The Democrats, formerly the party that kept the bastards honest has unfortunately dissolved into a very sad little group. At the upcoming elections they look like they will be decimated.
Over at The Age Tim Colebach has an
article outlining their probable fate and the consequences of the end of the Democrats and the rise of the Greens.
It looks pretty grim for the Democrats and it is very sad to see the party dissolve this way. This isn't even a whimper, it was a crash. Between Stott Despoja's failed leadership and drunken incidents the Democrats have gone from a healthy influence to a sad joke.
Colebach talks about what will happen to the Greens should they actually have to help a Labor government rather than just spoil. He writes:
The Greens too would change if the balance of power fell their way. In Germany, power for the Greens led to sharp divisions between "fundis" and "realos" (fundamentalists and realists) before the realos emerged victorious. The German Greens have sent peacekeepers to Iraq and pushed through market-oriented economic reforms as well as environmental ones.
Hopefully this will be the case, but unfortunately the Greens may take a long time to get to this point and could potentially damage a Labour government in the process. It should also be noted that there is a substantial difference in the way that the German Greens and the SDP government interact in that the Greens are actually PART of the government. Unless labour were to do the same the Greens could well continue to pretty much oppose everything.
Indeed, perhaps a similar problem has been the route cause of the Democrats woes. The Democrats were never in government unlike their more or less German equivalent the FDP (the Free Democrats). It was a tragedy when Cheryl Kernot left and her career in the ALP failed. If she had been able to become a minister in the government while retaining her membership of the Democrats then the Democrats may not have veered as sharply left as they did.
Perhaps the
Progressive Aliance will come and replace the Democrats, but it's hard to imagine.
Australia has the issue of Labor Governments at the state level having been in power too long and atrophying policy wise. Democratically Australians have a habit of voting in managerialist executives. The idealists are few and far between and for the most part we reward buying votes than good governance until the stink becomes too obvious that it cannot be ignored. This was true of Howard and it was true of Hawke/Keating before him.
The state Labor Governments have been fortunate in having uncompetitive Liberal opponents to run against, or in the case of Queensland a divided conservative opposition. There is no way that the Iemma Government would have survived the last election if the Liberals had even a reasonable leader and senior group of politicians. With the demise of the Howard Government at the national level it has meant that Australian governance is dominated by old, atrophying and on the nose Labor governments.
The Rudd government is new to executive power and will probably be weak until they win a second election so governance at the national and federal levels will be timid until either a Liberal government comes in with starry eyed policies or the Rudd government asserts the ongoing expansion of national power over weak and unpopular state governments.
Gary Sauer-Thompson argues that poor planning because of the pursuit of
neo-liberal policies. The Liberal Party has a deal to answer for here too. They should be in power in NSW for certain if they were anyway halfway decent as a democratic option. I am old enough to remember Nick Greiner and to think his governance was good. The Liberals are making it way too hard for themselves at the state level.
Matthew Yglesias is arguing that the double dissolution election is a good institution as it cleans out the upper house from minority obstructionism to enable the executive - in the lower house in Australia - to continue with its legislative agenda unobstructed.
Recent history in Australia tells us this is a bad thing. The 'minority obstructionism' has been an important check on the executive in Australian politics for the last 25 years. Mainly with the Democrats running as obstructionists.
The double dissolution election has also been a mechanism for the executive and major parties to remain in power by gaming the electorate and picking the time they want to call an election when everything is in their favor. It is no wonder that many Australian political commentators want fixed term elections - like the American system has.
Yglesias' political philosophy is for a more powerful executive than the Washington system allows. He sees the upper house as an impediment to the agenda of the executive. Many of the experiences of the Australian system where the parliament is unicameral point the other way. A bicameral structure is an important check and balance on the executive and executive power.
Malcolm Turnbull is
retiring from Australian politics. He need not have done it. Opposition leadership is more about patience and the willingness to be ousted as leader and then become opposition leader again. Prior to Howard being Prime Minister, he, Peacock and Hewson swapped the opposition leadership back and forth. Howard was in the right place at the right time when Labor finally fell out of favor.
It was the same when Labor was in opposition, a couple of politicians swapped the leadership position until Rudd gazumped them at the post when Howard's government was finally too far on the nose and too arrogant for redemption. Rudd pipping the leadership at the last moment was much like Hawke's rise to the Prime Ministership.
Abbot will be Liberal leader for a while, but the nature of opposition leadership is turbulent as it does not have the protection of being Prime Minister and the prestige of the executive. Abbot will most likely go through about five other leadership challenges and changes. Whoever hangs on like lazarus - as Howard did - or Beazley nearly did, will be the one that claims the Prime Minister position when the Rudd government becomes repulsive to the electorate.
It is a shame that Turnbull was unable to make his way in the political arena. He largely came to prominence as politically active during the republic referendum. He is also a social liberal in a party that is becoming increasingly conservative and myopically nationalistic. Australian party politics are difficult for the modern Deakin style liberal which Turnbull seemed to represent. I doubt there was ever a place for that style of politician anyway in the strict discipline of the Australian parties.
