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Saturdays election in New South Wales (NSW), Australias most populous state, represents a further deepening of a nationwide crisis of the two-party system. The Liberal-National Coalition, having governed for the past 12 years, has been thrown out of office, but there was no landslide to the Labor Party.

On Saturday evening, just hours after polling closed, corporate media outlets proclaimed a sweeping Labor victory, but with vote counting continuing today, Labor has still not secured a majority in the Legislative Assembly, the lower house of the state parliament. If, as appears likely, Labor does win a majority, it will be wafer thin, setting the stage for ongoing political instability.

The election took place with the Coalition wracked by intense factional conflicts. Last year, the Liberals were obliterated in the May federal election, registering their worst result in more than 70 years. The same thing occurred in the state of Victoria, where the Liberals were reduced to a rump in last Novembers state election.

The official campaign was characterised by a conspiracy between all major political parties and the media that the burning issues facing ordinary people would not be discussed. The election coincided with the announcement by Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that, as part of the AUKUS alliance, $368 billion would be spent on nuclear-powered submarines for the accelerating war drive against China.

This gargantuan sum will be gouged from government spending both in the states and nationally. Rising inflation, interest rates, job cuts and wage suppression will be the real agenda for the Labor administration in NSW, whether it is a majority or minority government.

Defeated NSW Coalition Premier Dominic Perrottet was a widely reviled figure. A representative of the far-right faction of the Liberal Party, he did not win an election as premier. Instead, he was installed as leader of the government after the previous premier, Gladys Berejiklian, was ousted in a manufactured scandal involving the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Perrottets signature measure was to end all public health restrictions aimed at containing the pandemic. This program resulted in the deaths of more than 22,000 people across the country last year, the majority of them in NSW and Victoria, where Labor Premier Daniel Andrews collaborated closely with Perrottet in the profit-driven reopening.

Notwithstanding its completely bipartisan character, Perrottet was the face of the end of health measures. Even prior to becoming premier, it is known that he bridled against any restrictions that would impact on business activities. Upon becoming leader, Perrottet proudly proclaimed that he would take his advice from economists and business, not medical experts.

Perrottet also confronted the states nurses, teachers and other public sector workers when they took multiple strike action over staffing, wages and intolerable workloads. The Liberal premier sought to impose major pay cuts on workers who had not long before been hailed as the pandemics heroes. This offensive occurred as the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades began. Workers are increasingly unable to afford the basic essentials as housing costs, electricity and food prices soar.

At the same time, Perrottet rejected any measures to address the breakdown of the public healthcare system, including nurse-to-patient ratios. This provoked the first mass nurses strikes in decades.

Under these conditions, the most striking aspect of the election is that Labor picked up only a fraction of the widespread opposition to the government. Chris Minns, Labors leader and new premier, marched in lockstep with Perrottet on every substantive issue, from the pandemic to the need for budget austerity.

Across the state, the Liberal Party primary vote fell by 4.7 percent. The traditional party of bourgeois rule received just 27.6 percent of the primary vote. The vote for the Nationals, the regional and rural-based coalition partner of the Liberals, fell by 2.2 percent to just 7.3 percent of the total.

Labors primary, however, increased by only 3.7 percent from the historic lows of the previous three elections, which it lost by substantial margins. With Labors primary at around 37 percent, it and the Coalition received only 71.9 percent of first-preference votes. That is a substantial fall on the 74.9 percent in the 2019 NSW election.

Labor was able to win some support in marginal electorates on the basis of intense hostility to the Coalition. An Australian Broadcasting Corporation analysis has shown that several of the seats that swung to Labor had a disproportionate number of public sector workers, underscoring the ongoing determination of that section of the working class to fight against the onslaught on jobs, wages and conditions.

In Penrith and Camden, two western Sydney seats that Labor won from the Liberals, 13 percent of the population is employed in the public sector. In the southern Sydney seat of Heathcote, which Labor also secured, one in six voters are in the public sector.

At the same time however, there were notable swings against Labor in a number of the safe seats that once made up its working-class base.

For instance, in the southwest Sydney electorate of Cabramatta, there was a 7.9 percent swing against Labor. The Liberal primary vote there only increased by 2 percent. In nearby Liverpool, Labors vote was down by 7.4 percent.

