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To bed without supper

If our recent political debacle lends itself to analysis beyond Australia’s political choices being pretty dire, it may as well be two pet theories of mine. The first is pretty simple and goes like this: it isn’t enough to diss the other guy. You have to have policies, principles, and, above all, a plan for the future if you want to be elected.

The second is, Australia’s parliamentary system and our two primary parties are so utterly combative that it prevents us getting anything done.

I started hypothesising this around January and I’m a little depressed that it was proven this quickly.

I figure these two theories are argued for by the fact that Australia pretty much couldn’t be bothered to elect either party. And I do believe that’s what it was. People weren’t really torn between who to vote for. Everyone I talked to was either sticking with a party they'd always stuck to because they’d always stuck to them, or didn’t know who to vote for. Or were so mad they were handing in informal votes, which I personally gave real consideration to. Then there was the Greens vote, which I think is a protest vote as much as a ‘greenslide’, no matter how much I wish otherwise. But back to my theories. ... read more

Written by Georgia Claire on 30-08-2010, 1 user comment

Future of the Greens

Saturday evening. 21 August 2010. The function room in the Victoria Hotel is hot. Crammed in are hundreds of people. At the rear, journalists circle around television cameras. They care little for the buzzing green-clad crowd: their focus is elsewhere. They scribble notes, look at the floor. It is artificially bright in this little area: a bubble of luminosity thrown by the TV lights. Greens activists hug each other, chatter animatedly. There are several questions everyone asks: Where did you hand out how-to-vote cards? How will the Greens go? Who will win government? In their hearts, they know that tonight will be a victory for the party.

They are not wrong. Before long, it is announced that Adam Bandt – a friend of mine – has been elected as member for the seat of Melbourne. His first words are ‘Melbourne, together we’ve made history today.’ If his first words are passionate, the rest of his speech is a lesson in composure and diplomacy. The speech is not heavy on content, though he does highlight the Greens progressive policies on refugees, climate change and same-sex marriage. He finishes to a storm of applause. ... read more

Written by Rjurik Davidson on 24-08-2010, 22 user comments

On clowns, Macbeth, not voting and activism and such

My favourite cafe, where I spent the election morning, is fortunately located in Nimbin, where I live. There are many reasons to like it; it’s super-relaxed, humble, has great food, is the only cafe I know that can make decent tea, has good reading material, drawing materials, children are regarded as real people, and so on. Most of the other cafes I’ve ever been into seem to have instructed their relentlessly young staff to be uber-bubbly and call everyone ‘Guys’, as in ‘Hi Guys!!’ Also on their script is the dreaded exhortation, as the food and drinks are served up, ‘Enjoy!’ ... read more

Written by Stephen Wright on 23-08-2010, 20 user comments

Don’t mention the war[s]

Gillard & Abbott

Although it is reasonable to expect any election campaign to focus predominantly on domestic issues, it is nevertheless somewhat disappointing that matters of foreign policy have been put on the backburner in this unfulfilling 2010 Labor/Liberal contest. Aside, that is, from the essentially meaningless Tony Abbott mantra ‘turning back the boats,’ and both sides affirming an Australian military presence in Afghanistan. Surely there must be more going on in the wor

Written by Dan Bigna on 20-08-2010, 19 user comments

Finally, I’m interested!

What I can say is, after all my whining, all my shunning and head-in-hands dismay, something’s caught my eye, snared my attention, caused me to contemplate – even with some degree of intrigue – the Federal Election. It’s not just the winning and losing – although that holds its own nail-biting attributions – it’s what’s going on: the personalities, the asides, the thought of what’s at stake! But regardless of the particulars – the this and the that – something has clicked into gear for me. Finally, I’m onboard. Finally, I’m taking note.

