Clive Bibby: Stating the Obvious

Recent episodes of Australian Fox nighttime “talk shows” have discussed the probable outcome of the next General Election - now likely to be called within days of the RB interest rate cut announced this week.

As a political junkie, I found it interesting that most seasoned political commentators - even those who oppose the current government, are suggesting the most likely outcome being a minority Labour Government with support from the Greens.

NZCPR Weekly: Election Lessons

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we examine lessons for New Zealand from the recent European Parliamentary election and the Australian election, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Claire Lehmann provides an insightful analysis into why Bill Shorten’s Labor Party failed to win the Australian election, and our poll asks whether you believe New Zealand’s establishment parties are losing touch with voters.

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Bob Edlin: What Bridges can learn from Australia

Just  as  Australians  are  absorbing the   lessons  of  Scott Morrison’s  “miraculous” return from the electoral dead, New  Zealanders  are  being told by  a prominent   Wellington  economist  Ganesh Nana  he  fears  the   Ardern government  is  about  to  back down  from “meaningful economic  reform”.

Yet across  the Tasman   it  was  the  “ambitious”   economic reforms proposed   by   Federal  Labor  leader  Bill  Shorten   which delivered the crushing  blow   of   losing  what the pundits   called the  “unloseable” election.

Labour  in   NZ   is  probably   congratulating  itself  that  it  has   dropped  a  broad  capital   gains tax   not  just  from  its current  programme  but  for the future.For it  is clear  many  Australian  voters  rejected   Shorten’s  plan for  a   giant  tax grab across  the   economic spectrum   and  allowed   Scott Morrison to  play  mercilessly  the  line  “the  Bill  you  can’t  afford”.

Mike Hosking: Morrison's miracle a lesson in good politics

There is a very significant lesson out of Saturday night in Australia for any western Labour party that cares to learn it - and that includes Jeremy Corbyn in Britain and Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand.

It came from the focus on Bob Hawke on the eve of the vote. The key was not the fact that Hawke was the greatest Prime Minister of the modern age, but why he was.

He wasn't remotely representative of any of the modern Labour movements. Hawke floated the dollar, freed the economy, liberalised trade, things that these days would be seen to be very much at the conservative end of the Labour movement.

Blair, Hawke and Lange. They were all centrists, populists, representatives of middle New Zealand, or Australia, or Britain, and that is why they were popular.

Clive Bibby: For all the right reasons

Forgive me if l savour the moment.

Saturday's Australian Liberal Party's improbable election victory is a lesson for those who treat the common man with contempt. Yet unfortunately, l doubt that those who should learn from the experience have the capacity to do so.

On the other hand,  Prime Minister Tony Abbott, having endured one of the dirtiest battles of the  campaign fighting insurmountable odds in an unsuccessful effort to retain his own seat, showed what real character was about when he graciously accepted defeat.

Richard Prebble: Insight into Politics - Voting systems matter

Recent events, the German, the Australian and last week’s local body elections, remind us how the voting system can change the result. Our media reports that Angela Merkel and her Christian Democrats have had a stunning win.  It was a remarkable result. The Conservatives are the largest party and have increased their vote and under First Past the Post they would have a huge majority.  But Germany has MMP.  The Christian Democrats are just short of 50% of the seats. While the Social Democrats (Labour) and the Greens had an awful election result with the Left Party (the former Communist party) they have a majority in the Bundestag and could form the government. 

The Social Democrats have promised not to go into coalition with the Left Party.  How long before that promise is forgotten?

Karl du Fresne: Abbott had the last laugh

Right to the very end – even after he had convincingly won the Australian election, dealing his Labor opponents their most crushing defeat in a century – some of the Australian media continued to treat prime minister-elect Tony Abbott as a figure of ridicule.

In fact one of the most striking aspects of the election across the Tasman is that it demonstrated very clearly the extent to which the Australian media have become politicised. It also showed, not for the first time, how out of touch Australian political journalists are with the public they supposedly serve.

Robert Carling: An economic rationalist's guide to the Australian election

Just as the truth is the first casualty of war, principled policy is the first casualty of election campaigns. Even in Australia's era of 'economic rationalism' that ended a long time ago, the economic dries took a back seat role during election campaigns (the Hewson-led Liberal campaign of 1993 being the exception). In the 2013 campaign, however, the dries are not just in the back seat but locked away in the boot, and it is not at all clear that they will be allowed out after the election regardless of who wins.

Economic rationalism cannot be tightly defined, but broadly speaking it is a set of beliefs in free markets and the price mechanism; a minimum of regulation; openness to trade and investment; raising government revenue through broad-based and neutral taxation; subjecting public investment proposals to rigorous cost-benefit analysis; and wrapping all of this in fiscal discipline.

Bryce Edwards: NZ Politics daily

New Zealanders could be forgiven for not realising that Australians go the polls tomorrow following a marathon, and sometimes farcical, election campaign. This is because there’s been very little coverage or awareness of the campaign in New Zealand, as was pointed out by one Australian newspaper report yesterday which said ‘The campaign noise that's been blaring at Australians for weeks doesn't ring quite as loud across the ditch - which could be a blessing for those voting in New Zealand’ – see Elise Scott’s Aussies cast their votes in New Zealand. Another Australian-based New Zealand blogger has also complained that ‘You wouldn't know an election was being held if you relied on the NZ media’ – see: Australian election ignored by NZ media. 

The main issues of importance to New Zealanders are New Zealand ex-pat rights in Australia, the Australian economy and refugee policies. However, with the Liberals looking almost certain to win tomorrow, an extra focus in New Zealand is likely to be on the fact that the rightwing Liberal leader Tony Abbott is married to a New Zealander.