Since my last post, I have been very busy with life. However the saeculum is often on my mind and I wanted to share some thoughts of today's federal election from the perspective of the saeculum.

The observation I made is that our Millennial Generation at the moment is very disengaged from politics and no politician has made a serious effort to engage with Millennial voters. Only the Australian Greens (which are a minor party) to an extent have tried to engage with Millennial voters. I will give a couple of examples of this disengagement.

Firstly, voting and enrolling to vote is compulsory in Australia. However it was reported in the media recently that 17% of all voters between 18-24 (the Millennials) aren't on the electoral roll. This is compared to just 7.6% of the population as a whole.

Secondly, I have read surveys which have shown that only around 60% of Australians believe that democracy is preferable to any other kind of government. Among those between 18-30, this is less than half.

In concluding if Australia had undergone the sort of recession that the United States went through after the global financial crisis, which resulted in massive falls in house prices and double digit unemployment. There would have been little doubt that various authoritarian political groups would have flourished. Also I have stated earlier our Millennials aren't politically apathetic as such, they are just apathetic towards the established political parties.

Therefore I can see a very real possibility of a major political realignment with the collapse of one political party, the rise of a new major political party and the transformation of another one could very well happen in this 4T. If I were a betting man, I would bet that the Australian Labor Party will collapse and be replaced by another "Progressive" Party (probably a new one, which would have seriously engaged the Millennial generation)

Originally Posted by Tristan

Since my last post, I have been very busy with life. However the saeculum is often on my mind and I wanted to share some thoughts of today's federal election from the perspective of the saeculum.

The observation I made is that our Millennial Generation at the moment is very disengaged from politics and no politician has made a serious effort to engage with Millennial voters.... <snipped for brevity>

Hey Tristan. Interesting observation, IMO. Thanks.
So, maybe Australia(and New Zealand) becomes a Republic?


Prince

PS: Any thoughts on John Abbott getting elected as Australia's PM?

Hey, how about those Aussie Lefties? What a wonderful result! / not

Looks like Australia is done with its recent Leftist experiment.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

Hey Tristan. Interesting observation, IMO. Thanks.
So, maybe Australia(and New Zealand) becomes a Republic?


Prince

PS: Any thoughts on John Abbott getting elected as Australia's PM?

I have no idea what type of Prime Minister Tony (not John) Abbott will turn out to be. Although he was a minister in the previous Coalition (Conservative) government and by all accounts was a good one. I am having a let’s wait and see approach.

XYMOX_4AD_84,

The political landscape of Australia is really different from the United States; therefore what would be considered "Left Wing" in the United States would be considered "Centrist" in Australia. To give a personal example by US standards I would be considered fairly moderate, however by Australian standards I am to the right of Genghis Khan. This is because I advocate things like employers being able to fire employees for any reason, along less labour market regulation. Not mention that I believe that the state run hospitals should be privatized, along with Medicare (similar to Canada's Medicare) should be scraped and replaced with a Swiss style health care system with compulsory basic health insurance.

It is noteworthy that the Abbott government won’t try to repeal (modify to some extent yes) nearly all the programs introduced by the previous "Leftist" Labor government.

Your new PM killed the Science Ministry, and is giving his portfolio to John Cleese...

Originally Posted by Bad Dog

Your new PM killed the Science Ministry, and is giving his portfolio to John Cleese...

Killed the science ministry?

Are you implying that the new aussie govt. is secretly made up of culture warrior types?

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Killed the science ministry?

Are you implying that the new aussie govt. is secretly made up of culture warrior types?

Not implying, Rick. Check it out for yourself. Check the new Aussie PM's entry on Wikipedia. Not like he's religious, or anything...

Originally Posted by Tristan

I have no idea what type of Prime Minister Tony (not John) Abbott will turn out to be. Although he was a minister in the previous Coalition (Conservative) government and by all accounts was a good one. I am having a let’s wait and see approach.

Tony(not John). Aggh!!!
(I seriously have no idea what I was thinking when I typed that.)
But, thanks for the correction, Tristan.
(at least I won't make that mistake ever again! )

Anyway, I agree that it's a good idea to take a 'wait and see'
approach before making any major assessments or judgements.


Prince

PS: BTW, please feel free to post any insights or opinions going forward.
I, for one, would be interested in your analysis from your specific POV.

Tony Abbott is a Boomer and has long been a culture warrior for the anti-awakening side. It remains to be seen if he tries to actively champion the anti-awakening cause as Prime Minister.

Originally Posted by Tristan

Tony Abbott is a Boomer and has long been a culture warrior for the anti-awakening side. It remains to be seen if he tries to actively champion the anti-awakening cause as Prime Minister.

It sounds like Australia has its Harper vis a vis Canada. Neither country has the culture war history of America, but because of the oil boom Harper has had a long run as PM of Canada.

Well actually there are many in the Liberal (Conservative) Party which are on the awakening side and some in the Labor Party who are on the anti-awakening side. So it is quite difficult for a leader of major parties to champion either the awakening or anti-awakening side, without alienating a significant section of their political party.

Plus we have compulsory voting in Australia, which requires political parties to appeal as much as possible to the "center" of the electorate in order to get elected. Unlike Mitt Romney who needed to go further right than he wanted to to win the Republican primary. Tony Abbott had to become more centrist than he wanted to in order to win the election which was just held.

However the thing which is foremost on my mind at the moment, is that Millennials are still very disengaged from the political system, as evidenced by much lower enrollment rates versus the general population and voter turnout.

