America's big tech sector is lobbying the Trump administration to take up a new fight with the Australian government — over its rules governing social media and streaming services.
Silicon Valley, whose top executives have cultivated close relationships with Donald Trump, is now pushing the new president to pressure Australia to relax its regulations or risk retaliation.
How to win friends and influence people? The boys are being busy.
Matildagirl
https://apple.news/AO3M2SZ6iQXeR8oRXpy3Unw
Australia is having a Federal election, we go to the polls on 3rd May 2025 after a 5 weeks campaign by the parties trying to get our vote.
It’s between Anthony Albonese Labor and Peter Dutton Liberal National coalition. Dutton is trying to be Trump lite, he wants to sack 41,000 government workers. It could be decided by the smaller parties and independents, the feeling is it may be a minority government. Will see.
5 weeks is long enough I don’t know how you guys get through your election marathons.
Regards to all
Matildagirl
@matildagirl I think that for us, those who haven't made up their minds before the campaign starts usually do so within a matter of a few weeks. The rest of the circus is both sides trying to get the non-voters to go to the polls on their behalf. I personally think the ones who still claim to be "undecided" practically until they walk into the polling booth actually have decided, but they like the attention they get for claiming otherwise.
@tgraf66 Hi, in our case because it’s compulsory you will get them to vote but what they do in the booth is what you are trying to gain. If they really don’t care they won’t fill it out or just go 1,2,3 etc a lot of penis’s get drawn but it is a decision.
We also have preferential voting so if a candidate doesn’t get over 50% the candidate with the lowest no of votes drop out and the people who voted for them, their second choice votes go to the those 2nd choice candidates and so on until a clear winner is found which in theory is the candidate most voters can stomach.
So sometimes the winning party isn’t known for a couple of weeks. The other issue these days is that the parties are losing people to more independents and smaller parties so big majorities are harder to get. There is a feeling around that this election may be a minority government and the winning party will have to work with the cross bench (the independents and smaller parties) to get things done.
Last election Labor got a majority but it was only 2 seats.
Throw in the Trump effect this election and it will be interesting.
Regards to all
Matildagirl
https://apple.news/AMqv5EmGyQbW6cAHq0FsO7w
Australian Federal Election 2025: How to vote, key dates, major issues, and how a government is decided
If anyone is interested in how our elections work. Here is everything you need to know about the upcoming election.
Regards
Matildagirl
One of these gentlemen will be our next Prime Minister. I was wondering if you want to as an exercise see if you can pick who it will be. You will know if you were right on the 3rd May, just as a bit of fun.
Regards to all
Matildagirl
One of these gentlemen will be our next Prime Minister. I was wondering if you want to as an exercise see if you can pick who it will be. You will know if you were right on the 3rd May, just as a bit of fun.
Regards to all
Matildagirl
Hi guys,
Well Labor is back in with a greater majority, Peter Dutton our Trump lite leader of the LNP who looked like he would win a few months ago as he adopted Trumps ideas is gone, lost his seat and lost lots of seats for his party.
Australia’s centre-left prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has won a second term with a crushing victory over the opposition, whose rightwing leader, Peter Dutton, failed to brush off comparisons with Donald Trump and ended up losing his own seat.
Addressing the party faithful in Sydney, Albanese said voters had chosen Australian values, including “fairness, aspiration and opportunity for all”.
“Australians have voted for a future that holds true to these values, a future built on everything that brings us together as Australians, and everything that sets our nation apart from the world,” he said.
In an apparent reference to Trump’s policies, Albanese said he would “choose the Australian way”.
“We do not need to beg or borrow or copy from anywhere else. We do not seek our inspiration from overseas. We find it right here in our values and in our people,” he said.
As 2025 approached, Dutton looked to be in a strong position, drawing encouragement from the success of populist right-wing parties across the democratic world. These victories suggested Dutton had a winning formula – a pitch consistent with the populist-nationalist zeitgeist.
Trump’s defiant return was a frontal repudiation of liberal elites and their priorities around climate change, procedural governance, feminism and other identity-based politics.
More explicitly, he praised Trump as “shrewd” and a “big thinker”, and when tariffs were placed on Australian imports to the US, Dutton hinted he would have secured exemptions because of his ideological like-mindedness with the president.
Trump had trashed the global trading system. He insulted America’s closest and most dutiful friends, Australia included.
Polls showed that Australians saw Trump as a threat. Dutton had backed the wrong horse.
I think possibly because the election got put back a month because of the flooding in QLD and we got another month of Trump and his tariffs etc people here thought no way do we want that.
Regards to all
Matildagirl