Yippee!! Election Time!!

[Bob Crowley]

We've got our federal elections coming up on Saturday 21st May. The incumbents are the conservative coalition of Liberals and Nationals, while the main opposition and possible contender for government is the Labor Party (a sort of toned down Republican versus Democratic debate with less melodrama), with a few wild cards thrown in - Clive Palmer's United Australia Party, Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, Bob Katter's Australia Party, the Greens, some independents and the single issue fringe eg. the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, and possibly the Ausralian Christian Party, most likely in Western Australia if they field a contender.

Whoever wins is going to have a few challenges to sort out - massive federal debt, war between Russia and Ukraine, China becoming more assertive in the Asia-Pacific area and possibly taking aggressive action towards Taiwan, North Korea firing off more missiles, the tail end of Covid, our submarine debacle, a real estate market out of control and all the rest.

Just to make it a bit more interesting the leader of the Opposition (ALP) has come down with Covid and is in isolation with four weeks to go.

So I'll vote on Saturday and go to mass on Sunday. At least some things don't change.

 

[Bob Crowley]

Well, the count of the ballot results is being hammered out tonight, but the complex senate voting process (with a voting slip that's about the same length as a roll of toilet paper but twice the width) will no doubt take a while to finish.

From my point of view as a Right to Lifer, I'm disappointed in that the Labor Party could well win, althought the presence of so-called "Teal" candidates was news to me. We've long had "independent" candidates, but suddenly some of them seem to be flavoured as "Teal". So I went looking and came up with the following explanation -

Your questions about the 'teal independents' answered

According to Green (resident ABC election polls expert), the term "teal independents" is a little misleading. North Sydney independent candidate Kylea Tink's placards and website aren't teal at all, for example, they're pink.

But for many of the candidates, the colour choice is consistent: teal, a shade between blue and green.

So there you have it - another useless piece of information I didn't know till tonight.

But I've got other ethical concerns besides right to life - refugees, the sex slavery industry, climate change and so on.

The strongest parties on right to life are the LNP, Katter, One Nation, and United Australia. The ALP (Labor) and the Greens are the worst.

But when it comes to refugees, the strongest parties are Labor, One Nation, United Australia and the Greens.

When it comes to climate change, it's the Greens.

So no matter who you vote for, you're not going to get a party that wears all the ethical hats. It's frustrating.

And then you only get one vote anyway, after standing in line for about 40 minutes. The queue was easily the worst I've seen at our usual polling place, and we've been there quite a number of times as we've lived at the same address for 30 years.

Latest forecast is for a "hung parliament" (that sounds like a good idea sometimes), which means the independents and small parties will hold the balance of power.

We've find out by late tonight I presume.

 

[Bob Crowley]

The Labor Party (ALP) won the election, with the Greens making more of an impact and there are ten independents.

Election 2022 results LIVE: Anthony Albanese sworn in as prime minister; Peter Dutton to run for Liberal Party leadership; Dan Tehan, Karen Andrews consider tilt; PM-elect set to travel to Japan for Quad meeting;

It seems there are still four seats "too close to call".

Anthony Albanese became the ALP prime minister by the close of voting on Saturday and on Monday he was in Tokyo as part of the "Quad" meeting with President Biden, Indian PM Nirendra Modi and Japanese PM Fumio Kishida.

From Marrickville to Tokyo: Anthony Albanese goes down the rabbit hole and emerges on the world stage

Time will tell how this pans out. My bias is that we should be doing a lot more to move closer to Japan, but that's due to my personal thoughts about God's intentions for Australia.

Right to Life supporters like myself are going to find it difficult. To be honest, I don't see much changing until women take up the cudgels. Men are seen as part of the problem. On the other hand refugees might get a better deal.

We'll have to wait and see what happens.