Australian Federal Election 2019

Australian Federal Election 2019 - More of the Same?

Scott Morrison. Victory Speech. Photo @ScottMorrisonMP

Incumbent Liberal Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, wins an election that for him was supposed to be unwinnable. That seems to have been a surprise to election commentators, and even went against many of the most respected polling organisation stats.

I must admit I don't follow Aussie politics as much since they installed a revolving door on the PM's office not long after 2007. Arguments over which person is likely to win at the next election are as shallow as the people who concern themselves with such things.

What gets me interested in politics is a leader who has a vision, can articulate it, and does the work to make it happen. Along the way they'll make sure you see the benefits of their work, so that maybe, just maybe, you'll vote them back in, so they can continue to do the work they believe in.

Based on Scott Morrison's acceptance speech, I got a sense of why he may have defied the odds. He's a very likeable, down to earth type of man. The kind of guy you could have a conversation with and you would feel he was listening.

If that's what he brought to the campaign trail I could imagine a lot of people, who vote for the person not the party, would easily lean his way.

Which is not the only reason why he did better than expected but is a likely factor at some level.

His main opposition, Bill Shorten, managed to lose the 'unlosable election'. Not by a lot but enough to know there was a swing away from him and the Labor party that's going to work against them in the next three years.

As someone who used to put Labor first on my ballot paper Bill is one of the reasons I stopped voting Labor. His biggest achievement seems to have been not getting replaced as leader for the last six years, even after he lost the previous election.

Maybe he did more but every time I heard him speak, he just wasn't interesting. He never seemed to lead the conversation. I'm thankful he resigned as leader after this election. I just hope the Labor party choses someone with an actual vision that they can speak to with authority.

Anyway... Scott Morrison. More of the same? Most likely. That's usually what happens when the sitting government remains in power. He does have a bigger majority though, so maybe he'll have a slightly easier time putting through policies that may not have gone through previously.

I don't know. I don't find 'ScoMo' particularly interesting either. The first time he did anything remotely unique, that caught my attention, was #shoegate where he responded to a botched Photoshop job on his shoes with some good humor. Fun, but is it what you want to be remembered for?

Message to my Department (PM&C): I didn’t ask for the shoeshine, but if you must Photoshop, please focus on the hair (lack thereof), not the feet! 😀
Here they are in all their glory - my footwear of choice whenever I can get out of a suit. pic.twitter.com/hKKUstnArq
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) January 8, 2019

Comments

Who Even Reads This?

W riting this blog is largely both a labor of love and a discipline. Since about 2006 (the blog started in 2004) I have written a minimum of two posts per month. Sometimes I've posted more, particularly in the last 4-5 years, where I've tried to write and post at least one article a week without fail. Unfortunately it's not a niche blog, unless the niche is things that interest me. Which means my blog is either too broad to have regular readers or too niche to have anyone other than my mum reading it. Which she does (hi Mum) as we established back in January of 2014 in the post Ya Mum Reads it... That said, this blog overall regularly gets 6-7k views every month, mostly through people finding various articles through search engines. By far the largest traffic source is 'Other' which is basically unknown sources. I'm willing to bet a large percentage of that is the dead internet. Bots testing my comments to see if they're spamable or Illuminati spammers. Whil...

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...

Review: ArtHelper - The All-In-One AI Writing + Marketing Assistant for Artists - 'ChatGPT for Artists'

ArtHelper prides itself on being all 'human-made' art. T he idea of an AI, trained specifically on art business marketing, that can not only offer advice on marketing your work, but also assist with creating all the content too, is certainly appealing. Especially to those of us who would rather spend more time creating our art than trying to sell it. ArtHelper does just that whilst attempting to be your 'home' on the internet. A destination for your profile and portfolio, a marketplace for your art, and a directory of artists as well, with one distinction - all the art must be human made. Which, for you AI artists, doesn't count the prompt for AI generated art - because the idea, according to ArtHelper's creators, isn't the art. Which is a fair point, in terms of promoting art 'made by a human', but can get kind of murky when you understand that not all AI art is generated from a single prompt... and 'found object art' isn't actually ...

TV Series Review: Lanterns (2026) HBOmax No Spoilers

Lanterns - HBOmax P ersonally I think the new DC Studios, Lanterns series is one of the best DC shows in quite some time. It even edges out The Penguin for me (just barely) because it has likeable characters. Don't get me wrong, The Penguin is a standout drama series for sure, but I prefer heroes to villains (or anti-heroes for that matter) even if villains get the better monologues. It's nice to have a show like Lanterns, where the heroes are the most interesting part of the story, and you hope they triumph in the end. That said, I have never really been a fan of the Green Lanterns. I don't have a preferred Lantern. The character was always just one of the lesser cool members of the Justice League to me. The only reason I even know Hal Jordan's name is due to the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie. Prior to that I just knew the character as Green Lantern. The only reason I know of Guy Gardener is from the Superman movie... and the only reason I know John Stuart is ...

Movie Review: Tomb Raider (2018) Spoiler Free

B ack in the 1990s I was a big fan of the Tomb Raider computer games. Aside from the obvious drawcard of the games female lead, Lara Croft, it was the only game back in the day that was a true 3D, third person shooter/adventure game. I wasn't a fan of first person shooters (though I played Dark Forces a lot at the time), I've always preferred computer games where you control a character on screen. Sadly I haven't kept up with the rebooted Tomb Raider games with more realistic graphics and game engine. While I did like Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider movies, she did make the character lean a little too much like a female James Bond, with her own tech guru who gave her wonderful toys. Recently I renewed my HBOMax subscription, and saw that the 2018 Tomb Raider movie, with Alicia Vikander in the title role, was soon to be leaving the platform, so I decided to watch it before it did. Obviously intended to reboot the franchise, in this film Lara goes on her first quest to dete...

New Cat Art Collaboration: TET's Cats Paintings and OpenArt AI Model Workspace (Photobooth)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...

Making the Ukulele Cool Again By Inventing One That Transforms Into a Guitar Mid-Performance

Mattias playing the Ukulele that turns into a guitar in ukulele mode. Y ouTuber, Mattias Krantz , set out to solve one of the biggest problems with ukuleles, and that is, they are ukuleles. As he points out in his video they're one of the only instruments that people respect you less for the better you get at playing them. As someone who bought a ukulele because I wanted to learn an instrument, and I couldn't really afford a guitar (plus I found a ukulele that I think is pretty cool, but only in comparison to other ukuleles) you can imagine my interest would be really piqued by a ukulele that transforms into a guitar. Anyway, there is not much that needs to be said other than, a ukulele that transforms into a guitar isn't a thing you can just buy off the shelf, which is why Mattias set out to invent one. Nothing I say will be more interesting than just sitting back and watching his video below. It's a fascinating journey that I wanted to share and, maybe one day, eith...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog