Shambolicracy

The Australian election has brought about something of a train wreck. If I had to make a prediction, it would be that Abbot would get in, struggle on for a couple of years, hold an early election on the grounds that the Greens were impeding his ability to govern, and in the end stay in for about eight years and three elections - but that's not necessarily the important outcome.
What we can say with confidence is that Tony Abbott has been more successful than anybody thought possible, and has done it on the basis of negative three-word slogans - 'Stop the boats', 'Big new tax', that sort of thing. Which means that it's going to be almost impossible, for the next three terms, for any major party to bring up any policy that can't be expressed in those terms (and that can't be attacked in those terms). Which means that nothing significant or important can be contemplated. Which might be OK if we weren't facing several existential crises.

The only conceivable plus is that the NSW losses, and the wipeout coming when the state next goes to the polls, will surely have to remove the NSW right from any position of influence in the Labor party for a generation. No, no; it doesn't seem to work that way, does it? Every disaster that they're responsible for only seems to cement them and their ideas more securely into the leadership. Now the argument will be that we need to win back NSW, and we can only do that by following to the letter the prescriptions of the people who know most about NSW - ignoring the obvious fact that they have been proven to be utterly out of touch in every aspect.

I myself, I suppose, should be cautious about pissing off one of my two followers, John being a committed NSW Rightist. What is the NSWR official excuse? That the government was too left, I suppose. It always is.