Ticking boxes on a Saturday morning in Oz

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For those of you who haven't suffered under two terms of our last government, here's a very loose and generalized rundown on politics and the recent election in the land down under...

Australia is an oligarchy, masked by a democratic system of votes. The real power rests in the hands of a gang of mining billionaires who are given a mouthpiece by the Liberal Party and that lovable prune, Rupert Murdoch who owns almost all of the news and print media here in Oz.
Some of you who are interested in political systems may know that we had an election very recently and our 'Two Party Preferred' (TPP) electoral system took a hammering.

Yes, we have one of the saddest electoral systems in the world, the TPP system. Essentially, there are two main parties, Labour and Liberal. Basically twins, in fact but one looks at things more from the perspective of 'jobs for the boys' and the other tends towards 'jobs for most people'. Ironically, even though they use the names 'Liberal' and 'Labour' , just as folks in the UK do, their philosophies are very different.

We do have smaller parties, we call them 'Minority Parties' and we do have independents who run too ( we call them errm...'Independents').

So, with a mix of folks like that running, you would think that there would be a fair spread of votes. That's true, but the TPP system helps to stifle diversity in voting because every party and politician running has 'preference' votes (that's the last P in TPP). Preference votes essentially mean that if you don't get elected, don't get a seat in the Big House, you, basically, give all your votes to one of the big two, Liberal or Labour.

That, generally sucks for voters because, when deciding who to vote for, you have another thing to keep in mind - 'who will my candidate give their preferences to'? So, voting for a lesser candidate is the same as voting for the big candidate, unless your candidate gets a seat in Parliament.

We have a third 'big' national party too, the Greens. The Greens have no hope of getting elected under our system but they can hold the sway over the votes via their preferences. Otherwise, they basically absorb a lot of the votes that could have gone to minor parties and independents who may have been very effective if they got a seat. Folks are easily swayed by Authority Bias and see the Greens as the Authority on environmental and social issues, so give them their vote.

Years ago, there was to be another party ' The Australian Democrats' who were AWESOME at keeping the big two in check. That is until they sold us out over the Goods and Service Tax (that hurt their credibility so badly that they disbanded shortly after).

Anyways, the Liberals, who are aggressively anti-climate change, anti-welfare, anti- anything remotely good. have been in for two tortuous terms while they let the country burn, aggressively marketed and sold our fossil fuels overseas, gave massive handouts to the boys , left refugees to rot...sorry, I'm getting nauseous remembering it all.

Their first modern term was under a lycra wearing misogynist named Tony Abbot (the guy who, as self-appointed 'Minister for Women', forgot International Women's Day. His excuse - "I was down the Pub'). Yeah...Australia...

Then came the next election. An election that Labour couldn't lose. The Liberals under the Abbott gubberment (I refuse to call them a government) had lost every shred of credibility, their treatment of the country and population was so terrible that they couldn't win. The only problem was that the opposition, the Labour party had an even weaker leader who had, literally, no answers. Somehow Labour lost the 'unlosable' election and we were stuck with the Libs for a second term in which they thought that the reelection gave them a mandate to do whatever they wanted.

The new gubberment had another mandate too, one from a higher source. They saw themselves as having a mandate from the big fella himself, yes, their God.

You see, this lot are Pentecostal Christians and literally believe that if you aren't rich or if you are sick or on welfare, that is your fault because you haven't pleased God. That frees them, in their books, from any moral compunction to help the poor or the sick. Many rules and laws were broken through this thinking, including, but in no way being limited to, delaying the first Sydney Covid lockdowns because the Hillsong mob were having a conference/ rally/orgy in Sydney that weekend and the rules for the lockdown would have prevented the celebration form going forward. The excuse given us was that 'the footy was on' but that didn't hold up to the slightest scrutiny. As soon as the Hillsong mob were gone, the gates were locked and the lockdown began.

The Liberal leader for the last run has been Scott Morrison. A man so devoid of character that he (at taxpayer's expense) had a character makeover by a PR company and became the smirking idiot we see today. He even invented a twitter tag for himself - #scomo and Scomo, footy kicking, ukulele playing, man of the people, was born. The moniker was quickly changed by rakes in the media to 'Scummo'.

Anyway, Australia burned, refugees rotted, mining magnates became more magnatic (I know, it's not a word but I wanted to try it out), oh yeah, I mentioned all that before...

So, when enough votes were counted, it was with a little relief and a little hope that I heard that Scummo and his cronies were out. I was also happy to hear that the new PM, Anthony Albanese, was not from an, as entitled background than most of the other lot and had been on Disability Support Pension (something else screwed over by the other lot, to the point that people died. Yes, died). Maybe, just maybe, a little of the compassion that was lacking in the other mob would seep through into the new mob's policies.

But the big thing about this year's circus is that more people than ever moved away from the big two and voted for minority parties of independents. At one time in the counting of votes, something like 11% of voters had shifted their voting pattern in a manner that provides a challenge to the continuance of the TPP system. Magnificent!

This challenge to the TPP could mean a greater flexibility and dynamism in Aussie politics, greater accountability and transparency but we will have to wait to see. Who knows what legislators may come up with to replace it? Blockchain is a good idea that is being tried in some places overseas.

The era of Scummo may not be over yet. Cancer never really goes away.