Australians have resoundingly rejected a proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in its constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues.
Saturday’s voice to parliament referendum failed, with the defeat clear shortly after polls closed.
A bit off topic but, American here, the liberals are your conservative party? Interesting.
American politics are all right wing compared to other socially democratic countries.
Our major political parties are the Australian Labor Party (progressive/socialist), Liberal Party of Australia (capitalist/liberal), The Greens (environmental/progressive), National Party of Australia(authoritarian/regressives).
The Liberals and the Nats have a coalition called the Liberal National Party (LNP) because it’s the only way they can get enough representation to get majority government.
Greens typically vote along Labor lines.
Further to this, Labor is Centre-Left, Greens are far-left, Liberal and Nationals are both far-right, with liberals being business interest focoused and the nationals being strongly rural community focused.
I see. That’s really interesting, thanks for the reply!
It’s worth noting that Australian and American interpretations of liberalism differ quite significantly. The modern Liberal party and its predecessors formed in direct opposition to the Labor party, in direct opposition to the labor movement. They formed as a party against radical social change, against socialism, and for free-market policies and laissez faire capitalism, describing themselves as “classical liberals”. On the other hand, “liberalism” in the US more refers to social liberalism, but it’s actually the exception in that regard.
All that is to say that, when Australians refer to someone as a liberal, we mean a different interpretation of the word closer to classical liberalism.
For an American, that’s so counterintuitive lol.
I think the American definition of Liberal is the one that’s different from the rest of the world.
No, liberals are liberal. The Liberals (capital L) are fiscally liberal (good at wasting money) and socially conservative.