(West) Australian Politics, Social update

[tcpip]

Well it seems that the National Party have decided to support the Liberals in Western Australia. Alan Carpenter has resigned which is a shame as he was a very decent individual who had the very unusual ability (among politicians) to listen to others and to admit mistakes (although he certainly should not blame himself for the appalling Labor campaign). The incoming premier, Colin Barnett, does not have the competence of Carpenter making Dr. Nelson's comments that this represents an "outstanding result .. for good governance" a joke that will end in tragedy.

Which is just as well that the Federal Liberal caucus has seen fit to remove him from the leadership in favour of Malcom Turnbull. As a completely rarity, Turnball actually is a liberal Liberal. He's more than a bit of a toff (as Australia's richest parliamentarian) and there's a gulf of experience between him and working people. When it comes to matters like abortion, stem cell research, climate change, the apology to Aboriginal Australia, superannuation to gay couples and so forth, he's certainly progressive. His weakness is that when such issues collide with the lure of the dollar, he'll choose the dollar - such as the case with the approval of Gunn's Pulp Mill.

Weekend was very enjoyable. Had an evening of many drinks and trashy videos with severina_242, _zombiemonkey and caseopya, although the latter was a little worse for wear on the journey home. The following day imajica_lj was a little late to gaming (he did turn up), so I ran an impomptu Call of Cthulhu session of "I Want You To Kill The Ice Cream Man", which is an brilliantly simple story. Tonight will be spending dinner with arjen_lentz. At some stage I really should take him up on the excellent MySQL training he offers.

Comments

[skepoet.livejournal.com]

liberal Liberal.

This monkey is confused.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

In Australia the Liberal Party has a small liberal wing (often called "Deakinite liberals"), a large monetarist wing and a bunch of religious lunatics. Essentially a right-wing party with a small centrist faction.

They are appropriately and respectively called "the wets" (because they're sensitive and teary), "the dries" (because they only care about statistics) and the "the uglies" (because they're secretly jealous of better looking people showing a bit of leg.. or more)

[skepoet.livejournal.com]

small liberal wing

Liberal in the current European (neo-liberal) or in the classical liberal (and I don't mean Atlantic Libertarian).

I am still getting my sea legs on politics outside of the US and Canada (although I have a fairly good grasp of UK and Mexican politics).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Classic liberal. Wikipedia gives a good summary of Liberalism in Australia.

[taavi.livejournal.com]

I always heard that the wet/dry difference was what they believed would happen to their feet if they attempted to walk on water.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Where do the uglies fit into that schema?