I had to share this First Dog on the Moon cartoon with you. Absolutely brilliant analysis of the situation:

It’s a scary business, this democracy, isn’t it? Almost two weeks out from polling day, and still we have no idea who’ll be in charge of the country for the next three years. In less democratically settled parts of the world (perhaps I mean less apathetic?), there’d be violence and looting in the streets by now. As for Australia, well, there’s more important things to focus on, like the footy finals coming up, and who is going to host X-Factor now.

Of course, the stream of invective from all sides continues unabated on the #ausvotes twitter stream, with most of the arguments having been worn down to nothing more than repetitious name calling and indoctrination. In fact, the only real suggestions that are new are the constant demands for a new poll.

Personally, I don’t think it should happen that easy. Regardless of the record numbers of informal voters, this is the parliament we’ve ended up with. And if it’s hung, well, who’s fault is that? All of ours, really. And like I said, sometimes you get the government you deserve. As much as I hate to quote politicians, because I think they get enough space in the media already, I think that Julia Gillard’s got the right idea here again: it’s a time for parliamentary reform. Perhaps not in a huge re-writing the constitution kind of way, but if a government is going to survive the next 3 years, then it must respect the will of the people – and the will of the people was a hung parliament – in other words, make it work like this. If you ask me, that necessitates more consultation with the people, and less backbiting at parliamentary consultation time. It also means actually listening to the voices of minorities – like independents and greens. It will be a very different government – if one is ever formed.

As for the independents themselves? Well, they’re a strange bunch. I respect Wilkie for having absolutely nothing to do with the other independents. He’s got his platform, and, well, I guess he’s campaigning on it as much as he can, despite the elections actually being over. Interestingly, according to first preferences, he got less than both the Lib and Lab candidates, and only a little bit more than the greens, but he managed to sneak over the line on the 2PP basis. Another example of the greens preference deals hurting the labor party. Bob Katter – the ‘force from the north’ is closer to the one nation party than I’m comfortable with, added to the fact that he’s a climate change denier as well. Windsor and Oakeshott seem reasonable people, trying to do the best by their electorate and the people of Australia as a whole.

Perhaps the most perceptive comment I heard was by someone on Twitter who suggested that a hung parliament sorts out the people who believe in democracy from those who don’t…

Okay, perhaps a little melodramatic there, but after I’d got up at 2 am on Saturday to set up polling booths and then spent the whole day handing out how to vote cards before scrutineering, I can probably get away with being a little deflates about the whole election thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the whole business – it was interesting to see how it all worked – t he blood and guts of Australian democracy so to speak, but it was also a little disheartening in the end.

Let me explain: the local labor member is in danger of losing his seat to the libs candidate. Fair enough? Well, maybe, but I’ve got a few problems with that. Firstly, the libs candidate ran a campaign where she said nothing. Not to the people or the press. Except for one late interview on 2GB, she was effectively gagged and hidden away from sight. No community forums. No online presence. No town hall meetings. In fact, the only way we knew she existed at all was because every now and then we’d get glossy brochures through the mail, promising real action. That’s it. I bet every other bloody lib candidate had the same glossy brochures, with just the electorates name changed.

But it got worse – when it came to election day, lo and behold, hundreds of liberals descend upon Bradbury from Manly! They didn’t know the local area (kind of funny watching them try to give directions), they didn’t know Fiona Scott, and they were getting paid by the liberal party for the day, according to some.

And they might still win the seat of Lindsay. Doesn’t seem right, really, does it?

Anyway, with a bit of perspective, you can see where it all went wrong for labor; a lot of people might argue that it started when Keven Rudd was unceremoniously shown the door. That’s not the way that I see it: I think that it happened before that, when Rudd backed down over the ETS and the Mining Tax. I’m not sure what else he could have done – the hate campaign being run by News Ltd and Fairfax pretty much ensured that public opinion was turning against him anyway, but I can’t get past the feeling that he lost his nerve a little bit. The moment that the ETS – and climate change – was off the agenda, you could almost see the left wing of the labor party start to decamp to the greens. The Mining Tax only accelerated this departure.

