After an embarrassing defeat in the latest election, The Nationals David Littleproud, announced earlier today they will not be entering into the coalition agreement with the Liberal Party for the first time since 1987.
for context to non aussies, the coalition is our “second major party” (of two).
The Liberal Party is our conservative major party (yes we know), whom since 1980 has formed a joint coalition with The Nationals. Liberals ussually perform in urban areas and the Nats in regional.
Since a crushing defeat in the recent election to Labor (our centre left major party), many fingers have been pointed at previous Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton for destroying Coalition chances due to playing a Trump-like campaign and focussing on “culture-war” talking points rather than real world issues.
A little more detail on how big this is. Since 1980, the Liberals and Nationals have been so tied together that we very often call them “the Coalition”. Our news media reports on election results by saying how many seats the combined Coalition has won. In the state of Queensland, the two parties are fully merged into the Liberal National Party, or LNP, and the term LNP is sometimes unofficially used to refer to the Coalition elsewhere. In federal politics, LNP members choose whether they sit in the Liberal party room or the National party room. Peter Dutton was a Liberal-aligned Queensland LNP member.
For Germans, you can kinda think of this as equivalent to CDU/CSU splitting, with the main difference being that instead of different states, the Nationals represent rural areas and the Liberals represent urban and suburban areas. But it’s fuzzy and they do sometimes softly compete against each other.
Also quick note: they’re called the Liberals because they ostensibly stand for individual liberty. Personal freedoms etc. But they’ve evolved into crony capitalism and conservative culture wars.
They’re called the Liberals, because that’s what liberalism is. Americans might better know this as classic liberalism, but the rest of the world knows it as liberalism.
Agreed on economic issues, but I disagree that liberalism is conservative on social issues the way that Australia’s Liberals are. I think classical liberalism in an American context would be most closely associated with American libertarianism. Liberalism has a huge hard-on for laissez faire economics, but it also should ostensibly emphasize individual freedom more than anything else when it comes to social issues. Both Republicans in the US and Liberals in Australia might speak platitudes about their desire for free speech, but if you challenge that even a little you’ll quickly find that they’re just hard right wing conservatives hiding behind the moderated mask of liberalism.
Laissez-faire economic policy is far more tied in with neoliberalism than classical liberalism, as is the conservative bent. American Libertarianism is effectively the farthest extreme to which you can take neoliberalism. Classical liberalism doesnt have a modern equivalent really in the US at this point.
It is interesting to me that many other countries dont utilize a perspective of neoliberalism in making these distinctions, considering neoliberalism is hardly an American-specific thing. Although America has taken it to the furthest extreme, in terms of having no social safety nets for people and whatnot. “If you fail its your own fault entirely, and has nothing to do with society at all” is very much a neoliberal tenet. Classical liberalism is far more balanced than that
It seems like many of these “liberal” conservative parties in other countries are just neoliberals in sheep’s clothing
The Liberals were originally a broad church, with its most salient feature being that its members were more likely to own property. The more socially moderate members (sometimes referred to as “wets”, a term borrowed from the British Tories) started dwindling in the long Howard era (1997-2007 and 2011-2022 or so) when the party pivoted to Murdochian culture-war conservatism, and eventually lost almost all their historic seats in wealthy suburbs, while outer-suburban party branches were taken over by religious groups (pentecostals and Mormons, IIRC)
They were, a long time past, Classical Liberals.
Interestingly, Labor has long been at odds with social progress due to it’s strong alignment with the Catholic church.
Remember: It was quite literally Goldman Sachs(Malcolm Turnbull) we can thank for Gay Marriage in Australia.
Today they’re both anti social progress, though Labor less so. The Greens are the only party trying to push the envelope anymore.
Centre-to-right major party. Labor haven’t been left since the 70s with their embrace of neoliberal policies. The unions and workers have basically no influence on the party over the big business side now.
yeah lol, i was struggling to write that, ig its easier to write popular opinion than truth
The Liberal Party is our conservative major party
weirdly enough, the major conservative party in Japan is also called Jiyū Minshu-tō AKA Liberal Democratic Party
Thanks for the clarification. It helps a lot.
The Nationals can now go back to their roots as a farmers’ party. Though they seem more interested in railing against solar/wind power and promoting coal (“nuclear power, to be ready in a generation’s time”). Maybe they’re angling for Clive Palmer to buy them out?
We need to get all the conservatives that are pro-coal to work the mines themselves to show us how good of a job it is.
I’m practically erect at the fact that they are making themselves less electable by the second
Albo’s win was fabulous, but the idiotic acts of the Libs and Nats since really tickle my pickle
Sussan Ley has been given a poisoned chalice, and is about as sharp as a marshmallow
Littleproud is an idiot on his best day
Hopefully Labor actually use their win to get some shit done, without having to pander to the crazies and idiots
They should leave the country
Laughs in South Australia
They haven’t held a seat here in 15 years and even then it was only the one.
Make The Nationals irrelevant again.
David may be little, but he is proud.
I doubt much will change. Much the same as the Greens funnel into Lab, Nat votes and support will still go to Lib.
There’s very little to reach across the aisle with in terms of policy or party support. Unless Lab look at dropping Greens and trying to pick up Nats, which well they’re politically not that unaligned.
