Man, it’s a bad time to be a supporter of one of the big parties, isn’t it? You think you know what you’re getting, and then you get the opposite, even if it’s one of the things they were most clear about.
I mean – Liberal voters, right? How badly were they let down by the Liberal Party! If they really want asylum seekers processed offshore, then what the hell was the party they voted for doing choosing the status quo – onshore processing – over offshore processing? Man, you’d never want to vote for those guys again. You can’t rely on them to be as xenophobic as they promised to be. Why would anyone vote for the Liberal Party if they can’t even hold to their most deeply-held conviction?
And the Labor Party! It’s let down its supporters who wanted offshore processing by refusing to negotiate with the Liberals to get it through. It’s also let down its supporters who wanted to treat refugees humanely by doing everything in its power not to. Why would anyone vote for the Labor Party again?
I know that even though the Greens give their voters consistent, reliable advocacy for their political views, they’re not for everyone. Xenophobes, the greedy, authoritarians, bigots – the Greens probably won’t represent you in parliament either. Actually, they’d be pretty much consistently opposed to everything you want. But you should take a leaf out of their voters’ book and look at promoting your own smaller, more specific parties. Look what the Greens achieved for progressives that would never have been achieved if they just voted Labor or Liberal. Maybe you should be looking for your own “Greens” of the right, or wherever you are on the political spectrum.
Because, seriously, what value are you getting from your Labor or Liberal vote? It’s just a waste. Your representatives are jokes. Those guys have all but five of the House of Representatives seats, and agree on offshore processing, and yet they couldn’t work together long enough to give their voters what both sets apparently wanted.
That’s some pretty crappy representation right there. I’m glad my vote wasn’t wasted on them.
Moved On 
It obviously makes perfect tactical sense for Abbott to knock back the legislative change, as he is overwhelmingly likely to be able to make it himself after the next election.
That’s counting his chickens well before they’re hatched.
You know, after the carbon price comes in and his scaremongering looks absolutely ridiculous, his carbon-tax-based poll numbers may well drop off.
I wish I could have confidence reality will change anyone’s mind, but everyone seems pretty firmly convinced they are doing it super tough in pretty much the most prosperous time of close to the most prosperous society in human history. Its pretty easy to focus such unfounded anxieties on something like a new tax, even if its real impact is small.
And the government has far more problems than the Carbon policy. The club industry has huge resources and unrivalled access to voters in marginal seats. Craig Thompson could (and in a better world, should) still quite easily be forced to resign, or any number of other potential causes for a bi-election could occur.
The influential segments of the News Ltd media are running an unprecedented and determined partisan campaign to unseat the government.
The public have largely bought into the horsecrap about the BER being an unmitigated disaster instead of a largely successful program, and the completely unjustified paranoia about the size of government debt.
The caucus is apparently full of dimwits who always seem to think the only source of political trouble they encounter is whoever happens to be the incumbent leader.
In those dimwits’ partial defence, Gillard does happen to be poor at the one form of political communication that matters most for a Prime Minister, i.e. giving prepared remarks to television cameras.
There is a massively exaggerated perception of how much influence the Independents and Greens wield on the government, and on how far their policy positions diverge from the mainstream. Which no one from any party is really doing much to discourage.
Its quite possible the economy is going to go to shit for real at some point in the next couple of years through no fault of the government.
Refugee policy has been completely reactive for months, which throws tonnes of fuel on the media generated perception of a totally uncontrolled crisis.
It would be brave to bet against an Abbott victory at the next election, and at this point I think even a successful double dissolution grab for both houses is pretty frigging likely.