The Queensland election was not the rout most pundits predicted. Labor did well to hold metropolitan seats but lost heavily in the regions.
Outgoing Premier Steven Miles may have clawed back some last-minute support in urban areas by ‘stealing’ several Greens policies – free school lunches, a big boost to public housing, 50c public transport fares and setting up a public electricity retailer.
A woman’s right to agency over her own body became an election issue and that must have had an impact on the result.
Once again, the huge divide between the progressive city and conservative country was evident, just as is happening in the US.
The epic battle taking place in the US will have profound ramifications for Australia and the world.
A majority of women support Kamala Harris and most men support Donald Trump, according to polls. Fortunately, there are more women voters and they tend to turn out to vote more than men.
Trump represents masculinity for many men, some of whom are aghast at the idea of a female president and a woman of colour.
Polls indicate the two are neck and neck which is hard to believe for most Australians.
How could fifty per cent of adult Americans think it is OK to elect a misogynistic, racist, climate crisis-denying, convicted felon who says he wants the kind of generals Hitler had? His own former longest-serving chief of staff, General John Kelly, has labelled him a fascist, as have others.
He can barely string two words together coherently, fawns over dictators like Putin and says Russia can do ‘whatever the hell they want’.
Yet in a few days he could be president again! It will be a wild ride if he wins. Anything could happen.
Australia will need to rethink its relationship with the US.
As a nation we will be forever grateful for America coming to our aid in World War II but this gratitude has led us into several military misadventures. We have acted like a deputy sheriff, meekly following the US into whatever wars the US president chooses.
Joining the Bush ‘Coalition of the Willing’ to invade Iraq based on a lie about Iraq having ‘weapons of mass destruction’ was a tragic mistake, for example.
If Trump wins, we could be dragged into a conflict with our number one trading partner, China, either over Taiwan or trade.
Trump has announced he will introduce massive tariffs on Chinese imports which would be seen as a trade war. He seems moronically unaware that the American people will pay these tariffs not Chinese exporters. They would cause a massive blowout in the deficit to an estimated $7.5 trillion and wreck the US economy.
Trump would turn the US into Fortress America, turning inward and disengaging from long-time allies. There’s no reason to believe Australia would receive special treatment.
Anthony Albanese and his cabinet colleagues will need to do some hard thinking if Trump wins.
We are part of Asia, not an American or European outpost, as former prime minister Paul Keating pointed out.
We need to seriously consider becoming non-aligned like Indonesia. In doing so we could cancel the absurd AUKUS deal to spend around four hundred billion dollars on nuclear-powered submarines which we wouldn’t even effectively control. They would only last a few days in a conflict with China. Drones would track and destroy them.
It’s also beyond time for Australia to cut its colonial ties with the UK and become a republic. Whilst Lidia Thorpe’s protest was considered jarring, she spoke for many Australians. Only a third of Australians now claim British heritage.
Anthony Albanese faces an election in a few months and he’s not polling well currently. There’s no possibility he will announce having a referendum on a republic after the Voice referendum disaster. It would need to be bipartisan and Peter Dutton is in no mood to cooperate.
Likewise, the PM is not going to frighten the horses by cancelling the AUKUS deal, even if Trump were to win.
He’s not even brave enough to tackle the obvious capital gains tax and negative gearing reforms that would pay for so much public housing.
Albanese is in a real dilemma. If he goes to the people with no changes and no reforms, he is very likely to lose ground and even the election, unless he steals some Greens policies, as Steven Miles did.
Currently it seems the best he can hope for is a minority government with Greens and Teals holding the balance. Polls show most Australians would favour such an outcome.
The Teals are a real thorn in the side of the Dutton Opposition. He needs those once-safe Liberal seats to win government, but to do so he would have to drop his pie-in-the-sky nuclear program and genuinely embrace effective climate action. His National Party partners wouldn’t have a bar of it.
In a few days the world may be turned even more upside down and both major parties will have to carefully consider the consequential effects on Australia. Let’s just hope Kamala Harris romps home and negotiates a just peace in the Middle East.
♦ Richard Jones is a former NSW MLC and is now a ceramist.
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. 
