SYDNEY, April 28 (Reuters) - In the well-heeled Sydney beachside suburb of Bondi Junction, early voters leaving a pre-poll centre said they had Donald Trump and the global economy on their mind.

Australia holds a national election on Saturday, and a campaign coinciding with the U.S. president’s stop-start tariffs and volatile diplomacy is bolstering the prospects of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his ruling centre-left Labor Party.

  • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    30 days ago

    Yes, as the libs (named for monetary policy not social policy, so conservative) shifted right, labor has too. They have also adopted a lot of the same policies, so as not to be wedged. However abandoning their position on key human rights issues makes them unpalatable to many on the left.

    It’s decidedly odd that the policies that are their downfall are the ones that are copies of Trump’s. Anf going on polling, the poicies that seems to be tripping up Trump on immigration are the same as those adopted by both parties here. While the tariffs are awful policy for America, they don’t affect Australia as much as other countries, yet they get all the headlines.

    I hope that other countries starting to lean right get a rude awakening from how these populist policies play out. Cutting jobs for government efficiency doesn’t work if you just slash left and right.

        • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          30 days ago

          Where, precisely, does my post claim .au has a 2 party system?

          It’s an illustration of how the 2 major parties have functioned in lock-step to move the Overton Window rightward here for last decade or two of the previous century, and the entirety of this one.

          We’re lucky to have an electoral system which permits nuanced preferences to be meaningfully counted. We don’t need to blindly accept the dimmer of two incendiary forces.

          • RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            30 days ago

            The image you posted said it’s a fake 2 party system?

            Labor has not moved consistently right, but they have had their environmental policies block by the greens, and their housing policies blocked by… Still the greens, because the greens don’t actually care and would rather side with the coalition than get any actual change done.

            • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              30 days ago

              The word immediately preceding the underlined section is fake, it’s a specious concept with the electoral system currently used federally in Australia.