Where is the paradise that would actually do that?
Throughout the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial the evidence could be summed up as “heaps of witnesses (including other SAS soldiers) say that BRS and the patrol commander murdered a bunch of people, except for BRS and the commander who say it never happened”.
Today:
It’s been raining for much of the last week. My tanks are back to 100%. 
In the current Oz election, there are a bunch of high-profile pseudo-independent candidates running in seats that were previously liberal strongholds.
These seats are mostly wealthy old-money areas, in which liberal affiliation is motivated by direct class interest rather than the culture war and overt racism used in the petty bourgeois suburbs and rural areas.
They’re all backed by a group of liberal aristocracy organising under the banner of Climate 200:
In policy terms, the “teal independents” are mostly running as wet liberals: continue to maintain the status quo and fuck the poor, but recognise that climate change is real and reject the Oz right’s flirtation with overt fascism.
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Anyway, the Coalition incumbents have so far responded to this by:
- Repeatedly trying to have the Teals’ advertising banned.
- Organising campaigns of fascist-themed vandalism against Teal advertising.
- Printing fake (and illegal) posters portraying the Teals as candidates for the Green party.
And, in recent elections the Coalition has been repeatedly caught out distributing fake election materials, including:
- Chinese-language posters disguised as neutral AEC information but which commands a vote for the Coalition.
- Fake endorsements by terrorist groups of non-white opposing candidates.
Oz elections are still nowhere near as fucked as US elections (so far…), but as with everything else: what happens over there echoes over here.
Don’t worry, the AEC is ordering twice the usual amount of wet lettuce to deal with election shenanigans.
In fairness, they’re bound by what they are empowered to do, which oddly enough is…not much. Really need that ICAC…
Elections look rather different in rural Tas than they do in the city.
I just saw the new Liberal Party campaign ad during a break in the news:
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It’s not targeted at the ALP (didn’t even mention them). It was an attack ad targeted at the Jacqui Lambie Network.
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The basic theme of the ad was “Lambie sometimes votes with the Greens, and the Greens are obviously loonies, so therefore Lambie Bad”.
Lambie isn’t even on the ballot this election; just some of her new party members (although Lambie is vigorously endorsing and campaigning with them).
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They’re still running anti-ALP ads, though. The main theme of which could be summarised as “if you vote for the ALP, the Greens win”.
They’re really rather obsessed.
There is bipartisan consensus among the Australian major parties that (a) there is no urgent need to raise rates of income support for the elderly/disabled/unemployed/etc., and (b) any efforts around housing should be focused upon home ownership rather than improving conditions for renters.
Meanwhile…
Likely to be providing the least-intolerable election coverage over the next week:
Assorted ALP stans (including sitting MPs) on Twitter are currently attempting to simultaneously claim that:
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The Morrison government is so uniquely horrible that all other considerations must come second to defeating them, and
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The ALP categorically refuses to form a minority government with Green support, and will therefore return the Morrison government to power if they fail to secure an absolute majority on their own.
Anyone who actually followed this how-to-vote card would have their vote declared invalid and dumped.
AEC social media game continues to be top notch:
