Inspired by a weird little exchange on Twitter where I asked “I wonder how different things would have been if John Watkins was made NSW Premier after Bob Carr?”, to which @BronwynHinz replied “I wonder how different things would have been if John Hewson beat Paul Keating in 1993 and Howard never became PM” – it got me thinking about those sort of “what ifs” in general and how small, innocuous events have so readily cascaded into creating the world in which we live.
The one “What if” that has always stuck in my mind for the sheer vastness of its global consequences is “What if Gavrilo Princip missed?”
Potentially no World War 1, so no World War 2, therefore no Cold War as we knew it, no global political architecture based on the fallout of WW2 (read UN, NATO etc)– the entire world in which we live could so easily have been a profoundly different universe if one bloke was 2 inches out.
So – while we are waiting for something to happen in Australian politics – what are the Australian “What ifs”? Those small innocuous events in history where the slightest change in circumstance or luck could have created a profoundly different Australia to that which we see today?
130 Comments
What if Chifley’s legislation on the banks had not been found to be unconstitutional?
What if John Kerr had joined AA?
Just kidding. The one I always think of is what if Abel Tasman had landed on the mainland – we could all be speaking dutch…
What if Labor actually won the election in 1961?
What if Michael Johnson had been expelled from the Libs 6 months earlier and Tony Abbot came up 1 short in the leadership spill?
Botany Bay 1770
Cook: “Hello friendly natives, I’m Capt Cook and this is Joseph Banks.”
Banks: “I say Cook, they don’t very friendly to me.”
Both: “Aaaargh!”
What if the Greens voted for the CPRS when the two Liberal Senators crossed the floor? We would have a CPRS, Rudd would still be PM and the ALP would be approaching the 2010 election right now well favoured to be re-elected with a similar or even perhaps increased majority.
My recent “What if” …
June 24th, Kevin Rudd says to Julia Gillard, I know I’ve been even more irritable than usual, my Gall Bladder is giving me hell, I’m handing over the leadership to you so I can get it treated.
What if, instead of going the feral handshake, Mark Latham jobbed Howard instead?
What if the Tampa had been delayed a couple of days in 2001? PM Beazley?
What it New Zealand had voted to join an Australasian Federation… bro?
What if Gore’s victory over Bush was upheld by the US courts? It isn’t directly Australian politics, but given the political importance of war (both against countries and astract nouns) over the last decade much would have been different. How would the public response to the Tampa have been different for instance?
I have one that you may even be able to model, Scott.
What if Kevin Rudd had decided to call a double dissolution election shortly after legislation for the ETS was knocked back again? (within uncertainty…)
Stuff all that trivial stuff.
What if Jasper from Arsehat Media, made Possum Comitatus an offer he couldn’t refuse?
There’d be horse’s heads all over the place.
what if my aunty had balls? … she’d be my uncle … silly, isn’t it?
Marginally less silly than what we’re doing while we’re all waiting
Is this what we do when there are no opinion polls and no election winner?
It’s interesting you would talk about fate and Gavrilo Princip. As you may or may not be aware, he was a part of a failed plot to assassinate the archduke. A fellow conspirator lobbed a grenade at the archduke and it exploded but nowhere near him. The other assassin committed suicide. However, Princip was safe and apparently hungry, so he decided to stop for a sandwich and no doubt tho think about the crazy events of earlier in the day. The Archduke decided he wanted to go to the hospital where the victims of the assassination attempt were. However his driver had no idea which direction it was in and weaved through the backstreets until, as luck would have it, that ended up in front of the cafe that Princip was eating his consolatory meal. Princip recognised the archduke and realising that opportunities like that don’t present themselves often, pulled out his pistol and shot him. And the rest, of course, is history.
I put it to you: what if Princip wasn’t hungry? Or he found a different cafe to eat at? Or he preferred a stiff drink after the events that transpired. Then he would’ve never been in the right place at the right time to do off Franz Ferdinand, which means WWI would never have happened. Which means Communism and Fascism wouldn’t have gotten its hold, which means both WWII and the Cold war probably wouldn’t have happened either. Not to mention all of the positive and negative side effects thereof. The entire 20th century could’ve been completely different if Princip wasn’t hungry, or just packed his own lunch.
what if the Australian parliament needed to approve deployment of Australian troops outside of our national borders?
What if the High Court didn’t find Whitlam’s statutory mining authority unconstitutional? No mining companies, and all the profits staying in Australia. Would we all be living in solid gold hospitals?
what if the recent election had been between Rudd and Turnbull?
What if Abbott’s dad had worn a condom?
If Abbott was born 10 years earlier he would be in the ALP.
