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| Wrath of the Conned |
SMH on Winners & Losers - first, the Winners:
Bill Shorten He might not become prime minister, but the Opposition Leader has outperformed expectations and looks strongly placed to keep his job... (he's) widely believed to have outperformed Mr Turnbull over the past eight weeks and might yet take the top job in the future.
Nick Xenophon Australia, meet your new Senate king-maker... Turnbull will spend a lot of the next three years negotiating with the Senate crossbench, and Xenophon is likely to be his first call. Already we know he is uncertain on a number of key measures.
Pauline Hanson The controversial former member for Oxley looked almost certain to gain a Senate spot on Saturday night as counting continued... "People want Australian values, they want their culture, they want their way of life..."
Linda Burney ...is set to become the first Indigenous woman elected to the House of Representatives. She paid tribute to the multicultural community and said the area was "back in the hands of Labor" after a loss to the Liberals in 2013.
And the Losers:
The Australian Electoral Commission After the 2013 Western Australia Senate election debacle, Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said voters could be confident of a smooth election process this year...
AP on the new Age of Uncertainty:
Delivering a unified government may be tough... The likeliest scenarios point to a slim coalition victory or a dreaded hung parliament, which could prompt yet another election. Shorten, who surprised most analysts by rallying a higher than expected number of voters to his Labor Party, accused Turnbull of failing to deliver on his promise of a united government. "It is pretty ironic - (Turnbull) was promising rock-solid guarantees of stability..." The uncertainty is troublesome, with Turnbull acknowledging he was worried that any perception of instability while the vote was sorted out could harm Australia's triple-A credit rating.
The Australian renders the Murdochian appraisal:
What we have ... is precisely the sort of inconclusive outcome capable of doing the nation greatest harm. (Turnbull) remains caretaker Prime Minister, hoping to assemble a government with the thinnest of majorities (Shorten) is further from the ultimate prize but strutting triumphant at the damage ... Turnbull is wounded, perhaps fatally, and he must be seen as the architect of his own trauma.
Over the past decade the Coalition was given a masterclass in how to fritter away political capital as Labor knifed leaders and was forced into minority government, before it was subsequently defeated in a landslide. Yet, seemingly inured against these lessons, Mr Turnbull tore down Tony Abbott... It is impossible to overlook what appeared to be vengeance in some of the marginal seat results ... There will be many questions asked about the Coalition’s strategy including the election timing, double dissolution plan, campaign length and campaigning tactics.It should be noted that despite all the torch carrying for Abbott, The Australian at least concedes that the roots of malaise existed before Turnbull's rise:
As our editor-at-large Paul Kelly has argued in his book Triumph and Demise and in these pages over recent times, we face an unravelling crisis in government. “The trust between the political system and the people to sustain ambitious policy may now be severed,” Kelly wrote two years ago when Mr Abbott was prime minister. “Disillusionment in the community may be matched by deadlock in the parliament.”http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/disruption-ahead-as-voters-reject-political-contortions/news-story/01b682920563201e11c2e65dffd6dd46
SMH again on how Marriage Equality will be one of a number of positive policy outcomes forestalled by the poll results:
So unless something gives ... the possibility of that most benign and modest of reforms will be kicked off into the next term ... Australia will continue to lag... behind even Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia.
Despite 70 per cent of Australians supporting marriage equality... Despite many Australians just wanting it to be done with so we can stop talking about it, we will talk about it for years to come. Despite there now being three gay members in the House – and all of them Liberal – the election's big winners are those few who can't abide the gays being wed.
Labor ... The Greens ... Nick Xenophon (oppose) the plebiscite... that likely means 39 votes against a plebiscite in a Senate of 76. It won't matter that Hinch, who supports marriage equality, will back a plebiscite or that Hanson, who opposes equality, will too.
On current numbers, the plebiscite is cooked. The delaying tactic dreamt up by Tony Abbott in a desperate bid to keep his job will mean that Australia will keep both its ban on same-sex couples getting married and the ridiculous compulsory government announcement at straight weddings that gay couples cannot join the club.
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