Political crisis

Those results point to a growing hostility among workers to Labor, and a nascent recognition that it is not a lesser-evil to the Liberal Party. These sentiments have deepened since the election of a federal Labor government last May.

In last years election, Labor campaigned on the slogan of a better future. As soon as it scraped into office on the back of a Liberal Party collapse, Albaneses administration proclaimed the need for working people to make sacrifices. It has slashed funding for health and education while pressing ahead with tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and unprecedented military spending in preparation for war.

In an analysis of the result today, the Australian Financial Reviews John Black stated that some of the biggest increases in Labors vote were among wealthier cohorts. It was solidifying its status as the high-income party of Australian politics, while traditional battlers, were increasingly no longer supporting Labor.

That is part of an historic shift, with the Labor Partys erstwhile base in the working class collapsing. Since the 1980s, Labor governments, in partnership with the trade unions, have spearheaded the deregulation of the economy, the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs and a decades-long suppression of wages.

Notably, despite the decline in the two-party vote, other capitalist parties which falsely posture as an alternative did not pick up substantial support. Statewide, the Greens primary vote remained virtually stagnant, increasing by just 0.4 percent, and did not exceed 10 percent of the total.

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Over the past 15 years, the Greens have shifted dramatically to the right, joining Labor in de facto coalitions at the state and federal level that have cut wages and social services, while doing nothing to address climate change. The Greens vote is almost entirely concentrated in the affluent inner-city of Sydney.

The so-called Teal independents, who won several seats in the federal election by raising environmental issues in middle-class areas traditionally held by the Liberals, also gained no substantial support. Nor did the far-right populist parties, such as One Nation. Its primary vote was up just 0.7 percent, to 1.8 percent of the total, despite substantial publicity and media promotion.

The vote for others, that is smaller parties and independents whose campaigns were generally ignored by the corporate press, increased by 3.9 percent to almost 15 percent of the total. That underscores the growing search for a political alternative by broad sections of the population, who are being politicised by the social crisis, the experience of the pandemic and the ever-more evident danger of a major war.

The result underscores the historic crisis of the Liberal Party. Perrottet announced his resignation after the defeat. Deputy leader Matt Kean, considered his presumptive replacement, declared that he will not contest the leadership. It remains unclear who will be Liberal leader.

Labor is now in office in every state and territory, bar Tasmania, and governs federally.

But that is a crisis, not only for the Coalition, but for Labor and the ruling elite. The two-party system, used to confine social and political discontent within safe channels, is blowing apart, raising the spectre of new oppositional political movements emerging to fill the vacuum.

The corporate elite, moreover, is depending almost wholly on Labor and its union backers to impose an agenda of sweeping attacks on social and living conditions, amid a major crisis of the global capitalist system.

Some workers voted for Minns to express their hostility to Perrottets attacks on public sector pay and conditions. But Labor has rejected any pay rises in line with the rate of inflation. It has declared, moreover, that any nominal pay increases, in reality, real wage cuts, will be paid for by increased productivity. That means a stepped-up assault on working conditions.

In his acceptance speech, Minns made clear that the right-wing bipartisanship that marked his time in opposition will continue in government. Minns expressed his admiration for Perrottet. He hailed the election campaign as a model of civility and a battle of great ideas. The unprecedented unanimity between the leaders of the two major parties arises because they have identical programs.

A colourless careerist politician, who has avoided stating his opinions for the past 20 years, Minns is now tasked with escalating major attacks on the working class. That sets the stage for a further growth of the class struggle, directly against Labor and the trade unions.

The situation underscores the importance of the campaign waged by the Socialist Equality Party. The SEP alone told workers the truth: that the election would resolve nothing, and that whichever parties took office would do the bidding of the financial elite.

The SEP raised the critical issues of war, austerity and opposition to let it rip COVID policies. Above all, it sought to use the election campaign to take forward the fight for a new revolutionary leadership in the working class. That is the critical issue that must be taken up by workers, young people and serious layers of the middle class.

Join the SEP campaign against anti-democratic electoral laws!

The working class must have a political voice, which the Australian ruling class is seeking to stifle with this legislation.

Go here to see the original:
Australia: NSW election sees further crisis of Liberals, but no landslide to Labor - WSWS

OTTAWA - Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is set to table a federal budget in the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon, which a federal source says will include plans to go after predatory lending and more details on dental care as part of a pitch to make life more affordable.

