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In article <vuhisj$1h4dr$1@dont-email.me>, Marmalade King  <x@y.com> wrote:
>theglobeandmail. com
> 
>April 25, 2025
>Early voting under way in Australia for general election dramatically 
>reshaped by Trump
>
>People arrive at a polling station as early voting begins in Sydney, 
>Australia, on April 22. Mark Baker/The Associated Press
>
>Early voting is under way in Australia as the country heads into a general 
>election on May 3, which, like Canadas, has been dramatically reshaped by 
>the return to power of U. S. President Donald Trump.
>
>Heading into 2025, things were looking bad for Prime Minister Anthony 
>Albaneses Labor Party: inflation, housing and the overall cost of living 
>were all up, while an unsuccessful and often bitter referendum to expand 
>Indigenous rights had turned off many voters. Mr. Albanese had to call a 
>general election by mid-May, and amid a worldwide anti-incumbency wave, it 
>seemed the conservative Liberal-National Coalition, which governed 
>Australia from 2013 to 2022, would be swept back into office.
>
>Then came Mr. Trump. The chaos wrought by the U. S. President since January 
>has upended polls in Australia, with Labor now leading the Coalition in 
>most surveys, due in large part to the unpopularity of Liberal Leader Peter 
>Dutton, a former police officer who modelled himself as an anti-woke 
>Australian Trump, until that became a political liability.
>
>Australians view Trumps agenda as contrary to our interests in many ways, 
>said Ryan Neelam, director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program 
>at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute. We found very high rates of disapproval 
>for pretty much all of his policies that we put to Australians. That should 
>be a clue for anybody seeking to echo or shadow Trumps agenda that it wont 
>go down well with the public.
>
>Recent polling by Lowy found Australians trust in the U. S. has dropped to 
>a 20-year low, with 64 per cent of respondents holding a negative view of 
>Washington since Mr. Trump took office, compared to 44 per cent last year.
>
>We expected to see some diminution in trust, Mr. Neelam said. But this is 
>much larger in terms of magnitude than we predicted.
>
>Labors improved fortunes are not just due to Mr. Trump: recent months have 
>seen the economy pick up, while both the Prime Minister and his Treasurer, 
>Jim Chalmers, have made a strong case for being better positioned to 
>respond to potential U. S. tariffs than the Coalition.
>
>But if the election was being fought purely on kitchen-table issues, Labor 
>would likely be headed to the opposition benches. Most polling has put the 
>Coalition ahead when it comes to handling the economy  though this has 
>narrowed in the final stretch  and Mr. Dutton has repeatedly blasted the 
>government for overseeing what he said was the worst collapse in living 
>standards in the developed world, with higher borrowing, inflation and 
>utility bills.
>
>There are pretty solid fundamentals for why a government might expect to be 
>tossed out, said Mark Kenny, director of the Canberra-based Australian 
>Studies Institute.
>
>Even as polls show Mr. Albanese is poised to be the first Australian leader 
>to lead his party to back-to-back election victories in more than two 
>decades, the Prime Minister said he is certainly not getting ahead of 
>myself, acknowledging Labor still faced a mountain to climb to stay in 
>power.
>
>Having Mr. Dutton as his foil has made things easier however, and Mr. 
>Albanese has at times appeared to relish sticking the boot into his gaffe-
>prone opponent, who has repeatedly made negative headlines over the 
>campaign and struggled to reinvent himself in voters eyes.
>
>After Mr. Dutton appointed Jacinta Nampijinpa Price  a controversial 
>Indigenous senator who spearheaded the No campaign in the 2023 referendum  
>as shadow minister for government efficiency, a role clearly modelled on 
>Mr. Trump and Elon Musks so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Mr. 
>Albanese accused him of being policy lazy and said Australians dont have to 
>adopt all of Americas policies.
>
>Ms. Price hasnt helped Mr. Duttons efforts to distance himself from the U. 
>S. leader by being photographed wearing one of Mr. Trumps signature 
>baseball hats and saying in a speech  as Mr. Dutton stood alongside her  
>that the Coalition would make Australia great again. (She has since said 
>wearing a MAGA hat was a family joke and accused the media of being Trump 
>obsessed. )
>
>In an April focus group run by News. com. au, Liberal voters across the 
>country were asked their opinion on both the major party leaders, and were 
>not complimentary about either, with Mr. Albanese described as weak.
>
>But the results were more damning for Mr. Dutton, with even supporters of 
>his party saying the first words that came to mind about him were extreme, 
>creepy, aggro, charmless, and too Trumpy.
>
>Prof. Kenny said Mr. Duttons Trumpist-pivot would likely have hurt him even 
>without the U. S. Presidents global trade war, as Australias compulsory 
>voting system  a rarity in much of the democratic world  tends to benefit 
>moderate politicians and hurt those on the extreme.
>
>Indeed, this was the case in the last election, when Labor benefited from 
>the so-called teal wave, a shift in many traditionally Liberal seats toward 
>more moderate independents, many of whom were critical of the governments 
>hard right policies on climate and social issues.
>
>When youve got to get out the vote, the two most important things you can 
>do is make people scared or angry or sometimes both, Prof. Kenny said. 
>Thats not a system designed to emphasize the middle, whereas Australian 
>elections have historically been about the broad middle ground.


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