Originally Posted by Tristan

Well actually there are many in the Liberal (Conservative) Party which are on the awakening side and some in the Labor Party who are on the anti-awakening side. So it is quite difficult for a leader of major parties to champion either the awakening or anti-awakening side, without alienating a significant section of their political party.

Plus we have compulsory voting in Australia, which requires political parties to appeal as much as possible to the "center" of the electorate in order to get elected. Unlike Mitt Romney who needed to go further right than he wanted to to win the Republican primary. Tony Abbott had to become more centrist than he wanted to in order to win the election which was just held.

However the thing which is foremost on my mind at the moment, is that Millennials are still very disengaged from the political system, as evidenced by much lower enrollment rates versus the general population and voter turnout.

But still the hard right candidate won the party leadership of the more conservative major national party.
Your country may be very interesting to watch over the next few years. And not for positive reasons.
Good luck, you may well need it.

Herbal Tea,

Tony Abbott's powers as Prime Minister are similar to that of Majority leader in the American presidential system. Especially given that the Liberal-National coalition doesn’t have a majority in the Senate. Also our federal senate is incredibly powerful, for example; it can block any bills (including fiscal bills).
In order to pass legislation the Abbott government needs to deal with one or more the following parties and groups;

39 votes are needed all up to pass legislation in the senate and the Coalition only will have 33 or 34 senators.

Australian Labor Party: 25-26
Australian Greens: 9-10
Palmer's United Party (Populist Party): 1-3
Family First Party (Evangelical Christian Party): 1
Liberal Democratic Party (A Libertarian Party): 1
Independents: 2-3
Democratic Labor Party (Conservative Catholic Party): 1

It is likely that an Abbott government will prefer to deal with the senators from parties other than Labor and the Greens. I believe this is likely, because the others are all from the centre or right of the political spectrum. Instead of dealing with either Labor or the Greens, who (especially the Greens) being on the “left” of the political spectrum.

* Each of the six states has 12 senators, whom usually half are elected at each election. Proportional representation is used in the senate elections; therefore the Senate has representatives from minor parties. The two territories have 2 senators each, which only serve one lower house term, rather than two which the state senators serve.

Once counting in the senate has finished and the exact make up is known, I will post the final composition of the senate.

Originally Posted by Tristan

Herbal Tea,

Tony Abbott's powers as Prime Minister are similar to that of Majority leader in the American presidential system. Especially given that the Liberal-National coalition doesn’t have a majority in the Senate. Also our federal senate is incredibly powerful, for example; it can block any bills (including fiscal bills).
In order to pass legislation the Abbott government needs to deal with one or more the following parties and groups;

39 votes are needed all up to pass legislation in the senate and the Coalition only will have 33 or 34 senators.

Australian Labor Party: 25-26
Australian Greens: 9-10
Palmer's United Party (Populist Party): 1-3
Family First Party (Evangelical Christian Party): 1
Liberal Democratic Party (A Libertarian Party): 1
Independents: 2-3
Democratic Labor Party (Conservative Catholic Party): 1

It is likely that an Abbott government will prefer to deal with the senators from parties other than Labor and the Greens. I believe this is likely, because the others are all from the centre or right of the political spectrum. Instead of dealing with either Labor or the Greens, who (especially the Greens) being on the “left” of the political spectrum.

* Each of the six states has 12 senators, whom usually half are elected at each election. Proportional representation is used in the senate elections; therefore the Senate has representatives from minor parties. The two territories have 2 senators each, which only serve one lower house term, rather than two which the state senators serve.

Once counting in the senate has finished and the exact make up is known, I will post the final composition of the senate.

Good breakdown. It apprears that federalism is more advanced in Australia than it is in Canada. Do give us an update when the 'smoke' clears.

Its been said before, but Australia on average, is 10 years behind the leading edge of the saeculum in America, except the capital cities of south-east, which are 2-5 years.

I'm not sure how this influences our domestic policy, as we're only *just* entering the 4T, whilst Europe and North America are knee-deep in it. It also seems to make it harder to gauge the national mood ( since we're heavily influenced by American mass-media).
Is someone like Tony Abbot a 3T 'culture warrior' type or a crises-leader of the 4T? Moreover, which type do Australians actually want?

[ As an aside, My name is Charles. I've been regularly reading this site since 2002. I'm 27, at university with mostly people in their early 20's . The changes since I started uni a decade ago are appreciable, both in the students and faculty and totally in-line with Strauss-Howe predictions. ]

Urbanite, I don't think Australia is that far behind on the saeculum, at most Australia is behind North America by four years at most.

I also believe (which has been explained in previous posts) that the 4T in Australia was triggered by the Global Financial Crisis (like it was in the rest of the Western world). However this 4T has not reached the "regeneracy" stage at least in Australia.

One piece of evidence I will give about the changed mood in Australian society since the GFC is the greatly increased anxiety being felt by people about a lot of things. In particular the economy, which Australian people in general feel is a lot worse than it actually has been. Also the political landscape is more volatile than it has been in a very long time, especially given the collapse in faith Australians have in their politicians.

In regard to Tony Abbott, it remains to be seen if he will be either in your words ‘3T 'culture warrior' type or a crises-leader of the 4T’. However I do believe if he were to govern as an Unravelling culture warrior, the voting public will not like him for displaying post seasonal behavior. Because this reaction happened recently when former Prime Minister Julia Gillard decided to behave as a 3T ‘culture warrior’.

Also it is obvious to me in the recent election campaign that none of the political parties (expect some of the smaller ones), tried to seriously engage or appeal to Millennial voters. As a result, I believe Millennial’s feel alienated by our politicians. This alienation is reflected in much lower voter registration and turnout rates among Millennials compared to the general population.