Gary Sauer-Thompson looks at the recent comments by Tony Abbott where he admits he will say anything to get himself out of a bad situation in an interview. The wider issue is checks and balances on politicians saying whatever they like.
Gary argues that the deeper issue is that it is more difficult to check these political behaviours through the ballot box, hence greater checks and balances in the political system are necessary;
Checks and balances on executive dominance would be a good start by giving greater power to the committee system in both houses of Parliament. Proportional representation for the House of Representatives, along the lines of the Hare-Clarke system, would be another place to start. This would ensure that we citizens have a choice about who to vote for and against within all political parties.
The Hare-Clark system came out of Tasmania, which in my opinion, has one of the more innovative electoral systems in Australia. I can recall looking at the effect of the Robson Rotation and it seemed to indicate that its introduction
reduced incumbency.
Another alternative in the Parliamentary system is to separate the Executive from the House of Representatives or the Assemblies and have a Governor or President. This fits the doctrine of separation of powers in the same manner that the Washington System has and the US States do.
It is not a perfect system, but it is preferable to the parliamentary system where the executive carries out the laws and legislates the same laws they execute.
The downside of this is that the House Of Representatives will have to do policy and here the US Congress has not been the greatest, but then again, Congress has had to deal with large tent parties that are highly factional rather than the absolute discipline the Australian parties have.
However the Washington System is an improvement over Westminster and Australia should start innovating constitutionally at the state level if not the Federal one.
Andrew Bartlet on privacy; "In an era of YouTube, instant Twittering and the like, where every phone is a camera, voice and video recorder, all of us have to accept that privacy isn't what it used to be, and the more of a public figure you are, the more you have to lose if you just happen to be one of the unlucky ones who end up in the glare of a public spotlight. But that doesn't make it any more justified for the mainstream media to be joining the fray as peddlers of tabloid trash and perpetrators of prurient and egregious breaches of privacy."
So how to make sense of the recent elections. It looks like the swing against Labor, while higher than normal,
isn't particularly high against a first time incumbent government.
It also appears that most voters chose the Greens rather than Coalition when deserting Labor as well giving the Greens their first seat in the House of Representatives and a strong showing in the Senate. I wonder how much not having to compete with the Australian Democrats account for that as well.
Additionally
informal voting seems a little high. According to Wiki it is about 5% normally. Australia doesn't have compulsory voting, it has compulsory handing in a ballot. You can do to the ballot whatever you like. An empty ballot is valid, as is a partially filled out one. It is a form of protest voting.
There appears to be a lot of hand ringing by pundits willing to tell the world what this means. Additionally the drama of a minority government is right up their alley. They will be able to ascribe all manner of narratives and story to it.
Mark Bahnisch writes:
The truth of this election is that both the Howard era cultural hegemony and Labor's state model of populist electoralism have failed their architects - majority politics has broken down.
Broken down enough that one of the major parties is going to have to do a deal with the independents as a block to get through their supply bills. Australian states with their innovative forms of preference and proportional voting have had to deal with coalition and minority governments before. It would not necessarily be a bad thing if the national government has to get used to this style of governance as well. Assuming Fielding isn't the independent of course.
Using the data on
John Barrdear's post showing the pick up by the Coalition, Greens and Informal vote, I must admit to being shocked at how many informal votes there were. Nearly 30% of the swing against Labor was people putting in blank or defaced ballots.
Three times as many voted informally over those that swung to the Coalition. The informal vote was also half of the pick up the Greens had. This suggests that a significant part of the swinging vote saw no value in any political party; major or minor, during this election, and voted in the only way the Australian system allows to register that opinion.
Via Adam, Stubborn Mule has a further break down of the
informal vote increase by state. It ranges from 0.95% in Western Australia to 2.42% in the ACT. The most populous states, NSW, Victoria and Queensland all registered around 2% or more increases. Stubborn Mule writes:
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the increase in informal votes reflects a protest vote arising from deep voter dissatisfaction with both major parties.
As Adam notes, there are a lot of parties in Australia. One of the things when faced with a ballot sheet is the number of parties and candidates that have to be ticked off and ranked as part of the preference system. So you become fully aware of the Greys, Greens, Guns, etc.
The US is not the same. It has a very strong duality, whether it is because the US allows for less strict party line voting - though that is changing at the national level with the Republicans - or because of some historical aspect to the American electoral system. Many towns and cities have made their elections non-political by banning the mention of political parties as a way around the duality. Between the advertising and the nature of the signs you can usually tell whether they are Republican, Democrat or Independent.
To the original issue; how do you explain the increase in informal voting this election which made up nearly 30% of the swing against the incumbents. There is plenty of party choice if you don't want to vote for the major parties and you can rank Labor and Liberal last if you want. Additionally there is choice within the Coalition too if you want to vote for a conservative viewpoint.
Is it disgust at the major parties, disgust with national politics, or disgust with Australian politics? The Australian political entity, which includes politicians and the media, probably need to be aware that breaking cultural norms like this, with increases in informal voting, often don't go back. Once the culture is broken (ie
the experiment with picking kids up after school in Israel), it reaches a new equilibrium.
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