The government official, who was granted anonymity to discuss matters that will not be public until the budget is released, said the federal Liberals intend to amend the Criminal Code to lower the amount of interest legally allowed to be charged.

Predatory lending often involves short-term loans at sky-high high interest rates. Often marketed to people in financially precarious situations, they can create a cycle of debt tough to escape.

The Criminal Code currently caps the legal interest rate at 60 per cent effective annual interest, which has been the case since it was set in 1980 a time when the key overnight rate set by the Bank of Canada was 21 per cent, compared to the 4.5 per cent it is today.

There is an exemption in most provinces for payday loans of up to $1,500 for 62 days or less, which means in some provinces the maximum annualized percentage rate is over 400 per cent.

The source said the 2023 budget will propose the criminal interest rate be lowered to 35 per cent, which is what it is in Quebec, where courts have ruled anything higher would violate provincial consumer protection legislation. As a result, payday loan options there are limited.

The move grows out of consultations announced in the 2021 budget, which did not address payday loans directly. The source said Tuesdays budget will propose consultations on narrowing the exemptions to the criminal interest rate when it comes to payday loans.

Getting tough on predatory lending is one way the Liberals are expected to portray this budget as offering to help vulnerable Canadians struggling with the cost of living, while balancing the need as strongly signalled by Freeland in her pre-budget speeches to show fiscal restraint.

Click to expand

Another will be offering more details on the dental-care plan, with the federal government source confirming Tuesdays budget will include a meaningful investment on that front.

Last year, the Liberals committed to some form of federal dental-care coverage for low-income Canadians in its confidence-and-supply agreement with the New Democrats.

The deal means the NDP agreed to support the minority Liberal government through key votes until 2025 including on federal budgets in exchange for movement on shared priorities.

The Liberals were unable to set up a federal dental-care program in time for the first deadline, but brought in an interim benefit last fall for children under the age of 12 in low-income households.

The confidence-and-supply agreement stipulates that dental care must be expanded to those who are under the age of 18, seniors or people with disabilities in low-income households by the end of this year and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he expects the money in the budget.

The deal also commits the Liberals to passing legislation on a national pharmacare program by the end of 2023 although theres been no sign of movement on that yet.

Lower-income Canadians can expect another cash benefit to help them pay their bills, while companies looking to mine critical minerals, make batteries and electric vehicles or produce clean electricity will see a host of measures to incentivize investment in their projects.

The budget will also extend the temporary boost to the GST rebate for low-income Canadians, but will frame the payment as help with the rising cost of groceries.

It would provide up to $234 for a single person with no children, $467 for a couple with two children and $225 for a senior citizen, the same amounts as the government offered with the temporary doubling of the GST rebate last fall.

The budget is also expected to increase the withdrawal limit for a registered education savings plan from $5,000 to $8,000.

As The Canadian Press first reported last week, the budget will also outline the federal governments plan to work with regulatory agencies to go after hidden or unexpected surcharges tacked on to the prices of goods and services.

The Liberals are also expected to make significant investments in clean energy and technology.

The Fall Economic Statement in November began Canadas attempt to respond to the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States. That policy, pushed by President Joe Biden, injects more than US$370 billion into clean technology and climate change policies, including some significant subsidies for companies that make renewable energy and carbon capture and storage systems.

In November, Freeland promised investment tax credits for hydrogen production and some clean tech, such as renewable electricity like solar and wind power, heat pumps and industrial electric vehicles.

Several sources, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the budget, said there will be new tax credits for the green economy. One of those sources described the tax credits as significant.

They are intended to spur investment in the critical mineral industry and along the electric vehicle supply chain. That would include, for example, battery components and assembly.

During her pre-budget speeches, Freeland insisted the budget will show fiscal restraint and warned the government wont be able to compensate every Canadian for the rise in prices.

She has to balance all the spending demands with the risk the economy is going to take a turn for the worse this year. High interest rates could push Canada into a recession, which would affect tax revenues the government relies on to finance spending.

And with inflation a top concern for the Bank of Canada, the federal government is facing pressure to not fuel it further with high spending.

Freeland is expected to table the budget in the House of Commons at 4 p.m. EDT and deliver remarks on the document.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 28, 2023.

