Scott Morrison is no longer Prime Minister. He’s not even the Liberal Party leader.
This is a very good thing for Australia, and the world. That’s about all we really know in terms of the new government: it won’t be a Liberal/National government.
So yes, tonight we saw a strong, monumental defeat of the Liberal Party. What we didn’t see, however, was a strong, monumental triumph of the Labor Party. We saw a swing towards them, certainly, but the big story was the votes going to independents (especially the teals) and the Greens. And so it looks at this still-to-early-to-say stage that Labor will form a minority government, forcing them to work with Greens and a whole swath of unaligned independents.
This is quite possibly the best result we could have hoped for. We now have progressive voices that will hold Labor accountable for climate change action, and be in a position to push for stronger measures.
There are quite a number of lessons to take away from this election, too. Firstly, as Josh Frydenberg and Kristina Keneally have discovered, there’s no longer any such thing as a ‘safe seat’. Some are just less marginal than others.
Secondly, we can learn that finally Australians are making climate change a priority. We showed that we might be prepared to take it seriously in 2006, with Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth ushering in a wave of initiatives like Earth Hour and replacing incandescent light bulbs. Then Tony Bloody Abbott and Rupert Bloody Murdoch came along and went all in on fossil fuels and hard-right scare tactics. Putting the country behind by at least a decade.
And speaking of the media, we can learn that Australians might maybe be getting better and sniffing out misinformation. Clive Fucking Palmer didn’t win any seats, despite a media campaign that was 100% lies, and 150% saturation. Perhaps repeating a lie often enough doesn’t always work. The mudslinging from an election campaign that was more negative than a RAT test didn’t seem to stick.
I’ve heard some people say this was a shift away from the major parties. I think that’s true to an extent, but it might be more helpful to think of it as a shift away from the far right. Both major parties saw moves away from them but the right-wing loonies did terribly – neither UAP nor PH’s White Nation won a seat – and the Greens and progressive independents did incredibly well.
This is a Good Thing.
So, yes, I go to bed slightly drunk but very relieved, and somewhat optimistic for the future.
I will no doubt be disappointed in due course, but for now – happy.