[trees] ←(･_･┐) [forrest]: >:|

i can count the number of LNP supporters i know personally on one hand: 3

my father and his father (the reason for this is, i think, that as austrians they are culturally predisposed to some extent towards xenophobia and evil)

and one lunatic facebook acquaintance (that's right, just a single solitary one. compare your facebook friends to mine and weep)

i seriously know of no other people who would even consider voting liberal.

which is great! if my personal experiences were a snapshot of the country as a whole then there is simply no way we would be facing a liberal government

(please note that i intentionally used the word 'liberal' rather than 'abbott' before the word government there; cause it's not just tony who's rubbish)

however "polls" say that the current government (which ain't great, dont get me wrong, but isin't as bad as the LNP would be) is set to be replaced

i got riled up reading the godawful newspaper this morning so i just couldn't resist running through my own personal reasons for why im not going to vote liberal (AGAIN). hopefully in future ill find the motivation to explain why i'm going to vote the way i will; but that's harder to do so accordingly im forever putting it off. (SO much harder to be positive than negative)

anyway here are my preeminent reasons for voting anything-other-than-LNP on september 7th:

- track record: when last in office the liberals launched an illegal and devastating war without justification in our name. hundreds of thousands were killed, along with our nation's moral authority (or, if you're retarded, it was a big waste of government money. MATE YOURE TAX DOLLERS MATE GOVARMENT WASTE)

- track record: the liberals essentially quadrupled house prices last time they were in; great news if you're old and own a house or five, but terrible terrible news if you're not already well-off)

- track record: the liberals completely failed to live up to their obligation to be a responsible opposition since abbott became leader, attempting to derail the government or stall progress at every opportunity, tea-party-style

- track record: work choices. remember? "you need to have no rights at work so that the economy works better! how will we compete with starving african wages?? when the economy does well we alllllll do!!"

- abbott himself: abbott comes from the 2nd richest electorate in the country. the idea that he is answerable to a regular constituency is laughable

- track record: remember everything the liberals said about what would happen when the carbon tax came in to effect? they knew even as they were screaming those lies they were false. closely related to my responsible-opposition point.

- political style: again tea-party-esque, the LNP has for years straight now consciously fed lies to the radical fringes of their party to encourage outright loathing for the labor government:

from greg jericho blog: (26/8 http://grogsgamut.blogspot.com.au/)

Tony Abbott today said that:

“There is almost none of us, almost none of us who hasn't dangled a line off a wharf, dangled a line off a tinnie, got an old rod out of the shed and cast out on a beach.”

He should have added “and none of that will change under the current Marine Parks Plane and so I won’t be pandering to a bunch of Liberal and National Party rusted on voters who drive around with “I Fish and I Vote” bumper stickers, by lying to them and say that they won’t be able to go fishing with their grandson anymore.”

But alas he didn’t.

- tony abbott himself: abbott is unfit to be prime minister. if, under the howard government, you had suggested that catholic radical party-attack-dog abbott should become prime minister you would've been laughed out of the room. abbott himself has admitted on tv that what he says should not be trusted; only what is written and signed.

- common sense: the liberals are a party that prioritizes big business over society (as in, society works in the service of the "economy" (as defined by them) and not the other way round). as someone who is not an old, childless millionaire it is simply not in my interests to vote LNP

- common sense: a lot of people dont seem to realize that if the LNP wins government our deputy prime minister will be warren truss. WARREN TRUSS

- bad policy/my own immediate self-interest: i want to get a public service job, as i really like the idea of formulating and implementing policy. the liberals, as usual, want to tackle all that "government waste" by firing 12-20000 public servants (in a town of 350 000). that'll make it hard for a graduate with no experience to get a foot in the door

- common sense: the corporate media is unashamedly campaigning for the LNP. if billionaire american criminal thinks it's so important abbott gets elected i feel in my bones somethin aint right

- abbott himself: he doesnt appear on shows like Q&A or the 7:30 report where he can expect to be asked real questions, instead preferring endless soft coverage by favorable outlets. by virtue of the astounding bias fundamentally different rules apply to abbott than to the other party leaders and it's unfair

- common sense: this dickhead right here. im gonna kill you bitch.

- bad policy: labor brought in the terrible png solution, which is downright terrible, so the LNP commits to being even more cruel and ridiculous.

- bad policy: we are living through perhaps the most crucial period in human history; the last moments where we still have a change to mitigate the worst effects of global warming. the liberals under abbott think the science of global warming is fake and gay and plan to do nothing. their direct action bullshit is literally a joke

- TERRIBLE policy: paid parental scheme. despite already having an existing scheme in place to support new parents, apparently it's a good idea to bring in a hugely more expensive one that ranks the children of the wealthy as two or three times more valuable than regular children. cause make no mistake about it, that's the scheme: the already wealthy will be paid handsomely to have children while those who need the money more will receive less. it's the kind of crazy shit we australians like to laugh at americans about.

also isn't there a big "budget emergency"? not so much of an emergency that we should avoid paying $75 000 per big-income baby it seems

- bad policy: further reduce the corporate tax rate. are you fucking kidding me?

- bad policy: broadband http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmD-uFgcvbU

- common sense: everything i learnt while studying history and politics tells me that the LNP under abbott is the kind of government that can secretly ruin a great nation. the man has said his idols are regan and thatcher. enough said.

***

under abbott it's likely we will see our increasingly backward-looking and out-of-touch nation hollowed out from the inside through mass privatization, just as happened under his heroes regan and thatcher. the total marketization of society is a goal that many LNP supporters actively desire, a downright extreme ideology imported from america. in their minds there is no other logical way to organize anything outside of the cut-throat business model.

weaker labor laws, less regulations, less taxes for big buisness. this is the liberal mantra: demonstrably harmful to a society but nevertheless accepted as common sense. nevermind that australia already has just about the weakest regulations of any advanced nation, facts are relevant only when useful.

things like favourable international image and commonsense social attitudes towards taxation are things that can only be lost once

the LNP under abbott are not conservatives as the meaning is traditionally understood. not concerned with maintaining the status quo (as evinced by their unprecedentedly callous attitudes towards the environment and refugees), the LNP wants to "return" australia to an imagined past built around nationally-manufactured V8s, white christian values and entrenched social advantages for the wealthy. the correct term for abbott and his supporters are "reactionaries"

certainly, this broad analysis won't hold to be true on a close examination of individual supporters. some people support the LNP purely out of conservative social attitudes, others only for the free-market fundamentals. probably most are a mix of the two. nevertheless the LNP, taken as a whole, is an alliance-of-convenience between monied interests exploiting frustrated conservatives who either understand or care little for economics or social justice.

i wont condescend to you, dear reader, by asking you to not-vote LNP. i already knew you werent gonna (i knew when you chose to come here)

but someone needs to tell people not to. i would, but as i mentioned i only know 3 of em and there's no way im getting in extended conversations with any.