See the original post:
Liberals to go after predatory lending in todays budget, invest in dental care plan - Toronto Star

Liberals are the book banners

It is well known that progressive liberals, aka, socialists, are the ones known for banning books, just as the Nazi Socialist, Adolf Hitler, the Soviet Socialist, Joseph Stalin, and the Chinese Communist, Mao Zedong, banned books. At some libraries, our socialists have banned the likes of Mark Twain, Harper Lee, Laura Ingalls Wilder, John Steinbeck and even poor Dr. Seuss (search books banned in California).

Its a matter of sensitivity, they say; that is, the mewling sensitivity of 21st Century America. Other books, here and abroad, are being rewritten with offensive words being replaced, words like mother, father, sister, brother and fat, such as the current rewrite of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl. Indeed, Harry Potter is under attack for that author voicing her opinion on transgenderism.

Get more from the Citrus County Chronicle

Also, like the regimes of Stalin and Mao, history is being not only rewritten, but turned into fiction and taught as fact. I do wonder when theyll get to Herodotus and Livy.

Republicans are not the ones banning those books. If, however, Republicans wish to limit little childrens exposure to what is essentially pornography and books geared toward sexual exploitation of children, then a clarion call goes out, at which point progressives fall in unison to the ground, flop around like flounders, foaming at the mouth yet able to scream, Republicans are burning books! Tsk.

Oh, but the Roberto Clemente book was banned! No, it wasnt. That childrens book was reviewed and approved, although Hakeem Jeffries would have it otherwise to advance a false charge of racism. Now, in a tit-for-tat, some progressives would ban the Bible, because parts can be racy. (Would they ban the Quran? Its the Old Testament plus Mohammed.) Those parts concern adult instruction for Jews, Christians and Muslims. I doubt, even if an eight-year-old could and would wade through The Song of Solomon, he or she would notice it.

Otherwise, if anyone is looking for a good book to read, I strongly recommend Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as well as her sequel, But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes. If some of our new state residents are interested in Florida history, Bubble in the Sun, by Christopher Knowlton is good, as is Shadow Country, by Peter Matthiessen, if those books havent been banned by progressive friends.

Excerpt from:
Liberals are the book banners | Letters to the Editor | chronicleonline ... - Citrus County Chronicle

OTTAWA Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is set to table a federal budget in the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon, which a federal source says will include plans to go after predatory lending and more details on dental care as part of a pitch to make life more affordable.

The government official, who was granted anonymity to discuss matters that will not be public until the budget is released, said the federal Liberals intend to amend the Criminal Code to lower the amount of interest legally allowed to be charged.

Predatory lending often involves short-term loans at sky-high high interest rates. Often marketed to people in financially precarious situations, they can create a cycle of debt tough to escape.

The Criminal Code currently caps the legal interest rate at 60 per cent effective annual interest, which has been the case since it was set in 1980 a time when the key overnight rate set by the Bank of Canada was 21 per cent, compared to the 4.5 per cent it is today.

There is an exemption in most provinces for payday loans of up to $1,500 for 62 days or less, which means in some provinces the maximum annualized percentage rate is over 400 per cent.

The source said the 2023 budget will propose the criminal interest rate be lowered to 35 per cent, which is what it is in Quebec, where courts have ruled anything higher would violate provincial consumer protection legislation. As a result, payday loan options there are limited.

The move grows out of consultations announced in the 2021 budget, which did not address payday loans directly. The source said Tuesday's budget will propose consultations on narrowing the exemptions to the criminal interest rate when it comes to payday loans.

Getting tough on predatory lending is one way the Liberals are expected to portray this budget as offering to help vulnerable Canadians struggling with the cost of living, while balancing the need as strongly signalled by Freeland in her pre-budget speeches to show fiscal restraint.

Story continues

Another will be offering more details on the dental-care plan, with the federal government source confirming Tuesday's budget will include a "meaningful" investment on that front.

Last year, the Liberals committed to some form of federal dental-care coverage for low-income Canadians in its confidence-and-supply agreement with the New Democrats.

The deal means the NDP agreed to support the minority Liberal government through key votes until 2025 including on federal budgets in exchange for movement on shared priorities.

The Liberals were unable to set up a federal dental-care program in time for the first deadline, but brought in an interim benefit last fall for children under the age of 12 in low-income households.

