For Australians: do you have a conservative side and a liberal one?

Question

Is the conservative side fundamentally propaganda from the elite and corporations?

what are these parties called?

What are the election issues?

abortion
gay marriage
healthcare
mexicans taking our low paying jobs
war,,, are our issues

Answer 1

I agree a lot with what Alex G ; Molly and Thing550 have said although I would like to clarify some matters.

Religion and Politics -- generally it does not matter, and has not mattered in Australian politics. The exception was following the split in the ALP in 1955 when a Catholic ant-communist group split and formed the "Democratic Labor Party" (DLP) which kept the coalition government in power for a number of years with its preferences.
Today it is the Family First Party who are fundermentalist Christians and are certainly not good for the ordinary person. They are very close politically to the Liberal Party who are the ultra conservatives in Australian politics.

Going from conservative to liberal and even further...

Australian Nazi Party -- extremely minor.

DLP -- extremely minor although were large in 1950-70's.

Liberal Party -- largest consevative party -- ultra conservative although not as bad as your Republican party. It is big business and city-orientated.

National Party --- similar to the Liberal party although not as conservative. It is more farm & country orientated.

Family First Party -- extremely small, but growing and becoming influential.

There are a couple of other extremely small parties in this section.

Democrats -- a break-away party from the Liberals. They were a mid-sized party in the 1970's onwards but as someone said, they have started to loose ground.

The ALP -- this is the largest "liberal" party in Australia. Its political position has over the last 30 years moved from a mid-left party to a more centre party with its economic and social policies. There are factions within the party who are still of centre-left and mid-left and even a few are far-left in views.

The GREENS -- small but growing party with a lot of influence and support.

The Socialist Party of Australia -- a extremely small far left party with no influence at all except possibly in trade union activities.

The Communist Party of Australia -- This is a new party, very small and with very little influence anywhere, even within the trade unions. The former CPA which existed from 1921 until the mid1980's was a small, but very influential party in many areas. It was the only party that had proof of its legality because of a High Court Ruling in 1952 when the Liberal Party at the time tried to ban the CPA. It also survived two referendums to change the constitution so the government could ban it, again in 1952 and 1953.

Answer 2

In Australia our conservative parties are Liberal and National parties better known as Democrats.
The Labour party and the Green party are Republican. I would not say that the elite or corporations have a grip on either one side or the other as they are smart enough to hedge their bets. I would be more inclined to say that the media barons and their lackeys are the spin doctors of propaganda in this country at present as they are without doubt the driving force behind the push for a change in government at the Federal level. What do they get out of this? Good copy? No!! Money and control is what they get.
Being a journalist was once an honourable profession where the truth was sought and reported now it is not so important to check facts or verify truth so long as the story is sold. Propaganda is only effective when only one side of an issue is allowed to be heard and the other side effectively silenced. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin and others like them all employed the principles of propaganda to promote their ideals, seducing the uninformed public with promises of a better more productive and safer way of life under their leadership.
So getting back to the question in Australia today I would have to say that the Labour party has done a very lucrative deal with media barons like Rupert Murdoch to be their spin doctors. One has to ask who is controlling who?

Answer 3

Family First (minor party): Fundie religious party.
Greens (biggest minor party): Left wing, environmentally-focused.
Australian Democrats (minor): Used to do what the greens do now, close to dying out due to in-fighting in the late 1990s/2000-ish. This election is like their "do-or-die" situation.
Coalition (major, currently in government): A coalition of the liberal party (center right, conservative, bigger of the two) and the Nationals (right-wing, farmers).
Labor (major, center-left): Looking like having a good chance at getting government in the coming up election. They have pretty strong ties to the unions here.

Major issues this election are:
The economy - the coalition is trying to hammer across the message that Labor is not reliable enough to handle the economy
Workplace Relations - right after the coalition took the majority in the Senate at the end of the last election, the pushed through very unpopular workplace laws that were not mentioned previously. These laws are still a hot topic at the moment.
The environment, specifically global warming - coalition has done virtually nothing for their last 11 years in power here, but have had a mysterious change of heart as this became a major issue.
Aboriginal relations - again, aboriginal relations have been pretty shocking under Howard, especially after he recently intervened very aggressively in the aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. He refuses to apologize (symbolically) for the "lost generation", aboriginal children who were forcefully taken away and raised in missionaries by earlier white Australians.
The coalition's announced leadership handover - Howard has promised that during his next term he will hand over to Peter Costello, the current treasurer who is very unpopular as a potential leader (polled only about 4% as preferred leader recently).

