As the Liberal Party celebrates its federal election triumph, a number of players have stepped in to take credit for the win — from Christian lobby groups to shock jocks to Australia’s very own discount Donald Trump.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has remained the leader of the nation and it looks like he has secured a majority government, leaving behind a trail of shocked punters who relied on polls hinting at a Labor victory.
The money
Revelling in the results, and also taking credit for it, was billionaire Clive Palmer. He has declared that the efforts of his party, the United Australia Party, helped the Coalition secure the next three years of government.
Though failing to win a single seat, Palmer ran a $60 million country-wide campaign to boost his party, which has been slammed as a “preference recycling machine”. There was a major 4.5% swing to the Coalition in Queensland, and one-in-eight voters backed One Nation or Clive Palmer — not an insignificant result.
In a statement put out today, Palmer said the goal of his party “was to ensure the Labor Government did not get into power, introducing more the $1 trillion of new taxes.
“This has been achieved with the collective effort from United Australia Party.”
The statement read that the nation-wide United Australia Party vote of “approximately 4% had significantly helped the Coalition to election victory”.
The national president of the Labor Party Wayne Swan hit out in a statement about “cheque-book democracy”, saying:
A $60 million spend by a conservative-aligned billionaire in a preference recycling scheme for the Liberal and National Party cannot be allowed to stand.
The microphone
Radio shock jock Alan Jones of 2GB has also reportedly taken credit for Labor’s loss. Bill Shorten, who resigned as leader after losing the election, pointedly did not appear on Jones’ program. Nor did he appear on 3AW’s show with Neil Mitchell, or shows hosted by broadcasters Ray Hadley, Ben Fordham or Chris Smith.
“No one’s ever won an election boycotting this program,” Jones said.
The monotheists
The Australian Christian Lobby has also claimed its “religious freedom” campaign helped spur the Coalition victory.
“ACL’s campaign played a role in tonight’s result,” they posted on Facebook. “Thank you for praying. Thank you for acting.”
The lobby’s managing director Martyn Iles claimed prayers also contributed:
Massive success tonight for ACL’s national campaign on religious freedom. And I do mean massive. The bookies didn’t predict this. The polls didn’t predict this. Political analysts didn’t predict this.
But Australians prayed like they have never prayed before … And our volunteers did a lot of hard work.
The non-profit organisation Focus on the Family also sung the praises of prayer in delivering a Morrison government win:
After a miracle election result, we acknowledge the power of prayer (both corporate and individual) that many of you will have been a part of. May God continue to bless our government, to uphold religious freedom and strengthen families.
The mining enthusiasts
Resources Minister Matt Canavan credited the people of Queensland, and glibly thanked former Greens leader Bob Brown for doing “the best job of uniting Queenslanders since Wally Lewis. Thank you so much for coming to our great state and hearing our great people speak,” referring to Brown’s Stop Adani convoy.
The Queensland politician, who is a staunch supporter of the Adani coal mine, called the win a “hi-vis workers’ revolution”.
Have you spotted anyone else claiming credit? Send any tips and comments to boss@crikey.com.au.
If ‘god’ gave us Scommo, I am moving from agnosticism to atheism.
I’m already an atheist, BA…you should try it sometime!
Which leads me to ask…haven’t any of these so-called Christian groups heard that Australia is a SECULAR country, with what is supposed to be a SECULAR government???
Scummo is enough to give Christianity a bad name…lying, cheating, corrupt individual!
Christianity does not already have a bad name? Have I missed a second resurrection?
Atheism is a cop-out, antitheism is only sensible.
The one thing all religions have in common is being total bullshit.
As a Deist, I follow The Force
I would love some actual analysis of the Bob Brown led Adani convoy and if it had a significant effect. If it did, it would have to be one of the most spectacular own goals in recent electoral history.
What I would like to know is how come the fat man was able to spend in excess of $60million dollars on helping scummos election when the fat man hasn’t paid more that amount in benefits owing to his workers when they were laid off from his company. Coincidentally the workers received their payments from the Government under the Howard Government legislation which basically bailed out Howard’s brother’s firm. There is something smelly in the State of Australia!
Have you considered the possibility that Clive was simply a front for others, particularly those with significant Coal interests.
Clive himself is well known for being well known and fit for purpose.
So this is the rhetoric from a nincompoop member of a government that is going to preach “unity”. Who exactly is going to be “united”? My guess is that the unity is only for those who blindly accept that Morrison is a political messiah (he already thinks he is) and despise Labor.
I have already seen comments from a farcical little man on the ABC news who insisted it was good that Labor was not elected because that meant no unions. From whence came that nonsensical idea? What exactly is wrong with a system that allows workers to unite and stand up to employers who increasingly seek to reduce pay and conditions and exploit workers? If employers did the right thing by employees, unions wojuld not be needed. They came into existence a century or so ago precisely because workers were being exploited cruelly by employers – so tell me what it is that has changed?
Simple, the Morrison message is that those who support him should stand in unity with him – so they can all be happy-clappers together and easily tell who it is they need to hate in order to be one with the new Cult of Morrison. Once the battle lines are drawn, he can start properly governing for his supporters and attacking everybody else.
Well done Australia. It took a very special brand of stupidity to get to these new political highs. Let’s bid a special welcome to the new Trump-esque brand of politics in Australia – where opposite sides of the politicial spectrum are encouraged and expected to despise the other instead of seeking to work collaboratively. But that’s Morrison – he was never collegiate in his corporate working life (which ended ignominiously I might add) and he isn’t now. He believes he is the government.
I might also add, expect Morrison to be crawling up Palmer’s corpulent backside to do deals and to encourage him to try again in 3 years time. He can afford to do the advertising that the LNP could not – same as Hanson – she speaks for those who can’t and by that, it is the LNP who can be racist, but only up to a point. This was the perversity of Hoard’s Australia – she said the things he believed in but dared not speak.
“polls hinting at a Labor victory.”
Is that what the polls were doing? Hinting! Blow me down, I misunderstood what polling was about.
Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan.
I think we can safely discount all of these supposed lynchpins, with a footnote on the likely effect that $60m in misleading and deceptive advertising might have had.