Here’s a few – if the Dutch had settled Australia, having beaten the Brits in discovering it, we’d have fought on the other side in the Boer War.
If WWI never happened under the scenarios presented earlier, then Galipoli would never have happened – bang goes the ANZAC mythos. A certain corporal would most likely have remained an obscure untalented artist.
If Holt had told LBJ to get stuffed re Vietnam – Redgum would have had one less hit, and Normie Rowe many more.
Going further back – if Emperor Constantine had rejected Christianity and instead the Roman Empire stuck to its Greco-Roman pantheon, no Spanish Inquisition, no crusades, no dark ages…..
A non political one in memoriam of 9 years ago yesterday – if Graeme “Shirley” Strachan had stayed home instead of flying a helicopter in high winds. then Hey Hey might have really had Skyhooks on their comeback show.
What if the states had not agreed to federation? Would we have had civil wars by now?
What if nobody had figured out the agriculture thing 10,000 years ago? Would Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard be elected PM? Discuss.
Mmm, what if:
The British had realised the future lay with steam, instead of the flax and spars needed for sailing ships, and left Australia for the French to occupy?
Those danged Yankee connoisseurs of tea had preferred coffee instead and remained the favoured destination for Irish “criminal” deportees instead of standing up for Independence (Independents? ) with the result that they ended in Australia where they created the Labour Party?
Indigenous Australians had ever been properly paid for their land, or even had the choice of actually keeping it if they wished, in line with the original Colonial instructions, rather than having it simply ripped from them by men with guns?
If Australian leaders had had the strength to keep us out of the insanity and obscenity of WW1?
If the absurd demands from our allies at the Treaty of Versailles hadn’t produced Hitler and WW2, the only war of the many that Australia has ever fought in that a truly good case can really be made for our involvement with?
If Churchill had had the sense to be less obsessed with Gallipoli and more worried about Singapore?
If the Labour Party’s obsession with “White Australia” hadn’t extended until the 1960′s?
If the conservative parties’ willingness to exploit racism for political purposes hadn’t been so blatantly pursued for the last five decades?
If Australia had ever genuinely pursued the needs of regional development so clearly perceived by the Whitlam government nearly 40 years ago?
If Australians had , as we should have been, obtaining a decent return from the sale of our minerals for the last 50 years rather than giving them away and belatedly getting into a ham fisted, half hearted, argument about such things?
If Vince Gair hadn’t been available when needed by the Coalition?
If the party voted for by most Australians had won in 1998?
If Kevin Rudd had been a more effective and collegial leader?
If Queensland hadn’t produced a generation of people who had suffered under the handicaps produced by Bjelke Peterson’s “education” policies for a couple of decades and who still have the vote?
If John Kerr hadn’t been appointed GG by Whitlam?
If Australia didn’t have so much dirty old coal to sell?
IF WA had taken control of it’s mineral wealth instead of leaving it up to the likes of Lang Hancock and Alan Bond?
If we had ever truly recognised the limitations of water supply in most of Australia.
What if the big bang had been a fizzer?
what if i said?….. nah forget it!
(Princip’s bullet wasn’t a sine qua non, as much as it gave our history teachers and our fathers’ fathers’ teachers the arresting headline ‘the shot that rang round the world’. 1910s Europe was an unstable tinder box that would have ignited because of any number of sparks.)
What if we didn’t have the internet?
Alistair Cooke in one of his Letters from America recalled the story of a commentator, I think Edgar Snow, who during an interview asked Chairman Mao what would have happened if, in 1963, Mr Khrushchev had been assassinated rather than President Kennedy. Mao, after thinking it over, replied “Of one thing only can we be certain: Mr Onassis would not have married Mrs Khrushchev.”.
Rod Hagen:
WW2, the only war of the many that Australia has ever fought in that a truly good case can really be made for our involvement with?
Hear Hear – all the others we had no business being involved in
If Australia had ever genuinely pursued the needs of regional development so clearly perceived by the Whitlam government nearly 40 years ago?
If Whitlam’s plans had been put into action, we would not have the capital city infrastructure problems we do now.
I also agree with the rest of your post.
I wish I could jump to the parallel Earth where all the right decisions were taken.
What if Stephen Fielding is right?
aww Winston, now you’re just being silly :p
What if Labor had not won Latrobe and McEwen?
or if ALP had won Boothby and Hasluck?
What if the Yanks, all those years ago, had voted to have German instead of English as their national language (apparently there was one vote in it).
That’s a myth. The US has no official language. No such vote took place. The basis of the myth is probably a defeated proposal in the very young US government to have US laws published in different languages.
English is the defacto language of the US because that’s the language that most Americans speak.
