Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Australia Re-Elects Albanese
The Australians went to the polls over the week-end, and they re-elected Anthony Albanese as their Prime Minister. They gave his Labor Party an increased majority in the House of Representatives. As in Canada a few days before, this was the result that was not on the cards three months ago. The right-of-center Liberal-National coalition was leading in the polls, and it was theirs to lose. Then, Donald Trump slapped tariffs on the world, and he stabbed Ukraine in the back. This upset the Australian sense of "mateship," while the leader of the coalition was tarred with the Trumpist brush. So, Mr. Albanese gets another three years at the top.
The BBC summed up the result, "It's a remarkable turnaround from the start of the year, when polling put Albanese's popularity at record lows after three years of global economic pain, tense national debate, and growing government dissatisfaction."
The results are still coming in from the rural parts of the country, and overseas military ballots and so on have yet to be counted. That said, the Labor Party has secured a majority of the seats even without those yet-to-be counted ballots.
The House of Representatives has 150 members, meaning 76 is needed for a majority. As of now, the Labor Party has 85, while the coalition has 39. The Greens have no seats yet, and 10 independents have secured a spot. Some 16 seats are still to be determined. And as in Canada, the leader of the right Peter Dutton lost his own seat. This means the Liberal National coalition needs to find a new leader. There have been worse defeats in elections, but this one is bad enough.
Mr. Dutton ran a campaign targeting the "forgotten Australians." This is a standard in opposition politics in every country. People do get left behind when things change, and there is fertile ground to harvest votes from them if one gets things right. Mr. Dutton made petrol stations a main part of his campaign, vowing to make petrol more affordable. It was a big miss.
The ABC found some voters who told them why they did not vote for Mr. Dutton.
"I've never seen such a laughable portfolio of policies . . . worst portfolio anybody's ever brought in Australia," said swinging voter and IT consultant David Thompson.
Lawyer Debra Kruse said, "We have grandchildren who will never be able to buy a house unless they get lots of help . . . I just didn't see anything from the Coalition that would help."
Peter Dwyer "I think the Coalition were very, very unwise to sort of align themselves to a large degree with [Mr Trump] . . . he's proving himself more and more to be a financial instability globally."
This sentiment was echoed by Mr Thompson, who said: "Nobody wanted the craziness that is 'the Donald' in Australia."
What seems to have bothered those Aussies who did not like the Australian Trump label of Mr. Dutton (and one does not think it entirely fair, but close enough) is Mr. Trump went against the idea of the US and Australia being mates. That is a special relationship in Australian society. In the US, the term might be a ride-or-die friend. A mate is the one who gets another mate home after a rough night, the friend who turns up at the hospital and stays three days just to make sure his mate is OK. A mate is as close as two people can get.
A mate does not, out of the blue, slap a tariffs on one's exports. A mate does not insult one in public. A mate knows that whatever trouble there currently is the relationship is more important. Mr. Trump fails the mate-test. Australia feels aggrieved and rightly so.
To paraphrase the Sun newspaper on Mrs. Thatcher's re-election, "It was Trump wot lost it."
© Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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