After nine long years of being led by the least among us, Australia’s future feels optimistic. Thanks, Western Australia, you were instrumental in booting those numpties out!
Aussie voters rejected a smirking, lying, bullying, misogynist, corrupt middle manager with no vision and a lust for power without any meaning.
In other words, Scott lost the election because he was terrible at his job and people eventually noticed.
Smirks has been sent to the back of the class – on the backbench – along with his remaining few mates who were voted back in by their electorates.
They include.
Just some MPs who wanted less government in their lives, and then got it, include treasurer Josh Frydenberg, Gladys Liu, Tim Wilson, Craig Kelly, Katie Allen, Dave Sharma, Erik Abetz, Amanda Stoker, Zed Seselja, Jason Falinski, Ben Moreton and Trent Zimmerman.
What’s more remarkable is that voters ignored mass media propagandist, Murdoch (News Corp), who threw everything to try and convince them otherwise. It was a complete repudiation of News Corp as a political force. The role of media, of course, is to hold the powerful to account. And when media and politics merge, as history demonstrates, it never ends well.
It appears that massive ad spend from the UAP, by gigantic miner billionaire, Clive Palmer, resulted in just one Senate seat. And the seat for One Nation’s Pauline Hanson is in trouble – more Australians want to smoke weed and support the Legalise Cannabis Australia party than vote for incoherent racists and selfish mining billionaires.
So hats off to you, Australia, for ignoring their lies and spin and voting against stupid.
The Greens and Independent vote has never been stronger, and real action on climate change is more tangible than it has been in a decade. There appears a much better gender balance and cultural mix in federal parliament than ever before. Hooray!
Now begins the repair to the enormous damage done to our democracy and institutions by the Liberal-Nationals.
The public sector, the ABC, CSIRO, courts, tribunals, regulators, trade unions, charities, community legal centres and NGOs need reinvestment and their powers strengthened.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that Labor won’t be totally shit. But federal governance could not have been any worse.
This is an extremely low bar to jump.
We will never have to hear what Jenny thinks again, and the national conversation, dominated by sociopathic, mean-spirited, white privileged blokes, has now moved on from the 1950s. One hilarious election take was an observation from the ABC’s Casey Briggs: For the first time, the Liberal Party is unlikely to hold any seats overlooking Sydney Harbour.
Hans Lovejoy, editor
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
