Had he had a moment, between holding a successful election campaign, traveling to Tokyo for a meeting with world leaders less than 48 hours later, and then to Fiji, Penny Wong might have stopped to consider the turns and turns of politics.
Thirteen years ago, as Kevin Rudd’s Climate Change Minister, she worked for two nights at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, taking energy naps on an inflatable mattress, trying to push the case. of Australia for international action on climate change. .
It didn’t happen, of course. Negotiations collapsed sharply by their then prime minister in an immortal quote captured by David Marr in his quarterly essay, Power Trip, as “those fucking Chinese are trying to hurt us.”
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This week, the newly minted Foreign Minister Wong was on the world stage. This time he was not trying to convince the rest of the world to do anything about climate change.
She was trying to persuade the rest of the world that a new government would do something about Australia’s own unfortunate history in the interim period, and put an end to the previous government’s willingness to do with an international climate agreement what Rudd accused China to do in 2009.
It has been a week in which the new government has not only had to put its mark on a very different international strategic environment from the one it faced in 2007.
He had to start getting rid of all those positions he took when he approached the Coalition as part of his small campaign strategy.
Foreign Secretary-General Penny Wong makes a speech while visiting Fiji. (Supplied by: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade)
Unedifying spectacle and a discordant revelation
For the Coalition, there has been the unedifying spectacle of parliamentarians and senators, both those who survived and those who did not, arose to say that the problem was that voters did not understand their policies or that they personally did not they believed it. in the policies his government has pursued for nearly a decade. Alternatively, they happily proceeded to do the day-to-day politics as if nothing remarkable had happened last Saturday.
It was hard not to conclude that the Liberals have learned nothing from the election, continuing the sometimes idiotic mantras, with the same chutzpah to which we have become accustomed.
Less than 24 hours before the close of voting, reports emerged that ships carrying asylum seekers had been intercepted, one off the coast of Sri Lanka and one on Christmas Island, by the Border Force.
Scott Morrison ordered the Australian Border Force to publish an interception of a ship suspected of being an asylum seeker on election day. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
Scott Morrison was more than happy to confirm this at the doorstep on Election Day, later backed by a Border Force statement that, as revealed on Friday by ABC Defense Correspondent Andrew Greene , was under the instructions of the (outgoing) Prime Minister’s Office. This statement was then used to justify sending text messages to voters warning them that the only way to secure the border was to vote liberal.
The revelation came with all those nasty press conferences over the years, starting with Morrison, where ministers mainly insisted that they could not comment “on water issues.”
In his political desperation, the now former Prime Minister was even willing to put aside the approach he had taken, which had first marked him when the Coalition took over the government in 2013.
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Many members of Morrison’s inner circle have lost their seats in this election. But his closest political ally, Stuart Robert, was on the radio on Friday morning rejecting the idea that the Border Force’s order to issue the statement had violated conventions and the proper process.
He was unable to comment, he said, “for not being involved, but I think all Australians understand that Labor under history is incredibly weak on the arrival of ships.”
Thus, even after being in office for almost a decade, the best thing a former coalition cabinet minister could do when faced with the appalling politicization of a process that his own side had described during long as a sacred writing, it was to prosecute a case against the government before his government that had just lost the election.
As if the Coalition had not only been devastated in his heart and there was a reason for a pause, for reflection, for some indication that voters might have sent a message.
The amazing part of the story
In the western districts of Victoria, the former headquarters of Malcolm Fraser of Wannon, owned by Dan Tehan, has been faltering on the verge of being taken over by a young independent, Alex Dyson.
Psychologists predict that Tehan will eventually prevail, only. If he does, it will be the only seat left of a former Liberal prime minister – other than the last incumbent – who has not been lost by the party.
The seats of Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott, John Howard, Billy McMahon (same area, rebuilt electorate), John Gorton and Bob Menzies are now occupied by Labor or independents.
The party has not only lost traditions. These are the votes of the people who once funded the party. These are the votes of people who are from the business world.
It seems that the Liberal Party is no longer the business party, but a group of voters that is difficult to clearly define in a large number of seats across the country, but not in the cities.
The focus on the “blue green” independents in last Saturday’s election as the most conspicuous indicators of how the poll has transformed Australian politics tends to overshadow all other things that happened that day.
Overall, the Coalition saw a 5.3% swing against it, according to ABC’s Antony Green: a change of more than 4.6% against Labor. in 2013 or against John Howard in 2007.
The surprising part of the story, though, is that the work didn’t gain anything in net terms from that. In fact, there was a marginal swing against Labor.
Great questions for seniors and freelancers
While the Labor vote languished, the Greens enjoyed 1.3 percent. The Coalition’s vote vanished amid a 10.4% change to independents (more than 1.3 million votes) – green or not – as well as Clive Palmer’s One Nation and United Australia Party .
Pauline Hanson’s party fielded candidates for seats across the country this time and won the majority of votes in the second center-right party. But often in the polls themselves, voters were stripping Labor and voting for the Greens.
Take the Cunningham seat in NSW. With a retiring Labor MP, Sharon Bird, eliminating any advantage of the incumbent, there was a 6.3% increase against Labor, 5.8% against the Liberal candidate, 6.3% from the Greens. 4.97% of the greens. A nation and a 1 percent swing at Palmer’s UAP.
Maybe that’s why the joy of Labor’s victory has been much quieter than in 2007.
The big parties are now facing big questions about how they are facing the wave of independents reflecting that people are getting back into politics, but focusing a lot on their local representative.
Equally, independents need to find a way to make sure that the high expectations built around what they can achieve can come true.
Laura Tingle is the chief political correspondent at 7.30am.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to search, up and down arrows for volume. Clock time: 2 minutes 21 seconds 2 m 21 s The Prime Minister criticizes the Coalition for publishing a statement on an asylum seeker operation on election day.