Robert Cook was the Country Party MHR for Indi from 1919 to 1928. In 1928, he turned up late to lodge his nomination papers for the Federal election, because the thought the closing time was 5pm, when in fact it was 12 noon. As a result, the Labor candidate was unexpectedly declared elected unopposed. The next year, in 1929, the Coalition government was defeated in a key vote in the House of Representatives by one vote only and called an early election, which it lost.
What if Cook had not made that mistake about the nomination time and had got his papers in before the deadline? Would he have held the seat in the 1928 election? Would that one extra vote have allowed the Coalition government to survive past 1929? And then, if the Bruce-Page Coalition Government had had to face the early years of the Great Depression instead of the Scullin Labor Government, how might all subsequent history have been changed?
He did. On his second voyage, in 1644, he mapped most of the north coast.
Besides which, several Dutch navigators landed on the mainland before him.
yes – Dirk Hartog placed a commemorative platter on a pole in WA.. hence my comment re fighting on other side in Boer War
Of course, it could be argued that the Chinese and malay could have colonised Australia also. For that matter – the Romans apparently beat everybody (except the AmerIndians) to the USA.
Combining that with the Romans retaining their Greco-Roman theology as above, the USA would be entirely a different creature (or would it? belief in mystical invisible superbeings as opposed to one superbeing, a passion for war and conquest, an obsession with sporting competitions, desire for world domination, a tradition of assassinating their leader).
What if Labor had finished third , rather than second, in a few more seats which the Libs won?
In this case then Labor’s % share of the AEC 2PP figure seized on gleefully by the coalition overnight would paradoxically INCREASE, taking them well above the Libs, because the relevant seats would be dropped from the count!
What if Alexander Downer’s wife had said to him, “Alex, I don’t think ‘the things that batter’ is very funny”?
The classic “what if” is Ray Bradbury’s 1952 story “A Sound of Thunder”, apparently the most re-published science fiction story of all time. I won’t spoil the plot, other than saying that it raises the possibility that Alexander Downer was a butterfly. You can read it at:
http://www.lasalle.edu/~didio/courses/hon462/hon462_assets/sound_of_thunder.htm
What if Simon Crean had been given a clear run in 2001-2004? No Latham leadership and no work choices. Rudd, Gillard and Latham would all be beavering away as senior cabinet ministers in a successful labor government.
“I wish I could jump to the parallel Earth where all the right decisions were taken” says David Richards.
Why Dave?
D’ya mean ‘what if’ you could moan’complain full time about all decisions instead of part time and just some of ‘em?
What if the American Liberty League and their industrial backers had been successful in overthrowing Franklin D Roosevelt, and the USA joined the Nazis against the allies in WW2.
41 J-D
If you hadn’t posted this, I would have spent ages at ssome stage in my life trying to find this example which I knew vaguely about, but couldn’t even remember whether it was a state or federal poll.
Checking, I think the one I remember was the DLP guy winning in NSW in 1973 when the Lib failed to nominate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Harrold
lukas – there is also “Come The Jubilee “(forget the author and a few others on what if the South had won US Civil war, and Norman Spinrad’s “Iron Dream” as if (Hess or Hitler?) was an author instead of a politician.
Possum you missed your betting markets update on Friday last week
What if people stopped being so hypothetical?
What if the BP oil rig thingy in the Gulf of Mexico didn’t break?
Well, Obama would have visited Australia instead of being stuck in the USA
Rudd’s polls would have lifted
The ALP wouldn’t have got spooked
Rudd would have remained PM
Abbott would have lost the election
Abbott would stood down from the Coalition leadesrhip
“i’m on a horse” Katter would still be in Queensland
… and life would be good
Bloody stupid oil rig thingy
As Vicky Pollard would say “yeah but no but yeah but . …”
‘What if’ the American people had made a sane decision and voted for John McCain and the glorious Sarah Palin instead of the Obamination and Goofball?
Then America wouldn’t be owing $15 trillion and accelerating,the world wouldn’t be facing a double-dip, a nuclear Iran wouldn’t be running amuck and the Krudd’s ridiculous climate change grandiosity would never have seen the light of day…..
There would have been no radical electoral correction here or the one coming in November in the US and the Krudd would have still been our PM and Turnbull our Opposition Leader.
It’s a bloody stupid American voters thingy……….
‘Course they realise that ………. now.
Fat lot of use to the poor krudd….. now.
But do they even care?
McCain/Palin a sane decision? Now we know you live in alternate universe.
McCain/Palin was the raving lunatic choice – which is why all the fundies opted for it.
Oh my God! We have our very own Aussie Tea Party-er. Hello James K – I never imagined the words “sane decision” and voting for Sarah Palin could ever be in the same sentence, but thanks for showing that delusion who’s boss.
