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…

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?

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.

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?

A friend of mine mentioned Mamre Homestead, so I got in touch with Sister Mary Louise, who was more than willing to explain to me what happens there. As mentioned above, there are a number of different programs. Firstly, there is the Learning Links program which runs for at risk youth from local high schools for two days every week. It’s been going for a number of years at the moment, and has about 16 students with two facilitators. The aim of this program is to empower students to be aware of their capacity to make choices in their lives, and recognize potentially poor choices. I was particularly curious to see if this project could be considered, in any way, Freirean.

My initial impression: sort of. I know that’s not particularly illuminating, but it’s not really a cut and dried situation. Firstly, let’s establish what are the features of a Freirean educational practice: Freire generally worked with adult, in an informal setting, drawing students from a marginalised group or class of society. Freire’s purpose, delivered through his literacy programs, was to encourage the development of critical consciousness – the ability to see the world for the way it is – and hence empowerment. To do this, Freire developed a model that was based on the students own experiences, motivated by the students’ own interests and centred on a problem posing approach as opposed to the ‘banking’ model that Freire believed was commonplace.

Clearly, there are points of similarity and difference between Learning Links and a Freirean model. I believe the major point of departure was the intended purpose; Freire’s model always planned on changing the participants and thus the world. In other words, the aim was to overcome oppression on a wider scale than the purely individual. However Learning Links doesn’t really seek to change society in that way; rather, the emphasis is restricted solely to the individual. He or she must learn to modify his or her behaviour.

Of course, there are other differences, too – for example, Learning Links works with young people, as opposed to adults, and is an adjunct to a formal schooling system, as opposed to an informal stand alone program. However, there are numerous similarities, too – the basis of both programs is the students’ own experiences, and there is a real emphasis on problem solving, rather than depositing content or knowledge. Certainly, it was worthwhile comparing the two programs.

There was another reason that I wanted to visit Mamre Homested. In addition to Learning Links, the volunteers there run a refugee education program. Working with recent arrivals from places like Sudan, the volunteers educate them in things like English, child care, cooking and cleaning. Although this might sound banal, I think this accurately reflects some elements of Freirean practice, too – these are the skills that will actually help the refugees become active members of society, although there was no element of activism or political education inherent in the programs.

The work that Mamre Homestead does is vital and valuable to the community. Sister Mary-Louise summed it up as providing people with the skills that allow them to become effective members of the community. In some ways, this only goes half-way. There is no ‘critical’ element to the work, by which I mean the opportunity for these people to come to a fuller consciousness about the world and the way dominant ideologies affect it.

Next, I will be talking to some people who work with homeless people in education programs, to see if that fits a Freirean perspective.

Anyway, once she’d navigated that and met the prinicipal, Ms Gillard went into on of the learning spaces and gave a speech to the students, teachers and assembled media people. I was fairly impressed, right away. She started off with a bit of a joke about the school website, and then spoke about her own schooling experiences. To give her credit, she got the kids attention, kept it, and didn’t speak down to them. I liked the fact that she also seemed to genuinely enjoy talking to the students, too – actually making time to stop and speak to them.

Anyway, of course I had to throw my weight around to get a chance to talk to her and also to Mr Crean, the education minister. There’s a picture below:

Oh, and as for the title of the blog post? One of our students was very excited at the fact that the President of Australia was coming to the school. Oh dear.

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…

The full article can be read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/opinion/23engel.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=there%27s%20only%20one%20way%20to%20stop%20a%20bully&st=cse

The part I particularly liked was where the authors highlight the problems associated with standardized testing and an increasingly crowded curriculum. They write:

Yet, in American curriculums, a growing emphasis on standardized test scores as the primary measure of “successful” schools has crowded out what should be an essential criterion for well-educated students: a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others

Makes my research seem even more vital in this context.

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: