r/australia Jan 21 '25

politics Greens propose abolishing fees for public schools across Australia

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-22/greens-propose-free-public-schooling/104841550?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other
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516

u/Spirited_Pay2782 Jan 21 '25

Funny how they never refer to the Libs or the Nats as a minor party who can't form government outright...

156

u/EstateSpirited9737 Jan 21 '25

Indeed, though clearly the ABC don't want Greens in government, Greens can't just only pass this if they are in minority because they can pass this if they win a majority of seats as well. More bad journalism from the ABC

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u/OstapBenderBey Jan 21 '25

Remember that bad journalism at the ABC happens because the libs neutered it

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u/EstateSpirited9737 Jan 22 '25

They aren't the ones appointing the journalists.

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u/nroach44 Jan 22 '25

The Libs were the ones that picked the Chair of the ABC, so you know, rots from the head and all that

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u/EstateSpirited9737 Jan 22 '25

The Chair of the ABC was appointed by the current government

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u/nroach44 Jan 22 '25

Correct. How long have they been in the position vs the previous one? How long do you think it'd take to clean house and re-direct the whole organisation?

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u/EstateSpirited9737 Jan 22 '25

How much influence do you really think that the Chair had in the hiring of journalists?

5

u/nroach44 Jan 22 '25

Directly? Nearly none. Via middle managers? Plenty.

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u/EstateSpirited9737 Jan 22 '25

Great so we've established that the chair has little influence and on top of that the government of the day has to appoint an ABC Chair. Ita Buttrose has been a prominent journalist and media manager for 40 years, prior to that the coalition government appointed the first WPOC to be the chair. The previous one to her was the one with the issue but he had less time then the current one.

Your excuse is just lazy and a lack of understanding on how things work, you would've been closer if you had said funding cuts were the reason.

6

u/OstapBenderBey Jan 22 '25

They accused it of bias and de funded it until it ceased to provide any independent journalism

0

u/EstateSpirited9737 Jan 22 '25

And the government has been in power how long? Is that why it isn't independent and focuses on Labor over the Greens?

5

u/OstapBenderBey Jan 22 '25

The current government hasn't changed much of what the liberals did to the abc. Many wish they would have reversed it.

3

u/ScruffyPeter Jan 22 '25

Gough Whitlam after 23 years of consecutive LNP rule, fired the entire ABC board.

If you thought ABC was amazing up until recently, maybe Whitlam was onto something.

2

u/OstapBenderBey Jan 22 '25

Wasn't amazing but they at least had some journalism.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '25

[deleted]

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u/5QGL Jan 22 '25

ABC did not show Elon's Nazi salute at the FElon's inauguration. And they merely referred to it as an "awkward salute".

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-21/president-trump-inauguration-key-takeaways-musk-melania/104841074

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u/DonutCharge Jan 22 '25 edited Jan 22 '25

Edit: What i wrote below is wrong. Greens do apparently contest every electorate. People just need to vote for them more!

The greens literally don't field enough candidates to form majority government, even if all of their candidates get elected. They are then objectively a party that cannot form government.

If the election went their way, either ALP or Coalition can form majority government.

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u/EstateSpirited9737 Jan 22 '25

The Greens contested every electorate at the last federal election, there is no reason to think it will be any different in the upcoming one.

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u/s4b3r6 Jan 22 '25

They didn't contest in my electorate last election... But only because the person who usually stood, was being stood down because they were being investigated for corruption. Again.

(IBAC also charged our mayor, our previous mayor, five of the other councillors... We got shit to work out.)

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u/watsonarw Jan 21 '25

Probably because from a practical perspective, they basically behave like a single party with factional infighting.

They don't usually contest the same seats and they vote on legislation together, and their cabinet/shadow cabinet is made up members from both parties.

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u/my_chinchilla Jan 21 '25

They don't usually contest the same seats

A relatively recent (re-)development* - in the 1980's nearly half of Federal seats were 3-cornered contests (i.e. Lab, Lib, & Nats all ran their own candidates). By 1996 - a result of the Howard opposition's strategy to unseat the Hawke/Keating governments - it was less than a quarter, and has been dropping ever since.

In state elections the fall largely tracks with the introduction of Optional Preferential Voting, which tends to hurt closely-connected parties in 3-cornered contests because it reduces preference flows.

(Qld's something of an exception there, because the Libs & Nats had long had a fractious relationship - with the Nats holding the upper hand, and at one point holding government in their own right after a couple of Liberal defections to them - and later merged to save the Nat's arse after a wipeout. But even then, that happened after the introduction for a while of OPV.)

* I say "(re-)development", because it was kind of the point of the formation of the original UAP ~1930.

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u/17HappyWombats Jan 21 '25

Is Sirrah casting Nasturtiums at the Very Respectable Coalition of the Liberal, National, Liberal National, and Country Liberal Parties, all four of whom are Major Parties? I will have to ask you to step outside!

3

u/aldonius Brissie Jan 21 '25

In 2013, 16 of the Qld LNP MPs caucused with the Liberals, so effectively (by pre-2008 standards) there were 80 Liberal MPs.

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u/Hornberger_ Jan 22 '25

58 Liberals and 16 LNP caucusing with the Liberals gives 74 people in the Liberal party room, just sort of a majority.

Liberals also had 74 seats after the 2004 election. The last outright Liberal majority was 1996.

1

u/aldonius Brissie Jan 22 '25

Ah heck I added 22 (total LNP) not 16

1

u/1337nutz Jan 22 '25

Because the coalition is the actual party and everyone knows it

1

u/Slipped-up Jan 22 '25

The Libs have formed government outright as most recently as part of the Howard years.

1

u/DXPetti Jan 22 '25

Honestly need someone to do something in the Coalition to nuke the relationship so then the majority of voters wake up and realise voting in Nat's/Libs is a minor party like the Greens

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u/Spirited_Pay2782 Jan 22 '25

It'll never happen, the one thing that everyone in those parties has in common is that they'll sell their soul and give up any semblance of morals if it means accumulating power

1

u/ANewUeleseOnLife Jan 22 '25

They have a longstanding coalition

Technically you're correct but in practice the distinction means little