And if I squint my eyes I can almost see your logic from here (think Russia and Alaska).
A political “what if”, in which I was involved:
What if some citizens of Manly hadn’t campaigned against David Oldfield in 1995 and prevented him by the narrowest of margins from winning that State seat. Then Tony Rabbit wouldn’t have given him a job, he wouldn’t have had that fateful dinner with Pauline and there would not have been a One Nation and there would not later have been a cozy political niche for the old cuckoo John Howard to lay his Tampa egg in.
One more on the psephology bent.
What if the House of Lords had upheld the WA Seccession vote from 1933 (interestingly a non-Labor WA government went to a State Election championing this and it was upheld 68% but they were turfed out but the new Labor Government upheld the spirit of the referendum and sent a delegation to UK)?
Anyway from my calculations the following Federal Election results would have been different without WA:
1961 – Labor defeats Menzies, Calwell a hero
1966 – Calwell wins again (Howard becomes our longest serving PM)
Hawkie has a few more narrower victories during his stint as PM
Labor has a real majority in 2010
Serious one: what if the Labor leaker kept their mouth shut. How would’ve the campaign ran then?
I suspect Julia would’ve remained flat, dull and completely sterile but nonetheless they may well have drifted over the line…
What if the “Labor leaker” turned out to be another Liberal plant, a la Gretch? What if he/she/it turned out to simply be some conservative journo’s speculative fishing? The possibilities are endless.
Pedant @ 33: HA! You’ve just given me my favourite dinner party anecdote!
JK wasn’t it the maniac Bush and his crusade that got the US into trillion dollah debt. Or is this your usual flat earth rewrite of everything?
The great Leszek Kolawkowski wrote an historical essay in the 1970s, based on the assumption that the Nazis had won the Second World War. It was, in essence, an indictment of those inclined to minimise, in the era of detente, the significance of Soviet crimes against humanity. I haven’t been able to find it through Google, but vaguely recall it was published in either Survey or Encounter.
Incidentally, I can’t work out why anyone would spend money on buying Quadrant when you could use the funds to catch the bus to a library which has back issues of Encounter. It finally closed down in 1991, but used to publish real conservative thinkers, like Robert Conquest and Raymond Aron; not the two-bit provincial scribblers who fill up Quadrant these days.
Typo: Kolakowski. Must get thinner fingers.
Oh dear Kinky…..
You could try reading to inform yourself. Unfortunately I do warn you that it’s written in rather ‘plain’ english:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704320104575015072822042394.html
If Karl Rove’s prose is rather too ‘vanilla’ for your tastes, then here’s a ‘complex’ graph (wink,wink, nudge,nudge) for ‘ya:
http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/obama_budget_deficit.jpg
If the world had warmed up much more in the 20th century
AND
There was a massive solar storm disrupting all satellite communications on election night,
we could have had this :
What if the Abbott spill last year had allowed Fran Bailey and the newly elected MPs for Higgins and Bradfield to cast their votes?
What if the person in the Abbott spill had not wimped out and not written “no vote”?
You do all realise there is an entire sub-genre of literature devoted to this sort of thing?
An apposite example in this context is A. Bertram Chandler’s Kelly Country, in which the Kelly gang’s sabotage of the train carrying the contingent of police troopers from Melbourne to Glenrowan succeeded (instead of being foiled by the local schoolteacher). Not wanting to spoil the story, suffice to say Australia ends up a very different place.
Bogdanovist @12
Speaking of Gore v Bush one that has occurred to me in the past is
What if Ralph Nader and the US Greens had withdrawn leaving Gore and extra 1-2 %??
No Iraq war?
A more successful Afghanistan campaign after 9/11?
Better financial regulation?
No giant tax cut for the rich?
Smallish US deficits 2000 thru 2008?
A far better US response to the a GFC that is experienced as a medium level credit crunch and recession instead of Armageddon?
Sigh
What if Possum stopped blogging and left us here just talking to ourselves?
Or has that already happened? Poss?
Nah – I’m still around Winston.
It’s just that I have nothing to say worth listening to at the moment while we’re all in the middle of The Big Wait.
What if Jack Pizzey hadn’t dropped dead of a heart attack seven months after becoming Premier of Qld in 1968?
(Or what if Nev Hewitt wasn’t overseas on 24 October 1970, and Joh lost the leadership spill 12-11, instead of winning with a forged proxy and his casting vote?)
d
http://www.alternatehistory.com/
the really biggie – what if that asteroid/comet/meteor missed 65M years ago and mammals never took over from dinosaurs?
or even further.. evolution occured more rapidly, and homo sapiens sapiens had by now been replaced by a more intelligent, less belligerent species?
