@ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml Very interesting take on Australian politics, and whether Victoria is really to the left of the rest of the country (as Peter Dutton claims):
"In fact, if you look at voting over recent federal elections, Victoria, along with New South Wales and South Australia, is among the three states closest to the centre of the Australian political spectrum. The odd state out isn’t Victoria. It is Peter Dutton’s home state of Queensland.
“At last year’s federal election, the Coalition won 70 per cent of Queensland’s lower house seats but just 30 per cent of seats across the rest of Australia. Peter Dutton doesn’t need to go to Melbourne to be in alien territory; he’s in it as soon as he leaves his home state.”
https://insidestory.org.au/queensland-and-victoria-which-is-really-the-odd-state-out/
#Auspol #PeterDutton #VicPol #NSWpol #QldPol #Politics #News #LibSpill #Australia #Victoria #Queensland #Brisbane #Melbourne
@ajsadauskas@aus.social @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml ha, he doesn’t even need to cross the border. He can just go to inner Brisbane where the greens took 3 seats.
@ajsadauskas@aus.social @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml
I don’t know that it’s the full story but I believe part of the reason for Queensland differing from the rest of the nation is the higher population outside of the capital city.
NSW & Victoria have remote agricultural & arid regions but until the covid shift they could be effectively ignored by politicians without jeopardising their chances of winning.
In Queensland, for years it was possible to pay little attention to the views of those in Brisbane & still win - as Bjelke-Petersen proved.
https://www.qld.gov.au/about/about-queensland/history/premiers
@Neil1808 @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml Great point, and yes Brisbane does seem to fit more with the rest of the country, rather than rural Queensland.
I wonder if part of the reason is also how much of that rural population lives far away from Brisbane.
In Victoria and NSW, most of the major population centres outside the state capital (Newcastle, Central Coast, Wollongong, Geelong, Gippsland, Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton) are only an hour or two away from the state capital.
People down south forget just how big Queensland is. Melbourne is roughly the same distance to Brisbane as parts of Far North Queensland!
In most other states, the Libs and Nats are two parties, with the Nationals usually following the Libs. In Queensland, they’re one party with the ex-Nationals basically in control of the merged party.