The confidence-and-supply agreement stipulates that dental care must be expanded to those who are under the age of 18, seniors or people with disabilities in low-income households by the end of this year and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he expects the money in the budget.

The deal also commits the Liberals to passing legislation on a national pharmacare program by the end of 2023 although there's been no sign of movement on that yet.

Lower-income Canadians can expect another cash benefit to help them pay their bills, while companies looking to mine critical minerals, make batteries and electric vehicles or produce clean electricity will see a host of measures to incentivize investment in their projects.

The budget will also extend the temporary boost to the GST rebate for low-income Canadians, but will frame the payment as help with the rising cost of groceries.

It would provide up to $234 for a single person with no children, $467 for a couple with two children and $225 for a senior citizen, the same amounts as the government offered with the temporary doubling of the GST rebate last fall.

The budget is also expected to increase the withdrawal limit for a registered education savings plan from $5,000 to $8,000.

As The Canadian Press first reported last week, the budget will also outline the federal government's plan to work with regulatory agencies to go after hidden or unexpected surcharges tacked on to the prices of goods and services.

The Liberals are also expected to make significant investments in clean energy and technology.

The Fall Economic Statement in November began Canada's attempt to respond to the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States. That policy, pushed by President Joe Biden, injects more than US$370 billion into clean technology and climate change policies, including some significant subsidies for companies that make renewable energy and carbon capture and storage systems.

In November, Freeland promised investment tax credits for hydrogen production and some clean tech, such as renewable electricity like solar and wind power, heat pumps and industrial electric vehicles.

Several sources, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the budget, said there will be new tax credits for the green economy. One of those sources described the tax credits as "significant."

They are intended to spur investment in the critical mineral industry and along the electric vehicle supply chain. That would include, for example, battery components and assembly.

During her pre-budget speeches, Freeland insisted the budget will show fiscal restraint and warned the government won't be able to compensate every Canadian for the rise in prices.

She has to balance all the spending demands with the risk the economy is going to take a turn for the worse this year. High interest rates could push Canada into a recession, which would affect tax revenues the government relies on to finance spending.

And with inflation a top concern for the Bank of Canada, the federal government is facing pressure to not fuel it further with high spending.

Freeland is expected to table the budget in the House of Commons at 4 p.m. EDT and deliver remarks on the document.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 28, 2023.

Nojoud Al Mallees and Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

Originally posted here:
Liberals to go after predatory lending in today's budget, invest in dental care plan - Yahoo Canada Finance

A bloodbath it wasnt, even if that was the word the Sunday Telegraph chose for its front page. At the end of Saturday nights counting in the NSW election, the Coalition government had definitely lost eight seats in the Legislative Assembly, and possibly two or three more from among those still in doubt.

While the votes recorded a hefty swing away from the government to Labor and independents alike, the actual damage was relatively restrained, as if mimicking an election campaign and a polling night finale conducted with a friendly cordiality that you wish all politicians could adopt.

This was a change of government, but no wipeout. After ruling New South Wales for fifty-one of the seventy years between 1941 and 2011, Labor will resume control in 2023 with an agenda that has generated little excitement or alarm. Its leader Chris Minns, like Anthony Albanese, made himself a small target and let the anti-Coalition wave sweeping Australia do the rest.

At the end of the night, Antony Green estimated Labor had won 54.3 per cent of the two-party preferred vote a swing of 6.3 per cent declaring it has secured a majority in the new Assembly. While that is the most likely result, it was a bit premature, and yesterday the ABC withdrew it, and Green revised his numbers to list fourteen of the ninety-three Assembly seats as still in doubt.

My own list is a bit shorter. On my count, Labor has won forty-five seats just two short of a majority and leads in another four seats too close to call. The Coalition has won twenty-eight seats, and leads in another four that it will probably retain.

The Greens have held on to their three (Balmain, only just), the three ex-Shooters MPs easily held their seats as independents despite a nasty campaign by Clubs NSW against Murray MP Helen Dalton, who has spearheaded the push for gambling reform as did three others elected as independents in 2019. And teal independents hold narrow leads over Coalition MPs in two seats.

But we are only at half-time in the counting. In a reform we should probably welcome, the NSW Electoral Commission ordered that counting end at 10.30 pm on polling night, recognising that its staff had been working all day beforehand. And yesterday was free of counting. On the ABCs estimate, the votes counted for so far amount to just 50.2 per cent of enrolled voters.