Yes Dave and all lefties amongst us would be the lapdogs for the “more intelligent, less belligerent species” because…. well, that’s just what lefties do.
@74 David Richards, ah yes, that’s been done too: Harry Harrison’s West of Eden.
Thanks Mark – will have to see if I can find a copy
If John Hewson had become PM in 1993, would John Howard have done a John Olsen and just wait and strike for the leadership anyway?
I voted Labor in ’93 but I often find myself wishing Hewson had won that election.
It is not yet clear what impact Andrew Wilkie’s election in Denison will have on the federal scene, but if 32 Lib voters who voted for Elise Archer had voted for Richard Lowrie in the state election earlier this year, then Wilkie would likely have been in state parliament instead, and maybe no other independent would have emerged to rip Denison from Labor’s complacent hands.
I think a good “what if” for Queensland is the series of events contributing to the Mundingburra by-election and subsequent change of government. Would Kevin Rudd (working for the Goss Government before its curious demise) have run for parliament in 1998 without that happening?
And of course a good what-if that has already been flagged by Mumble long ago: what if Latham had attracted two less “Lemmings”?
What if Mark Philippousis had actually been a tennis player?
Good point. Beazley would lead Labor into the 2004 election. Assuming he didn’t win, by then he’d get the point that losing 3 times is enough and probably retire from parliament. Would Kevin Rudd rise? Or would Mark Latham then be the favourite choice to succeed the leadership? If so, how would’ve 2007 (or whenever) played out? Would Latham still have been beaten like that, or would’ve an increasingly tired old government had fallen? Perhaps Costello would’ve been leading the Coalition. If Labor did lose, without Beazley trying to undermine Latham’s leadership, perhaps Latham would not have turned out so bitter and ended up being a minister under Rudd or appointed to some nice embassy?
If only Whitlam’s Retrospective Abortion Bill had gone through, we might not have been plagued by Tony Abbott.
I go with Darryl’s suggestion/s @72
“What if Jack Pizzey hadn’t dropped dead of a heart attack seven months after becoming Premier of Qld in 1968? (Or what if Nev Hewitt wasn’t overseas on 24 October 1970, and Joh lost the leadership spill 12-11, instead of winning with a forged proxy and his casting vote?)”
But given the current big wait, I’d also add, what if the line-ball result in the seat of McEwen in 2007 had happened this time? Would we have had to wait a month for the re-check, re-count, Court challenge and then Court appeal to be determined before we could know who could form government?
What is Senator Bertie Milliner had not dropped dead of a heart attack, and so Bjelke-Petersen had been denied his opportunity to rort the Senate?
What if Abbott and co. had received enough votes to form government before their $11B budget hole was discovered?
What if Costello hadn’t appointed Henry as Treasury Secretary?
Oakeshott has been clearly in the tank for Labor and after Windsor’s gleeful phone-in last night on Lateline, he obviously thinks he’s got the pass he needs to fool his electorate.
I doubt Katter is that stupid but Oakeshott and Windsor will be toast at the next election.
What a very ugly alliance it’s shaping up to be.
The Libs can no longer just dance around the poisonous issue of Treasury and Henry.
Imagine if there wasn’t one big massive conspiracy to by everything and everyone to stop the Liberals getting elected. Imagine if treasury wasn’t filled with evil moles, hellbent on getting Labor reelected or that the laws of arithmetic weren’t biased in favour of Labor. I mean what if that nasty preferential voting law was just ignored this one election, instead of unfairly helping Labor and stupid conventions unfairly giving Labor the first shot at forming government. Whose rules are they? The nation’s or the ACTU’s? And how about our horrible Governor-General not accepting the will of the people and appointing Abbott PM immediately. Y’know who her son-in-law is, don’t you? She should resign in disgrace, or be immediately removed! Let’s not forget the Constitution. Annoying little document. Marx couldn’t have written such lefty filth! Everything is so biased against the Liberals!
JamesK – Oakeshott doesn’t need to fool his electorate. 50% of his primary vote support comes from conservatives, the other 50% from ex-Labor and ex-Greens voters. In two candidate preferred terms, a majority of his voting support comes from non-conservatives.
Windsor could vote for same-sex marriage, an RSPT, a carbon tax and the legalisation of intimate relationships with small furry animals – as long as he provides outcomes for his electorate, New England is his until he no longer wants it.
You should stop reading The Australian James, it gives you silly ideas
JamesK is getting nervous.
What’s the word…. Schadenfreude.
Labor won 1939 Griffith by-election by 8 votes if they had lost it they would probabaly have not won it in 1940 and indies would not have held BOP after 1940 Menzies would have remained PM and G J Coles the Henty indie would have joined the UAP. Menzies would be have been wartime PM etc.
