a funny thing happened on the way from the beach...

...I have become slightly interested in Australian politics. Who would have thought?

As I drove home with Harriette (aside: fuck off spell check, I know how to spell my daughter's name!) from our semi-regular whale watching session at the North Bilgola Lookout I passed an advertising hoarding for the Palmer United Party, the political party of Clive Palmer, mining magnate, Titanic replica builder (yes, he actually wants to build a replica of the Titanic) and wannabe Australian PM. He's a big bloke and thinks Greenpeace are funded by the CIA, which is one of many reasons he is unlikely to get my vote.

Anyway, it did get me thinking about the upcoming election in which I believed, until this morning, that the Labor Party (that's how they spell Labour Party in Australia, without the 'u') would kop an utter hiding in the upcoming election. But as I drove home I started thinking that Labor might have a slim chance. Yes, last week knifed their supposedly vote-losing leader in the back and replaced her with the previous supposedly vote-losing leader - who they'd knifed in the back three years earlier. There is no doubting that the disunity in the Labor party has been laid bare and played out in public over the past few years.

However. Australia has retained its tripe-A credit rating, is regarded as a success story among developed economies for the way it steered a course through the GFC and is doing pretty well, despite the doomsaying of the opposition Liberal party. Yes, we are helped in no small measure because we are made of a large chunk of minerals that China wants to buy, and yes, as China's demand slows we may be in for some lean times - but to date, we've done pretty well. Gillard, the latest knifed-leader never endeared herself to the Australian people and the messy leadership challenges that lead to Rudd taking his second stint at the helm have not been good PR.

Australian press ownership is among, if not the, most concentrated in the western world. What is not owned by Murdoch is mostly owned by Gina Rinehart, another mining magnate. So the past three years of main stream media have been full of stories of division within the Labor party and very light on policy success, of which there has been some. Added to that, the right-leaning media have give the Liberal-National Party an extraordinarily easy ride; plenty of column inches devoted to attacks on Labor and, even when it looks like the Libs will form the next government, hardly any focus on what their polices are. But the Australian people, for all the talk, know what life is actually like in the land downunder.

Abbott, the leader of the Liberals is not a widely popular leader. There are many people who will not vote for him despite the fact they are actually voting for the party he leads. And on the Labor side there are people who would not have voted for her who may now vote Labor with Rudd back in the hot seat.  I'd not be surprised if Rudd moved the election date away from Yom Kippur, which would be a canny move. And he will definitely stick it to Abbott in a way that will be better received than Gillard's jabs (I'll not go into the sexism in Australia bit...) And the smaller parties may play a decisive roll.

Labor now may regain some ground. Right-leaning voters who are uncomfortable with Abbott are unlikely to flip to Labor but they might vote for Palmer. Or Katter's Australian Party (another party named after its leader; as if that isn't worrying enough.) Disciplined right leaning voters will vote Liberal regardless, but the more bogan (if I may be so politically incorrect) might split the blue vote...so there is potential for a split blue vote and a strengthened red vote...

So maybe this election will be more interesting than I thought, and despite not moving far in my opinion that the Labor party is a party of fucktards who could not organise a piss up in a brewery, the election just might not be a forgone conclusion.