About 90 per cent usually vote, which means 40 per cent of the votes are still to be counted. And the votes to come include the vast bulk of some 888,000 pre-poll votes, and up to 540,000 postal votes. As a rule, they usually lift the votes of the Coalition and Greens at the expense of Labor and independents and sometimes that changes results.

Antony Greens pendulum showed the Coalition going into the election with forty-six seats, Labor thirty-eight, with six independents and three Greens. So far the Coalition has lost eight seats, and ten others remain in doubt. Labor has relieved it of seven seats Camden, East Hills, Monaro, Parramatta, Penrith, Riverstone and South Coast while the mayor of Northern Beaches, Michael Regan, won the blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Wakehurst as an independent with a phenomenal swing of 27 per cent.

My list of seats in doubt includes three in which Labor leads the Liberals Terrigal (with 51.27 per cent of the two-party vote), Ryde (50.67) and Miranda (50.35) and three where the Liberals lead Labor: Holsworthy (50.80), Oatley (50.40) and Goulburn (50.33).

There is also the strange case of Kiama, where MP Gareth Ward, who is legally blind and albino, has been suspended from parliament and thrown out of the Liberal party after being charged with separate counts of sexual assault and indecent assault, both against other men. He stood as an independent, and Kiama Liberals ignored their official candidate and rallied behind him. The official two-party figures show him trailing Labor (51.90), but later first-preference figures suggest hes gone ahead.

Independents lead the Liberals in Wollondilly (51.73) and Pittwater (50.06), while the Liberals lead in Willoughby (50.69). My best guess is that postal votes will help the Liberals hang on to most of these ten seats, but Labor will win enough to end up with a majority of about three seats, similar to Anthony Albaneses majority in the House of Representatives.

The actual votes in the first half of counting were: Labor 37.1 per cent, Coalition 34.8, Greens 10.1, independents 8.8 and others 9.2. The high vote for others is worth noting, because unlike the federal and Victorian elections, there werent that many other candidates. Yet instead of the 2 or 3 per cent they polled in those elections, this time the minor candidates kept polling 5 to 10 per cent, sometimes more.

Preferences are optional in New South Wales, so they matter less and both the Coalition and One Nation made a point of urging their voters to just vote 1. Suit yourselves, guys, but preferences do help to win seats. If Labor wins a majority, it will certainly be due to preferences from Greens voters and others.

Its far too early to call the final outcome in the Legislative Council, but on the votes counted on Saturday night, the swing was big enough to give Labor a chance of being able to cobble together a majority of left-wing parties, including the Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice, on key issues. But its more likely that the new Council will be evenly split between left and right.

In my view, this is not a result that calls for a lot of analysis. Democratic governments the world over tend to have a limited life span. As former Victorian premier Dick Hamer put it, Every decision you make, you make an enemy. And some will remain enemies until the day you die. Eventually, more than 50 per cent of voters will be persuaded that it is worth giving the other side a turn, and the government is out.

New South Wales has been generally a Labor state in our lifetimes. The turning point came two days after Australia entered the second world war: Labor MPs ganged up to overthrow the dictatorial demagogue Jack Lang and install the cautious, efficient and likeable Bill (later Sir William) McKell as their leader. McKell led them to a landslide win in 1941, and they stayed in power until 1965. Labor governments in Sydney tended to follow his example: play safe, sometimes play favourites and, above all, keep the voters on side. They are rarely radical.

Since 1941 the Coalition has had just three spells in power, of which this was the longest. The outgoing government stood out for its massive public works program, especially in Sydney, encompassing both roads and public transport, but also for the borrowings that funded it and for the relatively high turnover of leaders and ministers as a result of minor but damaging problems with the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

But it was a government of reformers. While its Coalition partners in Canberra failed to tackle climate change seriously, it was out front in leading the transition to a renewables economy. In recent months, its advocacy of a cashless gaming card enabling problem gamblers to set a limit on their losses had the potential to be the most important gambling reform Australia has seen. Unfortunately, Labor is under the thumb of the clubs lobby and plans to run only a token trial applying the card to 500 of the 90,000 poker machines in the state.