And that’s the crucial thing that so many of our political commentators missed at the first analysis; while this election certainly wasn’t a win for Labor, it wasn’t much of a win for the LNPs either. Instead, it was a major win for the greens – with power in the Senate and now their first lower house representative, too. It seems like Australia got the parliament it deserved!

So where to now for the Labor Party?

So, its election day. Thankfully, the migraine from yesterday has disappeared and I’m left feeling clear-headed and calm, which is a good thing because at 2:00am, all the ALP faithful met up to go and set up polling stations. In what must be organization of a quite impressive nature, I imagine ALP members from all over Australia huddling around pre-dawn cups of coffee, clad in ‘beanies and bomber jackets before heading off to pit up posters and bunting and placards in front of every polling station in the land.

Certainly, there’s been a lot of criticism of both parties during this campaign. People have accused each leader of only focusing on marginal seats, which, to an extent, is a fair criticism. There’s been allegations of pork-barreling and gamesmanship and all the usual tricks that are part of an election campaign. However, apparently this campaign has been, according to the media, one pf the dullest in
living memory, too.

I don’t see it like that. Maybe because I’m more involved in this campaign than I ever have been before, but I think it’s been a vital and interesting time. In fact, this election promises to shape Australia’s future in ways that I don’t think we expect. Let me start off with an analogy: they say that writers should be judged b their second novel, which suggests that anyone can get lucky once, but you have to have taken to get it right twice.

So, Australia has tried out the Labor government once – is it going to try them out a second time? If they did, I guess it would be like Australia agreeing that we are committed to a progressive approach to government, despite the muddied waters of the current confusing labor campaign. The labor party has always stood for change and justice and freedom from oppression, the rights of everybody as opposed to only those who can pay.

When Rudd was elected in 2007, it was with that kind of mandate – and his government delivered on many of these things – climate change, refugees, indigenous relations, school and health reform. Of course, when embarking upon such a massive program of change, mistakes were made. There was waste, although not excessive, I don’t think. Even unexpected events, like the GFC, was dealt with appropriately – and so says the vast majority of economists who don’t have a vested interest in big companies.

Thing is, change scares people. Especially when its rapid. And the libs were clever enough to realize that, and they’ve built what might be a very successful campaign around that fact – and ensuring Tony Abbott keeps his mouth shut. It’s been effective, but my question is this: what now?

If the lbs come to power, Australia will effectively have turned it’s back on progressiveness. Said it’s too hard. Basically agreed to tolerate the injustices visited upon marginalized groups because we are kore comfortable thinking about our hip pocket than anyone else.

The depressing thing is, despite the libs trumpeting of their economic potential, in real terms Australians have been getting poorer for decades thanks to neoliberal economic policies.

I know who I’ll be voting for.

So today, the ALP called on me to help them out. Yes, I did feel a little bit like Kevin Rudd. Well, not really, as all they were asking me to do was to stand at the entrance to Southlands Shopping Centre and hand out brochures for the local member, David Bradbury, for three hours. Still, you can learn a lot about humanity when you are trying to convince them to vote for someone. I get the Sunday lunchtime crowd, and it was a fascinating vignette of humanity. There were the old crusty codgers, coming in for their weekly shop, which seemed to amount to a loaf of bread, a bottle of milk and a case of light beer. There were the kids on their bikes, who didn’t seem to have anything better to do. And, of course, there were the families, parents harried and stressed, kids hyped up and still wearing their sporting uniforms.

The response I got from people varied greatly, too. I mean, you say ‘hello’ and then ask them if they want some information regarding the local member, while handing out a leaflet, and generally most people will take it out of a kind of ingrained politeness, even if they have no intention of reading it. Then there are the people that are far too used to this kind of thing; they’ve become past masters at not making eye-contact, conducting a kind of quickstep shuffle to dodge around you. They probably work in the city or something. And of course, there are those people who’ve got their own particular barrow to push, and they will tell anyone at all about it. That happened to me a few times today. The first guy wanted to convince me that all anybody needed to do was bring back national service, because that would solve all the problems. He told me that it had worked for him, so it would work for every other person too. Of course, there were the typical people that started hurling abuse at me as soon as they saw I was from the ALP. What was depressing was that often they were annoyed about matters relating to local or state governments, rather than the federal governments. Another failure of civics and citizenship education?