This awakening took place around the time I took a trip into a state forest where, with no electricity (which meant no light to read by), my only form of stimulation was my transistor radio. What choice did I have? I immersed myself in Radio National and got to hear Kevin talk to Phillip and Barry Jones and Rodney Cavalier reminisce about Ben Chifley and Gough. A day or two later there was the win in the High Court for GetUp!, which meant seven days reprieve for an estimated 100,000 to get on the electoral roll, and the announcement of the question and answer session for swinging voters, which gave us all an opportunity to say Rooty Hill. ... read more

Written by SJ Finn on 17-08-2010, 3 user comments

The yarts debate thingy

Australia's creative revolutionThe Greens are the only major party to publish an arts policy for the 2010 election. Neither the ALP nor the Coalition websites provide even a bullet point on arts policy. It doesn't rate as an issue. This is both and good and a bad thing. It's good because there is no suggestion that the arts budget will be cut by either party. Then again, we know that anything is possible once government has been won, especially by the razor-ready Mr Rabbit. It's also a good thing because the arts, as an issue, is firmly embedded in the national political consciousness as a given, an essential component of our society and culture. ... read more

Written by Boris Kelly on 13-08-2010, 2 user comments

Attack of the knuckle draggers

In an article in the latest edition of The Monthly, former Iemma staffer Mark Aarons says this of Labor Right backroom artists Mark Arbib and Karl Bitar:

Enter Arbib and Bitar and their focus groups. Their technique involves targeting the least politically committed voters in key marginal seats. Swing voters of this kind care most of all about themselves and are not loyal to any particular party or leader. The Arbib-Bitar theory is that these people determine who wins government, and that their views should therefore predominate in policy-setting. In a bizarre reversal of conventional political wisdom, leadership is redefined as following such people by pandering to them.

Arbib and Bitar are the inheritors of Graham Richardson’s ‘whatever it takes’ approach to the maintenance of power and were, of course, part of the shadow-team that rolled Rudd and installed Gillard. If Aarons is correct, the move against Rudd was in large part a response to the fidgety vacillations of 250000 self-interested, knuckle dragging (generic, non-racial sense), swinging voters as measured by Labor’s ‘internal polling’. The other macro factors at play in their decision to move on Rudd were the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the Mining Super Profits Tax, both of which were vehemently and vociferously opposed by the mining industry in expensive, well-organised public relations campaigns. Clearly, Gillard has been promoted on condition that she delay action on climate change to some indeterminate time in the future and soften the mining tax. But we know all that. ... read more

Written by Boris Kelly on 10-08-2010, 12 user comments

Fuel for your fire

Sunday: the Liberal Party ‘launched’ their election campaign and everybody watched on in complete apathy because their election campaign has been going since November 2007 and we’re sick of it already. I’m willing to bet the Labor Party’s campaign launch (scheduled for 16 August) will be just as much of a faff-filled non-event. I want to be excited – I really do – but the truth is, this whole election disgusts me. You – Australian politicians – you disgust me. I’m not enthusiastic about you. I’m not inspired. I can’t even find the energy to laugh at you. I’m just angry – ALL THE TIME.

I’m angry because the best you can offer me is another three years of conservative mediocrity and stagnation. Stagnation is not progress, it’s a fucking insult. I’m offended because you think I’m not worth the risk. I’m disgusted because you talk to me like I’m a child and it’s not okay – it’s never been okay – but you hardly make sense now anyway. This language that used to belong to us both gets bent up and mangled in your mouth: forward means backwards, liberal means conservative, atheism means indoctrination, freedom means war, love means immorality, art means conformity, sustainable means racist. I can’t say what I mean anymore without running up against your roadblocks, so I’m forced to find words that you haven’t yet stolen – snowdrop, velutinous, mellifluous, fumarole – just to remember where the ground is. Just to remember what it means to have meaning. ... read more

Written by Stephanie Convery on 10-08-2010, 9 user comments

Colour me beige, it’s an election

Voting Australia 40sIt’s time to decide Australia. It’s time to stand up and grasp the rope of democracy – woven from the fabric of thousands of Anzac souls – and swing between apathy and outrage, determination and despair, boldness and boredom. It’s possible to swing between Julia and Tony as well, although the association of ‘Tony Abbott’ and ‘swinging’ is enough to put one off one’s Iced Vovos – and let’s face it, if you are reading anything associated with Overland, it’s unlikely you would consider voting for the Tonester. Then again, this is a strange and often disturbing age we live in and there are only so many times you can say you are voting for Jed Bartlett and still get a laugh. Eventually we are all going to find ourselves in a cardboard booth at the local primary school, with the only person to turn to for advice being the woman who is handing out the pencils, the one in the turquoise muumuu who makes sticky buns for the tuckshop. And even then, I’m pretty sure she’s not allowed to share her opinion. We will all be left on our own to decide between beige and beige, between two candidates with little to distinguish them from one another besides their genders. (Or just vote for the Socialist Party for the heck of it.) We will have to put numbers in boxes. Or will we? ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 9-08-2010, 15 user comments