This was a government open to ideas and reform very different from the federal Coalition under John Howard and since, which, with its media partner Murdoch, has specialised in manufacturing issues it could use to try to wedge Labor (of which the phenomenally expensive nuclear submarines will be perhaps the most damaging long-term consequence).

All that said, the fall of the Perrottet government is a huge blow to the Coalition nationally. Its clear that the Liberal brand name has suffered from the miserable record of its nine years in federal office. Tasmania is now the only government left on its side, with Labor controlling every other government bigger than a local council. I covered this in some detail in an earlier article and wont repeat the argument here.

But its conclusion must be underlined. Since Daniel Andrews was elected as premier of Victoria in 2014, we have been in a pro-Labor cycle that has changed almost every government in the country, and shows no signs of slowing. The Victorian election, which should at least have given a start to the next pro-Coalition cycle, instead revealed a Liberal Party lost in the doldrums. Now a government that was arguably the best the Coalition has produced in this century has been thrown out of office.

This could just be cyclical, but I dont think so. The Liberals federal leadership requires a bold reformer, a young Menzies or Whitlam, to bring it back into the mainstream of Australias changing values. Instead it has Peter Dutton, a business-as-usual leader who has done nothing to reposition the party, and sees no need to.

Apart from households becoming poorer as prices grow so much faster than wages, no one issue dominated this election. The swing was erratic from seat to seat, but more or less statewide, although stronger in Sydney than in the bush. Even in the classic two-party contests, massive swings from the Coalition were recorded in some seats: 15 per cent in Parramatta and South Coast (two of Labors gains) and in Miranda (one of those it hopes to win) and 18 per cent in Kogarah, the southern Sydney seat of incoming premier Chris Minns. In the seven seats Labor has clearly gained, the average swing was 10.8 per cent.

Yet some seats, mostly in the bush, swung the other way. And the Coalition looks like retaining six of its eight most marginal seats. Upper Hunter (where Labor needed a swing of only 0.5 per cent) swung to the Nationals. Goulburn (3.1), Willoughby (3.3), Tweed (5.0), Winston Hills (5.7) and Holsworthy (6.0) all look likely to end up staying with their present owners, if only just.

There were some interesting outcomes in the count:

The teal independents just missed out. The federal election saw them win four seats in New South Wales and come close in several others. But while Judy Hannan (a former Liberal candidate who insists shes not a teal) looks well-placed in Wollondilly, the other four Climate 200 candidates in Sydney look likely to fall just short.

This reflects the real differences between state and federal Liberals on climate action and integrity watchdogs, as well as state laws that restrict funding for electoral newcomers. But it follows a similar outcome in Victoria, suggesting that some voters feel the teals are needed less in state parliaments than federally.

The Greens also missed out. They seem to have held their three existing seats although Antony Green still classes Balmain as in doubt but didnt come remotely close to winning any others. Their upper house vote was just 9.1 per cent, enough for two seats of the twenty-one, but crushing their hopes of winning a third. In only two state seats in Sydney are the Greens genuine contenders, compared with nine in Melbourne.

The southeast of the state, which voted en bloc for the Coalition in 2019, went almost entirely against it this time. The Liberals lost Bega last year at a by-election after Andrew Constance stepped down to run for the federal seat of Gilmore (and lose narrowly). Now they have lost South Coast and Kiama along the coast, while inland, the Nationals lost Monaro and the Liberals are trailing in Wollondilly.

Monaro could be a microcosm of the Coalitions years in office. Most of its voters live in and around Queanbeyan, across the border from Canberra. At the 2011 election, energetic young National John Barilaro wrested it from popular Labor minister Steve Whan. In 2015 Whan tried to come back, but lost narrowly. In 2019, without Whan to compete with, deputy premier Barilaro had a massive victory. But then he tried to move to Canberra, met strong resistance, declared war on koalas, publicly admitted he was struggling with mental health issues, and ultimately quit politics. On Saturday Whan returned to win the seat in a 15 per cent swing.

Speaking of the war on koalas, one of the most unusual contests was in Port Macquarie, a hot spot in the battle for lebensraum between developers and koalas. In 2020 the towns MP Leslie Williams quit the Nationals over Barilaros reckless and unreasonable behaviour and defected to the Liberals.

On Saturday the two Coalition partners faced off, and the Port Macquarie voters unambiguously chose their pro-koala MP over her National Party challenger. Lets hope that war is now over.

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