War in Iraq, Howard's dodgy record on lying with past major election issues, the lack action on the dying Murray River (our main river), interest rates, policy "copying" (which has been completely blown out of proportion), education funding, health and hospital funding, and recent revelations that the Coalition has been strongly favouring its own electorates with rural funding are all other issues.

I could go on, but I'm sure others will finish for me.

Answer 4

Well, there are a few fundamental differences that might be helpful to start with:

1) Australian politics are way to the left of US politics to start with, more like European or UK positions than US, although there ARE extremists on both sides. Australians are politically more 'liberal' about most social issues than the US.

2) The religious right whackjobs haven't got their hooks into this country to the same extent, although they are working on it by infiltrating all our power structures.

3) Religion is not an issue of political importance in Australia, even though the RRW (see No 2) are working hard at it. Until 10 years ago, I doubt most people would have known what religion their representatives were, or cared.

4) Australia is an overwhelmingly egalitarian society. Until very recently, most people were working to middle class and descended from immigrants. Having a job is more important than having a religion in this country, and having a house is more important than either. Australia has a 70 per cent home ownership rate, we consistently rate in the top 10 countries in the world to live or holiday in, and we have some of the highest level of individual savings in the world which accounts for our nation's great credit rating. We have lots of socialist institutions and lots which are not. We understand our system just fine.

5) People overwhelmingly approve of the current status of the country as a constitutional monarchy and feel fine about how we manage our own country. Most people do not want to be 'liberated' from the queen, have more guns in the community, change the flag or introduce a 'bill of rights'. We also like our 'socialist' institutions such as universal health care, are glad it's matched with a great private health insurance system and don't want to change it. Our politicians know this.

Having said all that, we have lots of political parties, with two major players, divided into two 'sides' according to the Westminster system.

On the left the big team is the Australian Labor Party, who are middle of the road socialists. They have traditionally represented the 'blue collar worker', advocated that taxation be used to establish or improve government services and are fiscally conservative.

On the right are the Liberal Party of Australia. While originally and typically 'middle of the road conservative', the current Liberal government has taken them a long way further right in the last decade. They traditionally represent commercial interests as well as farmers and other small business operatives. They typically advocate that taxation be used to develop markets and seed new 'projects'. They are usually seen as financially capable and knowing.

When Australians talk about 'progressive' social policies, they often say "small l liberal' to indicate they are not talking about the Liberal Party.

Neither party is particularly similar to the US parties, although there has been a tendency during the current Liberal government's incumbency to become more 'conservative' in areas of fiscal policy and infrastructure development.

In recent years, both parties have concentrated on fiscal policy and sound economic management almost to the exclusion of other isssues.

This has enabled the development of a variety of smaller parties, including the Greens, the Democrats (their motto is "We'll keep the b@st@rds honest"), and others such as the overtly religious (right wing) Family First. How these parties fare changes from election to election as voter interests and priorities change, but there are usually sufficient numbers of small party members and independents in the upper house (the Senate) to influence the outcome of most votes.

This election the big issues for most people are new Industrial Relations laws introduced by the current government, education, climate change, the health system, honesty and accountability in government, foreign policy (Iraq, US ties) and economic management (this one's the deal breaker).

Social issues don't often make it to national debate level at election time, except as background context.

Hope that was somewhat helpful :-)

Cheers :-)

Answer 5

Its a bit confusing because Liberals (John Howard) are like your Republicans so I have a conservative side who are our Labor party( Kevin Rudd) I think.
Liberals are for big business labor are more for the unions and the little man.
Our main election issues are our new industrial relation laws,the economy, the environment water in particular and to a smaller extent the war in Iraq although Howard blindly following Bush is very sore point.
We don't focus on gay marriage or abortion because really that is an individual preference and we just want to focus on the best outcome for all Australians.
Alex above me has said it very well.
I think maybe I should have said democratic side but as I said it is confusing.

Answer 6

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