this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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Can someone explain Australian parties to me? (fedia.io)
submitted 4 days ago by atro_city@fedia.io to c/australia@aussie.zone
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Y'all have first past the post / winner takes all, don't you? There was a vote recently and "labor" won from what I'm reading?

Labor, coalition, independents, etc. what kinds of parties are these? I thought Albanese was a "cunt" yet his party seems to have won again? What's going on?

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[–] Hegar@fedia.io 17 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Labour is a centrist party that historically emerged from the union movement. They occupy a center-right to center-left position.

The Liberal/National Coalition is right to far right, though they used to have a center right wing ("wets"). The liberal party mostly represent the interests of the rich and business - liberal as in laissez faire, not liberal in the US sense. The nationals have historically represented the interests of farmers and rural communities.

Independents are representatives without a party allegiance. When your electoral system is designed to reflect the will of the people - ie it's not first past the post - you can have independents or minor parties.

[–] retro@infosec.pub 6 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Labor, not Labour

[–] abff08f4813c@j4vcdedmiokf56h3ho4t62mlku.srv.us 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I'm curious as to why this is. I thought Australian English used labour as the spelling of the word while labor was only in US english. See https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-australia/latest-release for an example of a government website using the alternate spelling.

[–] techno_analyst@aussie.zone 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There’s an entire section of the ALP Wikipedia page that explains it.

[–] abff08f4813c@j4vcdedmiokf56h3ho4t62mlku.srv.us 1 points 3 days ago

Thanks for the tip! It does explain it quite well. I have more questions - but also, since it's from the earlier part of the 20th century, likely only a professional historian would know some of these answers....