Very different from being at home. First of all: it is a Saturday. Secondly, the Liberals are Conservative. And, I understand, voting is compulsory. People keep asking me whether I can/will be voting. You'd think they could hear the non-voting accent.
Without a television or newspaper, our exposure to the candidates and election is pretty light. I hear ads on the radio and pass BILLBOARDS on the highway. "Australian families have never been better off" John Howard. Who is moved by this kind of statement coming from the incumbent candidate? If it is true, why isn't there a similar statistic coming from an independent, or at least independent sounding, source? And, I'm moved to guess that these better off Australian families must be doing something WAY differently than Kevin and I. We both have good jobs, but we cannot imagine how we could ever afford to own our own home here. That is, own our own home and STILL eat on a regular basis.
The AM talk-jockies were yesterday going on about "how to vote" flyers that people are handed at the polling stations. I don't think these are manuals on how to push buttons or press levers or throw chads to the wind. I think they are identifying party affiliation and maybe party positions (??) on proposed bills...but I was perplexed for a nanosecond or two.
Meanwhile, Zelda is bugging me to take her to the polling station. She, and rightly so, reminds me that she is now Australian and, therefore, she is compelled to express her opinion. I think she hasn't really been taking time to read about the candidates or been taking any of "W"'s calls because I heard her sitting on her chair last week woofing out "Rudd". Yikes. Maybe because his name is Kevin she thinks he'll sleep with her. I can't believe she's changed her political stripes. I feel like I'm probably saving her from tremendous embarrassment by preventing her from voting "Labour".
Anyway, I did have a brush-once-removed with a local candidate from the Liberal Party. About 3 weeks ago I looked out our office window and saw a video crew with their big fuzzy microphones camped out on our bench. Seems they were supposed to be filming in a local dress shop a statement by "the candidate" about crime - but when they arrived they found that the shop had JUST BEEN ROBBED. In Bald Hills. A dress shop. How much business could they "enjoy"? prior to 2 PM? on a rainy Thursday? As an American I knew what had to be going on. My suspicions were heightened the next week when my boss told me that she was in the dress shop and the proprietor seemed pretty cool about it and told her he wasn't permitted to discuss the crime. Ongoing investigation? or, drama-grad-gets-big-break in politics?
Updated to add: Congratulations to Kevin Rudd.
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9 comments:
In the Federal election, in the House of Representatives, you MUST put a number from 1 to N against every candidate. If you muck it up your vote doesn't count. A how to vote card tells you what numbers to put where to vote so as to make a particular party happiest. The parties cut deals with each other to get higher numbers on each other's how to vote cards.
Oh, wow. That's interesting. How many candidates are running for a district (on average)?
Usually there would be a Labor, National/Liberal, Green, Family First, and some independents, so 4 to 7 would be common. In the Senate there are lots so they give you an option of voting exactly according to the wishes of one party, or numbering them all. So in the Senate I filled in 65 numbers.
Wow. 65! Now I understand about the "how to vote" cards. I guess the complaint must be based on the idea that a voter could/should? bring in their "card" with them- maybe from a newspaper or something- rather than "wasting paper" by distributing cards at the polling site. (That was the complaint- all the paper that is used.) It seems to me that having a cheat seat for 65 names would be very helpful.
Liberals are conservative - LOL :) In 1970s US my parents found American "democratism" to be further right than Attila the Hun...and I would lay bets that Australia is more right-wing than the US.
Re JH "you never had it so good" - just because you can't imagine being able to buy your own home in Aus AND be able to eat, doesn't mean Aus has never been better off :) Perhaps, before JH, Australians weren't sure if they would ever eat again, let alone live in more than a tent on the beach.
In NZ we have various instructions on how to vote, it all stems from having electoral systems that are not first-past-the-post - debatably fairer, but not necessarily obvious in how to make them represent you (I can sense a debate here already :) ) In local elections we have a mixture of Single Transferable Voting (which I think is what Nameless is describing) and First Past the Post. In national elections we're on MMP - I forget what that stands for but we get Two Ticks - one for the MP we want to represent us locally and one for the party we want to choose. Thus the local MPs get elected and the remaining seats get allocated on the basis of the party votes. So we have two classes of MPs in a single house - electorate MPs, who represent, and List MPs, who make sure each party has the right proportion of votes. Yep, needs explaining...of course the people it needs explaining to don't actually read the explanations. Sigh
Will Rudd make a difference, do you think?
Oh, not Nameless! Friendless! Oops! Sorry...
(I'm sure both are untrue)
Ah, Cathi, you are so right about my comment re. JH's effect on working families in Australia. My bad.
So, (gee here I go trying to understand a third country)- these different classes of MP's...do they all get to use the same restroom?
And, sorry, I'm so pitifully uninformed about the world outside my clinic and home- so much so I'm missing THE concert of the year in Brisbane- I can't hazard a guess about what effect Rudd will have. Seems to me he's got a good chance of making some change since he's got plenty of labo(U)r commrads in power.
Gee whiz. It is already 8:17. Better get ready for bed!
A
Ha! I don't know! (about the "facilities") - they don't get the same pay, so, probably not!
Rudd will make a huge difference. The Howard government has changed many things to suit itself, e.g. Freedom of Information laws, and Rudd will change many of those things back. The press will be able to find out things they've wanted to know for years, and there'll probably be a few scandals revealed. It will be interesting to see how Rudd deals with the labour unions - the unions might be under the mistaken impression that they run the country now, and he'll likely be very firm in telling them that they don't. That'll ruffle some feathers, but it needs to be done if this government is to last more than 1 or 2 terms.
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