Australians have chosen, and they have looked to the future.
Penny Wong, on Election Night 2022
After a long wait for all the seats to be called, Australia finally has a government and ministry sworn in, and despite all the pre-election hoopla, a working Labor majority on the floor of the House is assured.
Read this essayWriting is a socially acceptable form of getting naked in public.
Paulo Coelho
When I was a kid, music was my outlet. I couldn’t play a note, but I desperately wanted to, and I always had a tune in my head. But lyric writing was very much an outlet.
Read this essayThe whole notion that after three years of government—in fact, the LNP has been in power for nine years—the process of an election can be reduced to a highly confected and tightly managed 4–6-week performance piece—a campaign—is in and of itself damaging to the notion of democratic accountability.
Tim Dunlop, at meanjin.com.au
Finally, finally, finally Election Day is here!
Read this essayYou should get a handle on the real world.
Antony Green, responding to a tweet claiming Craig Kelly will be the next PM
Antony Green, the ABC’s election analyst, is a national treasure. There is no debate.
Read this essayA lot needs to go right for Morrison to struggle to 75 seats — plus Katter, or 76 seats, and a lot of polling has to be wrong, but we’ve been here before in 2019.
Bernard Keane, Crikey.com
As Albo dusts himself off after a stirring National Press Club address, I thought it might be a good time to look at the first half of the last week of this seemingly endless campaign.
Read this essayI’m a bulldozer. I’ll change. You know who I am. I’m the devil you know. Who do you want me to be now? I’ll be someone else. Coz I am who I am. Please please vote for me.
Julian Hill, MP, paraphrasing Scott Morrison
With one week to go in the polls, it’s beginning to look more and more certain that there will be a Labor government elected on the evening of May 21st. If this week was good, but not great, for Albanese, it was an absolute shocker for the Prime Minister.
Read this essayWell, something is happening in Queensland that is not happening anywhere else.
Campbell Newman
Ah, Queensland. Beautiful one day, bat shit crazy politics the next. The Queensland Senate race is shaping to be one of the key races in this election and could shape what far-right politics looks like over the next three years. Simply put: Pauline Hanson, Clive Palmer, Campbell Newman and others can’t all fit in the same single seat.
Read this essayAnd barely a race at all.
Read this essayIf Pocock gets a high enough vote to get over the Greens into third place, then he could, in theory, get a cascade of preferences from everywhere and beat the Liberals.
Dr Kevin Bonham
Great political leaders risk unpopularity, patiently explain their case and confront prejudice, bigotry and vested interests.
Ann Widdecombe
The Federal Government’s religious discrimination bill has been presented to the House and the Labor Party have stated they will put up amendments, but ultimately pass the bill through the House to take up the fight in the Senate. Twitter, unsurprisingly, has exploded.
Read this essay