Australians All Let Us Rejoice...
So, here's the thing.
About a month ago, our conservative party made a deal with the right wing racists in the state of Western Australia.
Traditionally, the conservative party and the rural party play ball with each other, but the rural party has been grumpy with the conservatives for being too "city-liberal", so they're having a stoush. So the conservatives said to the right wing racists, "Hey, it looks like the UK and the US are getting right-wing racist happy, so we'll climb into bed with you for the state election in Western Australia and when we kick the centrist, left wing, and rural parties, there'll be orgasms all round okay?"
And the right wing racists were happy as hell to get legitimacy from the conservatives going into the WA election, so they said (in an accent much like Steve Irwin's) "Yes, orgasms all round!"
Does this sound in any way familiar?
Well, here's what happened last night in the Western Australia election.
The conservatives (Liberal Party) were pretty much routed. The right wing racists (One Nation) got their usual percentage of small-minded racist voters and may get a single seat in the Upper House, but the centrist party (Labor) gained a bunch of seats in both houses and has leadership of the state.
There are factors, of course - conservatives have been in power for 8 years and done crap-all, and Western Australia benefited exceedingly from the mining boom of the 00s, and early 10s, but is struggling more now, which generally turns into a switch in government.
And, of course, there's the mandatory voting.
Every person in Western Australia who was eligible to vote and down on the voting rolls, voted.
There was no "get out the vote", no people telling other people that they couldn't vote or lying about which day they should vote, no weird ID laws, nobody screeching about how people were voting twice. Voting was on a Saturday from 8am to 6pm so retail workers could still vote, at a multitude of public polling stations, including churches, schools, and town hall buildings. There was almost certainly democracy sausage at more than a couple of those polling places. Undoubtedly whole trees were handed out telling people how they should vote - including by the Greens (enviornmental/left-wing).
What this does is that it actually makes people:
I know that people think mandatory voting is undemocratic. Or unfree. Or unfair. Or something. But I'd rather have everyone take part with no evasions of responsibility ("I didn't vote for Republican Prez, 45 - I didn't vote at all - so it's not my fault!") and know that, yes, this is the majority will of every Australian who's been registered to vote, than have my vote co-opted because some nutjob can screech louder, or convince my neighbour that I'm a Chink and I'm here to steal her job (which she's not qualified for anyway, because she can't even run a fish and chippie, let alone program a business services application), seduce her son, and corrupt her 'Aussie way of life'.
Australia has never been "great". In fact we've been downright awful lately - in particular, to refugees, to the point where the UN is trying to rap us across the knuckles for denying human rights.
But DAYUM, Australia, this morning, you are a great place to be living and a citizen of.
About a month ago, our conservative party made a deal with the right wing racists in the state of Western Australia.
Traditionally, the conservative party and the rural party play ball with each other, but the rural party has been grumpy with the conservatives for being too "city-liberal", so they're having a stoush. So the conservatives said to the right wing racists, "Hey, it looks like the UK and the US are getting right-wing racist happy, so we'll climb into bed with you for the state election in Western Australia and when we kick the centrist, left wing, and rural parties, there'll be orgasms all round okay?"
And the right wing racists were happy as hell to get legitimacy from the conservatives going into the WA election, so they said (in an accent much like Steve Irwin's) "Yes, orgasms all round!"
Does this sound in any way familiar?
Well, here's what happened last night in the Western Australia election.
The conservatives (Liberal Party) were pretty much routed. The right wing racists (One Nation) got their usual percentage of small-minded racist voters and may get a single seat in the Upper House, but the centrist party (Labor) gained a bunch of seats in both houses and has leadership of the state.
There are factors, of course - conservatives have been in power for 8 years and done crap-all, and Western Australia benefited exceedingly from the mining boom of the 00s, and early 10s, but is struggling more now, which generally turns into a switch in government.
And, of course, there's the mandatory voting.
Every person in Western Australia who was eligible to vote and down on the voting rolls, voted.
There was no "get out the vote", no people telling other people that they couldn't vote or lying about which day they should vote, no weird ID laws, nobody screeching about how people were voting twice. Voting was on a Saturday from 8am to 6pm so retail workers could still vote, at a multitude of public polling stations, including churches, schools, and town hall buildings. There was almost certainly democracy sausage at more than a couple of those polling places. Undoubtedly whole trees were handed out telling people how they should vote - including by the Greens (enviornmental/left-wing).
What this does is that it actually makes people:
- stop thinking of themselves as too precious to vote for anything less than someone who perfectly represents them,
- choose their priorities, instead of ceding it to other people,
- take an interest in what the parties are actually proposing across the board, instead of picking a single theme and running with it
I know that people think mandatory voting is undemocratic. Or unfree. Or unfair. Or something. But I'd rather have everyone take part with no evasions of responsibility ("I didn't vote for Republican Prez, 45 - I didn't vote at all - so it's not my fault!") and know that, yes, this is the majority will of every Australian who's been registered to vote, than have my vote co-opted because some nutjob can screech louder, or convince my neighbour that I'm a Chink and I'm here to steal her job (which she's not qualified for anyway, because she can't even run a fish and chippie, let alone program a business services application), seduce her son, and corrupt her 'Aussie way of life'.
Australia has never been "great". In fact we've been downright awful lately - in particular, to refugees, to the point where the UN is trying to rap us across the knuckles for denying human rights.
But DAYUM, Australia, this morning, you are a great place to be living and a citizen of.