1940 election Labor should have lost on 2PP they were in a clear minority they were very lucky.
What if Lang had refused to accept his 1932 dismissal = civil war?
What is UAP had contested Henty in 1940 rather than trusting that G J Coles was was good as an official UAP candidate?
JamesK, interestingly Katter said prior to the election that he would work with the Greens if there was a hung parliament.
Oakeshott is a strong advocate for the introduction of an ETS, and wanted to take things further than Labor were prepared to at the previous election.
Windsor regarded the modifications that he was associated with to the original Labor ETS, taking into account agricultural issues as one his major “wins”. Unlike Tony A. he certainly doesn’t believe that “climate change is crap”.
All these guys have personal majorities and followings in their electorates that would make most party members, Liberal or Labor, green with envy.
And Fairfax as well Poss?
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/independents-support-for-labor-would-betray-rural-folk-20100829-13xjq.html
No counter argument given just the less-than-subtle suggestion that it’s all a News Ltd conspiracy.
What’s next? I’m sure you could point out that I’m a bigot, sexist, Islamophobe, homophobe, racist (oh wait……. Oakeshott has already thought of that one……), xenophobe or something else less-than-human etc after nauseating inane etc. …. anything that saves the bother of a rational argument.
Do you agree with Oakeshott that The Nationals are racists Poss?
Go ahead gives us your your response.
Mine is a view Poss and incidentally not dressed up as anything other.
Moreover its a perfectly reasonable view. It has been expressed by many.
That of course doesn’t make it correct but it is patently not reactionary.
I’m more than merely well aware you don’t agree with it…..we all are.
If you have a valid argument to counter it, however, then save us the belittling smear and let’s have it.
That the argument that Treasury has been politicised is big news might just be because it is the truth.
If true, it’s a threat to our democracy ….. except apparently when it favours the Left….
By the way, perhaps you could also inform us as to which party did the seat of Lyne overwhelmingly support in the Senate?
Well it is Paul Sheehan. I think I’ve forgot more about Lyne before breakfast than he’s ever known in his life. I went over Oakeshott’s voter base in a post earlier this week.
Lyne is a 60/40 conservative seat – where Oakeshott gets half his vote from the non-conservative side on the primaries, and a majority of his vote from the non-conservative side on the two candidate preferred.
And yes – if you’ve ever known, met or otherwise ever had anything to do with the Nats in the seat – particularly the Hastings Nats – they’re the biggest bunch of racist, bigoted, corrupted bastards (see The Glasshouse) in dire need of a punch in the face that you will ever have the misfortune to meet.
I’ve personally witnessed members of the Lyne Nats half-joke at a public meeting that it’s a shame we can’t shoot the Abos anymore. Not that it was any sort of rare event either – I’ve seen the same arsehats hassle a young half Asian bartender with such charming jibes as how they’ve never fucked a slope before – it would have gone on and on unless a few of us threatened to kick the shit out of them unless they shut their mouths.
The saddest part is that they were actually shocked that anyone gave a rats about it.
I’ve seen plenty of flavours of pricks before – but those Nats in the Manning and Hastings valleys… that’s a special type of fuckwit disorder. Unless you’ve seen it, you don’t get it.
Yes, a Hewson or even a Peacock win would have saved our national character from its greatest stain.
Too bad we didn’t know what would happen and do a strategic vote. Especially as we ended up with most of Fightback anyway
Hmmm…. A few bad eggs does not a people make.
Was Mark Vaile a racist?
Only Nats outside of Lyne aren’t racist?
You get turkeys everywhere no matter what the education no matter what part of the political spectrum. For my money there are rather more of ‘em on your side of the spectrum. In fact the Left hold something of freehold property rights on vulgar sliming of fellow citizens.
Jonathan Greene’s two ‘girlies’ of ABC’s even-more-leftist-than-usual Drum, Marieke Hardy and Catherine Deveny spring to mind.
So much so that I’d be disappointed if the laudable Annabel Crabb stays on there.
‘Oakeshott’s latest via his mates says much more about Oakeshott than his predominantly conservative electorate not all of whom are ignorant.
And would Oakeshott have initially won his seat in a general election rather than a by- after Vaile resigned giving a two finger salute to his own electorate?
I reckon Oakeshott is being laid bare and I don’t like what I’m seeing character-wise.
I’ll bet many of the voters of Lyne don’t either.
Mind you I still think I’m gonna lose the last bet I made: $100 on the Coalition to win at $3.40!
Doubledang!
No James, (and yes, Poss), it’s not just Lyne.