Something’s been on my mind a lot lately; perhaps it was brought about by the mining tax issues, or some of the disagreements that I’ve had with some people that I’ve been involved with regarding my business dealings, but they’re both the same kind of issue: the importance of free speech.

Let’s look at the mining tax; few people would argue that citizens of a nation have a right to the profits derived from the resources of that nation – it certainly seems to make sense that the nation – and the people in it – should profit from the mineral wealth of that nation. Fair minded people would probably agree that companies who go to the trouble of raising the capital to extract such mineral wealth are entitled to turn a profit from their endeavours.

But that’s not what this debate is about – the actual matter rests on the fact that mining companies are making super profits – ridiculous sums of money, akin to the stratospheric payouts given to departing CEOs. However, you won’t hear mining companies mention the fact that they’re making super profits in their ad campaign – and that’s the part that really annoys me. According to the mining companies, they’re facing the possibilities of going broke if this new tax goes through. According to the mining companies, people are going to lose their jobs, investment will suffer and so on and so on. It’s hard to believe that that could be the case if the tax doesn’t even kick in until these companies start making ‘super’ profits.

Now we come to the heart of the matter; the mining companies deliberately ran a campaign – and personally, I think they perverted the truth – to influence public decision. Fair enough, you argue. That’s free speech, and in a democracy, free speech is one of our ideals. Nothing can get in the way of free speech. I agree, at least on those principles – but here’s a thought for you – free speech is predicated on the fact that everybody has the same right to that speech (and the same access?) However, the mining companies had vast amounts of money to ensure that their speech was heard, in the form of advertisements across all the major networks, while other points of view were drowned out due to lack of access to ready funds. That doesn’t seem vaguely fair, does it?

I reckon a similar situation happens on a daily basis. Let’s have a look at this example. A person makes some unflattering (but true!) remarks about his or her employer. Suddenly, that person is faced with the sack or disciplinary action. They protest, arguing that they haven’t said anything that was untrue but the business responds by arguing that they’ll take it to court to challenge that. Of course, this poor, foolish (but honest!) person cannot afford a lengthy court battle, so has to retract their statement. I know I’ve simplified it, but once again it seems less like democracy and more like totalitarianism…

A friend of mine was interviewed by the Sun Herald newspaper the other day. The journalist was Jessica Wright, and there was a photographer there, as well. The reason that he and his family were interviewed was because of the Lindsay electorate. David Bradbury, the local member, is from the ALP and holds Lindsay by about 6%. However, it’s seen very much as vital seat to win in this federal election, linked as it is to the idea of Western Sydney as a heartland of racism and the refugee issue – both of which I have some serious concerns regarding.

Anyway, it was interesting to see the process the interview went through. My friend, Jonathon, was actually reasonably positive about a lot of the Rudd government’s work. He was also positive about David Bradbury’s work in the local community. However, the reporter seemed only to want to focus on areas of negativity. So a statement like, ‘I’m supportive of the trade schools but worried about the waste of money involved in BER’ became ‘I’m worried about the waste of money involved in the BER’.

To me, at least, it seemed like there was a lot that was taken out of context in the interview, which basically skewed the whole point of view. Free and impartial press? Not in this lifetime.

Here’s the whole article:

So we go to the polls in 5 short weeks. I’m not the oldest follower of politics out there, but I’ve always had an interest in politics, and that’s something that has only grown as I’ve got older, to the point that I’m reasonably active these days. The reason I mention this is because this election suddenly seems -to me, at least – to be very important. I don’t think I’m the only one that feels this way; I don’t recall the intense level of media speculation about the calling of the election in previous years. It seems – and I might be a little over the top here – that this is a really important point for Australia – almost a turning point between two very different ideologies.