On voting

When my daughter turned 17, the government sent her a birthday card and an enrolment-to-vote form, in preparation for the big 18: voting age. Six months later, this ‘gift from the government’ has been unearthed in an office reorganise. This morning, I gave it to her and she threw it on the bench. ‘They’re all fucked,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to vote.’

A permanent resident since the age of three who became an Australian citizen in 1994, I brought out my inner voter in 1996. I was thirty-one years old.

... read more

Written by Clare Strahan on 9-08-2010, 8 user comments

Remembering Tony Abbott

GetUp! has a new ad about Tony Abbott and his archaism:

... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 4-08-2010, 7 user comments

We are boat people

When standing on the right-hand side of the political spectrum with both of our major parties discussing the nuances of a boatpeople initiative, it should be remembered that most of us are, or are descended from, boatpeople. Any offshore processing centre is 220 years too late. So, bringing the debate into the present I’m left wondering what is it that we, as an Australian people, are afraid of.

We are all boat peopleOn 21 October, 2001 a little man filled with his own self-importance and pushing for a khaki election stood to launch his government’s election campaign. To compensate for the lack of true policy and direction the then Prime Minster, John Howard, got carried away with his own spin, spitting the vitriol ‘we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’. With dramatic US style sensationalist overtones, Howard prodded at the fears of the general public in a post 9/

Written by Mark William Jackson on 3-08-2010, 6 user comments

In defence of the pledge of allegiance

Last month I attended an Australian citizenship ceremony in the town hall in the suburb I grew up in. After 50 years of living in Australia, my mum decided that she wanted to become an Australian citizen.

There was no financial incentive – she would be eligible for the pension should she need it one day. There are no restrictions on her voice as an Australian – she was on the electoral roll before 1984 when the laws changed to exclude non-citizens from voting. She’s been here since she was seven – and she’ll be the first to tell you that she feels Australian.

On that evening, my mum stood up and pledged the following: ... read more

Written by Louise Pine on 27-07-2010, 7 user comments

Invented histories

Streets of ParisWhen I was about ten years old there was a television ad that featured a woman in a fur coat and beret rushing through the streets of Paris to meet her lover for an instant coffee. She wore fabulous red lipstick and the soundtrack was Piaf. After one viewing Punky Brewster was knocked off her perch as my role model and replaced by an anonymous woman with a taste for Parisian men and scant regard for animal rights. I decided I would learn French and began by writing a list in my diary of all the French words I knew – bonjour, merci, croissant, ballet, Yoplait. It never occurred to me that the ad wasn’t shot in Paris, but more likely on a soundstage in Reno or someplace. ... read more

Written by Claire Zorn on 23-07-2010, 2 user comments

Review – Quarterly Essay 37: What’s Right? The future of conservatism in Australia

What’s Right? The future of conservatism in Australia
Waleed Aly
Black Inc.

Quarterly essay 37Malcolm Fraser has officially resigned his membership of the Liberal Party, believing that the party has moved too far to the right, claiming it is no longer a liberal party, but a conservative party.

Waleed Aly might disagree. In the latest Quarterly Essay, What’s Right? The future of conservatism in Australia, Aly questions our use of the terms ‘right’ and ‘left’ in daily political discourse, arguing that they are meaningless terms. He provides an outline of the history and philosophy behind conservative and liberal politics, and wonders at how far they have come today from their roots. It is an engaging essay. It is intelligent and restrained, but impassioned and considered. ... read more

Written by Louise Pine on 26-05-2010, 4 user comments