I’m in Cowper, one up the coast. I’ve been told by one local Nat spruiking real estate that my local town was special because unlike other local towns “we got rid of all our blackfellas ages ago”.
Another told me just last week that I should have more children, because mine were so well behaved and “we need more white children”.
The second, while glad to have played his part in getting the local Nat re-elected, was ecstatic that Katter would end up in a position of influence, saying that as a farmer he expected Katter to achieve more for him in the next three years than the Nats had done in a decade under Howard. Despite being an active member of the Nats, he wasn’t concerned at all about who formed government as long as whoever it was made concessions to the three amigos, especially Katter.
For what it’s worth, while the local Nats are breezily dismissive of Gillard, often with more than a dash of outright sexism, they hate Abbott with an absolute passion, and generally view the Nats’ subservience to the Liberals with the greatest disdain. (And then they vote for them, go figure.)
But I must say that as far as the local Nats go that the ones who are active in the branches are a hundred times more prejudiced than most of the people who vote for them, who really are just locked into the Lab-Lib horserace and vote for the Nats purely because they’re the local entrants in that race. And also, for all that I find him lazy and not to my taste politically, that Hartsuyker himself (our Nat member) hasn’t struck me as being particularly like the branch members on the occasions I’ve met him. At least if he thinks like the rest of them he has the sense to keep his mouth shut about it to voters.
Havent looked at this for a bit. Old JK been busy entertaining (somewhat off thread) Karl Rove on Bush probably a little partisan ….possibly like Hockey on Abbott. And possibly even larger black holes.
Of course they didnt have a GFC in the USA so it would entirely appropriate to compare Bush and Obama.
Must be getting a little anxious now J. A nice Xanax may get you through the necks tweak could be a bit ordinary for you and yours
And what if… Latham hadn’t got up by one vote – would the ALP have won in 2004?
What if Curtin hadn’t died before the end of WWII? Chifley wouldn’t have run and lost in 1949.
I hope Julia gets to form government and Labor is able to enjoy several terms enjoying the benefits of its hard work in the GFC. Always it is the Libs that coast on Labor’s work: Menzies coasted on Curtin/Chifley reforms, Howard on Hawke & Keating’s.
What if Mike Powell had not broken Bob Beaman’s long jump world record in 1991?
It would be the longest standing long jump world record.
So what. tempus fugit.
There are a number of what ifs in the Gavarilo Princip scenario, what if the driver of the Archduke’s car had not stalled outside the coffee shop Princip had escaped to after the first assassination attempt? what if he went to another coffee shop? what if the Archduke had not gone to visit the wounded from the first assassination attempt but sensably stayed at home with his feet up? I think the WW1 was enevitable at that point anyway. It was like a whole lot of people walking around a gas filled room lighting up cigarettes, it was just a matter of which spark blew them all up. Maybe what if Harold Holt had not gone swimming at Cheviot Beach?
then Gorton not PM – nor McMahon – Whitlam still wins on antiVietnam War vote
What if…and then what if hitler just used another excuse to go to war? Some things are catalysts, some are reasons and some are just convenient excuses.
So JP and kinky happily agree that Lyne Nationals and the Lyne environs presumably also New England are full of racists and so apparently with some glee they identify significant numbers of their fellow citizens as racists.
Glee, presumably because those evil people are on the other side of the political divide?
No need to argue rationally with less-than-humans is it?
Utterly stupid assertions from twits like political animal are all that are seemingly required in this pathetic echo chamber.
It’s the Right that is evil/ mad/ stupid/ bigoted / fearful – of religions beginning with I and ending with slam, fearful of same sex relations and hatred filled for women which is why its perfectly reasonable to hope that people like John Howard and Tony Abbott should just die horrible deaths and soon.
People in the outer suburbs of our cities and people in the bush are worthless and evil.
Everything would be fine if the people in the McMansions redistribute their lucky windfall wealth with their natural rulers and ceased spending it on their vulgar homes and toys such as jetskis.
Just ask JP or Kinky or even doubtless the idiotic political animal.
Good call Poss.
James, it doesn’t really have anything to do with left, right or otherwise – just pricks.
There’s plenty from all sides of the spectrum. I just happen to know about the particularly nasty ones in Lyne.
Not all the Nats are like that – and many decent National Party members show pretty much the same disgust that I do for what goes on there.
But it’s ingrained in the political culture of the place. I don’t envy those trying to clean it up.
I don’t think i’ve proffered an opinion yet about our neighbours’ (i e Lyne peoples) racism.
As usual JK half assed wrong and protesting too much.
