Australia votes for CHANGE.

Australians went to the polls on Saturday (21/5/2022) to send a resounding message to the incumbent LNP government:

'Take the electorate for granted, and there is a price to pay at the ballot box.'

I start by congratulating Anthony Albanese on becoming Australia's 31st Prime Minister.

He ran a very good campaign even if all of the MSM wanted to try to 'catch him out' by asking silly nonsense 'gotcha questions' that practically went nowhere. The Australian electorate are a very discerning lot, they have traditionally never given a lower house government the reins of the Senate numbers and Australians have consistently voted the other way in the Senate to ensure no one government has the numbers to 'crash through' it's agenda and foist it upon the people. If its not the Greens who of more recent times have held the balance in that house, it was always the Australian Democrats who held that trust of the Australian People. I am actually delighted that neither Pauline Hanson's One Nation or Clive Palmer's United Australia Party secured any additional numbers in the Senate especially as the latter spend tens of millions of dollars trying to con Australian's into believing he (Palmer) would "keep interest rates low, below 3%". Thankfully most of Australia saw right through that little furphy. I am equally delighted that a record number of (women) Independents have also secured seats in the lower house (as well as the Greens). This will make our Parliament much more representative in the long term.

Back to our new PM, I make this prediction: Anthony Albanese will become one of Australia's greatest serving PM's. He will be there for a long time, that is, he will seek the endorsement of the electorate in his second term, and he will get it. He will run a very tight ship. He will exact performance from his ministers and he will hold them accountable to the electorate, hence why he has committed to a beefy federal ICAC with powers to look back 15 years for any corruption. This should give much needed consternation to the outgoing ministers, staffers and donors of the former LNP government, as we have seen a plethora of instances that simply 'do not pass the pub test'.

Anthony Albanese has been the defacto leader of the left side of the Labor party for decades in NSW. He has consistently fought (internally) against many of the former NSW Labor ministers that were caught with their 'hands in the till' hence why he has made a Federal ICAC part of his policy platform as well as fixing the rift with our indigenous populations by encouraging constitutional recognition of their place in Australia.

I remind my readers that it was Anthony Albanese who won the majority of support from the rank and file members of the Australian Labor Party back in 2018 when he was challenging the then leader Bill Shorten. It was the then Labor caucus that overrode that decision to re-install Shorten. So, Albo had the grass roots support of the whole Labor party minus the right faction for a very long time. This is why I say he will run a very tight ship and will need to cut away at any white anting that will emanate from the right.

Albo is a good delegator. He has proven this when as Infrastructure Minister in the Rudd/Gillard governments he established Infrastructure Australia and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, both organisations with an 'arms length' position from government to determine projects on their merit. He is the reason the Pacific Highway is now a separated road from Woolgoolga to Ballina at a cost to taxpayers of more than $5.5 billion dollars.

Australians have given Anthony a chance to prove himself, the Anthony I know will deliver in spades and Australia will warm to him in time.

I wish him every success in the future !!