Thread by @siminevazire

Good morning USA! Australian election results are coming in & looking great. A summary & some key terminology:
1. The “Liberal” party is conservative, has been in power for 9 yrs, & lost the house tonight, by a lot. This means they’re no longer in power.
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2. The “Labor” party (no “u”, even though labour has a “u” in Australia) is liberal, and will have either a majority in the house or will form a partnership “minority government” with greens & independents, so Labor leader Albanese (“Albo”) will be Prime Minister.
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3. Notice I didn’t call the potential partnership between Labor & Greens/Independents a “coalition” because “Coalition” has a very specific meaning - a formal union between Liberal (the conservatives) and the Nationals (ultraconservatives). “Coalition” always means those two.
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4. The biggest news in this election is Greens getting a big boost in vote share and a few seats in the House, and also some independents calling themselves “Teals” (green-ish, but more conservative?) won big, stealing several seats from the Liberals (conservatives).
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5. The commentator on ABC (the public tv channel) that lots of people like & are watching & tweeting about also has the last name Green, just to make things more confusing.
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6. The Teals beating Liberals (conservatives) are all women, beating Liberal (conservative) men. I think I heard a commentator describe the problem as too much “hairy-chested” language from the Liberals. Some of these dudes are really 😨
The teals are funded by a billionaire.
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7. Two of the Liberal (conservative) men who might very well lose their seats are Ministers (like Secretary of _______ but an elected member of the house). They are Frydenberg (prob will lose) and Dutton (prob won’t lose).
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8. When one of the two major parties (Liberals (conservatives) and Labor (not labour)) loses, they typically change who their leader is. So the current Prime Minister, Scott Morrison (ScoMo, or Scottie from Marketing) won’t stay Liberals leader, but not clear who will be.
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9. The biggest swing towards Labor is in the state called Western Australia, which is full of coal and not typically a very lefty state, but they have a Labor premier (like governor) who is very popular (partly bc WA kept COVID levels v low), & that helped Labor statewide.

10. There’s v little dramatic “BreAKiNg NeWS” music/graphics on tv, & when there is, the next scene is Green (the commentator) being like “sorry guys I don’t have a big announcement, I don’t really know what that was about”.
It’s cute, like they’re too sober to really pull it off

11. One of the seats that Labor picked off of Liberals in Western Australia was won by Sam Lim, who speaks 10 languages which he put to use for COVID outreach, and he used to be a dolphin trainer.
(Ok, maybe this thread is devolving)

12. I almost forgot the most important thing!!! In Australia you vote by ranking your preferences and if your top choice doesn’t do well your vote is transferred to your 2nd choice etc.
Also voting is mandatory & elections are on Saturdays. Federal elections are every 3 years.

13. Like US, there is a House and Senate (together = parliament), but unlike US there’s no president. Prime Minister is whoever’s leader of party with majority of the House (& must be member of House). So PM can change anytime if the party in power decides to change leadership.

14. I just googled when the transition of power will happen and
“Because election dates aren’t fixed, neither is the date for the new government to take office. It happens when the incoming government is ready, usually within two weeks or so.”
😳

moadoph.gov.au/blog/transitio…

15. Albo’s giving his victory speech & it’s midnight & the main theme is Albo pleading with supporters to stop cheering so he can finish his speech. His exasperation at supporters’ enthusiasm is endearing. I think he wants to sleep. Me too. Goodnight & good luck!
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Postscript

https://twitter.com/siminevazire/status/1528200423999668224