Suspect you may be “evil/ mad/ stupid/ bigoted / fearful – of religions beginning with I and ending with slam, fearful of same sex relations and hatred filled for women” but can leave for the other denizens of the echo chamber to make up their own minds.
have a nice day yawl
and ps was there the other day and didnt see a single burning cross
What if… the mighty magpies had’ve held on to win the 1970 grand final. No Colliwobbles, would have won 77 and at least one of 79 and 81 without that monkey on the back. We’d be looking at premiership no 18 or 19 this year. As it is, I guess number 18 has to wait until 2013.
James, where on earth do get the idea that I think that all people who live in the bush are evil and stupid? I live in the bush, after all
Not only did I not say that in my post, I even said that Nat voters I know are not anything like the Nat branch members I know. But like Possum, the Nat branch members I do know are, without exception, sexist and racist, and proud of it.
It is what it is. If I told the Nat I was speaking to after the election (the one who likes Katter) that I thought he was sexist, racist and homophobic and Islamophobic, he’d just agree with me, rather colourfully, I suspect. I’m buggered if I can see why I should pretend not to see in the local Nats something they don’t even try to hide.
This part of the world is NOT chock full of racists, but the National Party branches, which are pretty small, ARE, and openly so.
Prince albert pinged not winged
we would be the nova germania
Possum: apologies if you’ve answered this elsewhere. But do the Newspoll and JWS polls on ‘independents should support which party’ essentially track PPM?
History doesn’t work this way. The German and Austrian general staffs wanted a war, and if the assassination of Franz Ferdinand hadn’t given them a pretext, something else would have done.
Psephos. Indeed, as to pretexts not being truly causative.
Of course one might say the same of those who had no time for Rudd!
If you’re wondering what would have happened if Gavrilo Princip missed, it’s worth reading Norman Stone’s wonderful short book in the First World War (does it all in 200 pages). I think his conclusion is that there would have been a war anyway. The germans were terrified about Russian railroad building (which mean they could mobilise faster and faster). If germany wanted to fight a two-front war (knock out France and then transfer its troops to the east and knock out Russia) the window of opportunity was closing rapidly.
In other words, there would have been another pretext.
On the other hand, nuts like Hitler seem to be rather sui generis. So, if he hadn’t turned up, much might have been different.
Who was the historian who said that it’s important to remember that events which happened a long time in the past were once a long time in the future.
What if Gough had not gone back to the Lodge and had a steak and had instead gone to the senate and withdrawn the supply bills. This would have completely de-legitimised fraser as PM as he was appointed on the guarantee of being able to pass the supply bills.
what if Hawke had not countenanced calm and the nation went on a general strike?
what if the H of R kept on sitting instead of adjourning and revoked supply?
“Hitler seem to be rather sui generis” ??????????????
The same ‘generis’ as many other tyrannical totalitarian dictators such as Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe or Idi Amin?
Seem very ‘generis’ to me.
barney – the Senate were on the verge of passing supply – an hour later and Fraser would have been cactus.
Yes David but having been dismissed, the tactical thing to do was remove Fraser’s supply. although they didn’t have the numbers they still controlled the senate agenda. they could have adjourned debate and Fraser AND Kerr would have been cactus.
Poss
hope you get to the TAB
I wonder what the policy landscape would look like in Australia if the National Party had actually used their support for a Coalition as a bargaining chip for policy rather than just a ticket to largess for a select few?
I imagine their are a lot of Nats around the country at the moment looking on in awe at how massively and quickly the independents are winning policy changes that the Nats wouldn’t think themselves capable of.
Asleep at the wheel is one phrase that springs to mind.
Asleep? More like comatose. What has the National Party done of note in the last 40 years?
Quite a bit apparently Dave:
http://www.nationals.org.au/AboutTheNationals/OurAchievements.aspx
what if intelligent committed people combined to do some great things for Australia?
whoohoo! they have!
Poss
cos I can
It has been so depressing all day today listening to the whining and lies from Coalition supporters, and what’s more, the amount of time given to them by the ABC.
OK Poss, one for the subjunctive history fans:
What if Peter Debnam had behaved just ever so slightly more like
(a) a commissioned military officer with the concepts of honour entailed in that or
(b) like a rational adult and not chosen to try to smear Bob Debus (of all the people!!!) based on evidence from a confirmed lying pedophile rapist armed robber [I could go on but you get the picture] and thus not thrown away the NSW State election and thus not tied the still undead NSW State government around the Federal party’s neck…
As I understand matters Mr Debnam is again a candidate for office rather than dishonourable discharge. What a world to permit this. Anyone in the military that knows him I am sure would be ashamed: except that by his actions he has removed himself from their company. I have friends and relatives on the line in Afghanistan tonight – the moral distance between them and paedo pal Pete is truly vast. Sleep badly tonight Peter Debman, with my utter and everlasting contempt.