That might sound strange, I know. A lot of people I talk to are really struggling to choose between JG and Tony Abbott, and a lot of others are saying they’ll vote informally, or for the greens or something similar. That kind of talk isn’t particularly unusual – however, usually this is because there seems to be little difference between the two main candidates. Certainly in the Howard/ Keating years, it often seemed to be a choice between two quite similar approaches, especially to economic policy. I know there were differences, but I don’t think people were actually capable of seeing those differences in any real sense.

This time, though, it’s different. There are major points of departure between the Labor party and the Liberals, although one could argue that since JG came to power, the differences have narrowed. Still, there are major differences in most of the policy areas – education (for example, the trade training centres), health (public vs private health care), industrial relations (work choices vs not) – and that makes this election vitally important.

I’m firmly committed to the labor movement – and always have been – but even I can admit that the government has made a lot of mistakes over the past 3 years. The education revolution money, the mining tax, the about-face on climate change have all contributed to a feeling that the labour government is struggling; but- and I reckon it’s a big but – how much of that is just the media apportioning blame? What about all the other things that the labour government has done – and sucessfully, too? Things like reconciliation with indigenous Australians, the national curriculum, increased health care funding, tax reform, industrial relations changes and – most of all – successfully navigating us through the GFC.

So, I guess I’m saying that it’s going to be a hectic 5 weeks or so. There’s going to be a lot of talking about Gillard and Abbott. I’m calling on everybody to just take a moment and remind themselves that a federal election is not a popularity contest. Instead, it’s an opportunity for us to enact our democratic rights by choosing the government that we think will do the best for Australia-  not the best for our back pocket. Although there’s a right in action here, there’s also a responsibility for us to consider the future, and how to best safeguard Australia for successive generations.

I’ve been out and about (closely aided by Andrew and Liz) putting up posters of David Bradbury around the Lindsey electorate. Along the way I’ve met lots of people – some of them who’ve been clear supporters of Bradbury and others who’ve not.

I think something that I’ve learnt during this process is the idea of reductionism – so many people seem to want to reduce the election to a Labor/ Liberal kind of dichotomy. You’re either one or the other – and there can be no middle ground. It’s almost a ‘you’re with us or against us kind of mentality.’

To be honest, I was a little bid disappointed with that approach because, allied to that blinkered view is a genuine unwillingness amonst most people to even enter into any kind of reasoned debate. I’m a labor member – simply because I think the labor party offers the most to all Australians, and not just to the privileged classes. I think that the Rudd government did some significant work in this regard, but also struggled in certain aspects that were poorly handled. Personally, I don’t see any hope for any improvement from the current Federal Liberal mob.

Anyway, here’s some photos from the work I’ve been doing:

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with Wayne Swan, the Treasure and Deputy PM while he attended the local Federal Member’s (David Bradbury – Lindsay) opening of his new office. Mr Swan spoke at length about his views on politics to the assembled group and the importance of communities. He and David then highlighted the way that Labor had worked to support communities, and in particular, save local jobs for people. He specifically spoke about Labor’s success in dealing with the global financial crisis, which, I believe, is something that Labor should be rightly proud of. I was glad that I was with  David Currie, who understands financial trends and factors far better than I do – we talked later about the fact that part of the reason that Australia was able to navigate the GFC so well was because of the surplus that the Howard government left in place. Of course, another part of the reason was because Australian banks are so much more heavily regulated than their US or European counterparts, which in itself is, I believe, a legacy of the Hawke government, so I don’t think that Swan can claim all the credit for the successful navigation of the GFC. However, I think it is partly fair to say that the government used the resources that it had at its disposable to ensure that Australia managed to survive the GFC, with low unemployment.

Anyway, I also had the chance to speak privately with Mr Swan for a little while. I talked to him about the Trade Training Centre, and he pointed out that these ideas are originally from Queensland, and we agreed that there is a lot of important educational thought coming from Queensland at the moment, in particular the productive pedagogies stuff, as well. Anyway, I was fairly impressed at his depth of knowledge regarding education, considering I thought his main focus was economic policy.

Anyway, I got some photos on my phone. See below! And, yes, Wayne Swan is pretty short, so I look like the BFG next to him and David!