and security, played a much bigger part in Canada and Australia than in the UK.

The next UK election will be after 4 years of President Trump and maybe with a prospect of President Vance: that will make the next contest very different from the UK election in 2024.

Indeed, but they were both very much campaigns saying "the opposition will kowtow to Trump" and negative in that regard. I really hope you're right with regard to the next election here...!

 

[edwin_m]

There's also the big difference that Canada and Australia re-elected incumbent parties, though with a new leader in the case of Canada. This has gone against the recent trend of incumbents being rejected, often just because they were unfortunate enough to preside over bad times for reasons they had little control over. Both challengers were moreorless following the Trump playbook, and both lost a big pre-election lead. So I think the Trump factor is important for both, outweighing the trend against incumbency.

In the UK in 2024 the Trump factor probably wasn't too significant. I don't think many people here would have expected Trump to be re-elected later that year, let alone what sort of things he would try to do immediately afterwards, and I don't recall him being mentioned much during the campaign. Had Sunak held on until the last possible date, sometime in January this year I think, the Tories might have lost even more badly for this reason.

 

[brad465]

In the UK in 2024 the Trump factor probably wasn't too significant. I don't think many people here would have expected Trump to be re-elected later that year, let alone what sort of things he would try to do immediately afterwards, and I don't recall him being mentioned much during the campaign. Had Sunak held on until the last possible date, sometime in January this year I think, the Tories might have lost even more badly for this reason.

If they held onto the bitter end they'd have lost very badly, but not because Trump won. If anything Trump's win would have helped the Tories, as Trump wouldn't have actually taken office yet and done any new damage (there was a lot of market and right-wing politician rallying in his President-elect period). What would have cost the Tories even more in this election, was that they dragged it out and made campaigns take place over Christmas and in deep winter, making them look weak and desperate.