Richard Denniss

1 month ago | thenewdaily.com.au | Richard Denniss

What the Liberal Party does next is important to them and irrelevant to Australia. They attracted the lowest ever primary vote for a ‘major party’ since 1943. They have their fewest members of House of Representatives since 1946 (when there were half as many seats to win). What remains is a party even more dominated by Queensland MPs than it was before the election. The Liberals hold only a small handful of seats in Sydney and Melbourne – and none in Adelaide or Hobart.

2 months ago | themonthly.com.au | Jo Chandler |George Megalogenis |Madison Griffiths |Richard Denniss

It’s 4.30am when two grey-haired women pick their way by torchlight across the logging coupe in New South Wales’s Bulga State Forest. They plant a pair of green plastic chairs in the churned earth under a monster tree-harvester. They get some help bolting onto the machine – chunky D-locks looped around their necks, the weight nestled on rolls of towelling. Then it’s just the two of them. Dawn dials up the birdsong and illuminates a wash of mist rolling through the trees they have come to save.

2 months ago | themonthly.com.au | Madison Griffiths |George Megalogenis |Jo Chandler |Richard Denniss

In a Quiet cul-de-sac in Wodonga, on the border of Victoria and New South Wales, Serena Brejcha retrieves a two-metre-long banner from its cardboard sheath. Quietly, she unfurls it. It is barely January, and her house is still decorated with many a Christmas ornament. Given the banner’s scale, she and her husband clasp a hold of each end so I am able to read its provocation.

2 months ago | themonthly.com.au | George Megalogenis |Jo Chandler |Madison Griffiths |Richard Denniss

Beyond the deals that will be needed to form Australia’s next government, the outcome of this federal election will be determined by a wildcard influence from outside our politics – the Trump presidency There was a time when the leaders of Australia’s Labor and Liberal parties refused to entertain the question of minority government, and no one seemed to mind. It was just about the final taboo in our politics, and it relied on the assumption that Australians crave stability above all else.

2 months ago | themonthly.com.au | Richard Denniss |George Megalogenis |Jo Chandler |Madison Griffiths

In 2022, Anthony Albanese swept into majority government despite a swing away from Labor of 0.8 per cent compared to Bill Shorten’s primary vote in 2019. Luckily for Albanese, Scott Morrison had driven away 5.7 per cent of Liberal voters. And as any political strategist will tell you, a messy win is better than a clean loss.