7.
AUSTRALIAN POLITICS
Well, OK yes, it is complicated, but stick with it.
There are three levels of government in Australia: local, state and federal. Each government looks after different stuff. The different governments are always fighting about who’s in charge of what; for example, both Federal and State have responsibilities for education.
‘Local’ is your town or suburb. Your local government, usually known as a council, is in charge of local streets, garbage collection, how big a house you’re allowed to build, and whether you can turn your carport into an international hotel or a panel-beating business. The leader of the local council is called the Lord Mayor, Mayor or the shire president.
‘State’ is Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, whatever. State governments look after schools, hospitals, prisons, and so on. The state parliaments meet in the state capital cities. The leader of the state government is called the Premier.
‘Federal’ is for the whole country, and is based in Canberra. The federal government does the stuff that affects the whole country, like defence, the environment and Aboriginal issues. The leader of the federal government is called the Prime Minister.
All three – local, state and federal – have the power to tax you, in different ways.
The federal government and most state governments are bicameral, representative, elected by universal adult suffrage using compulsory preferential voting, and they all follow the doctrine of separation of powers, the Westminster system, preferential voting etc. etc.
What this means is:
Whichever party, or group, or team, has most members in parliament are the winners, and they become the Government – so they run the show. The losers become the Opposition, and these poor buggers have to spend the three or four years till the next election giving the Government a hard time, trying to get their names in the papers, and generally trying to keep a check on everything the Government does.
How do the winners get chosen? At elections.
Virtually every adult has to vote in elections (unless you’re in prison or senile or something), and you get fined if you don’t. This is different from most countries, like the United States, where you don’t have to vote unless you want to.
Australia is divided into districts called electorates, for elections, and in each electorate various people (candidates) put their hands up, hoping they will win the election and get themselves into parliament.
In each electorate people vote for the candidates in that electorate and the winner is said to have ‘won a seat in parliament’ – in other words, he or she becomes a member of parliament.
You vote in secret, and you list the candidates in your electorate in order of your preference. For example, when you go to vote you might find yourself looking at a piece of paper like this:
Anderson, Jessie (Liberal)
Masters, Gwenda (Independent)
Hong, Lee Kwan (Greens)
Karavannis, Joseph (Labor)
Zouvali, Adanthe (Australian Democrats)
Bowater, Alfred (Be Kind to Dust Mites)
The name in brackets indicates the party, or group, or team, that each person belongs to.
The three main parties in Australia are the Liberal Party of Australia, the National Party of Australia and the Australian Labor Party. The Liberals and Nationals are called the Coalition because they mostly vote together in parliament.
Traditionally the Liberals/Nationals have been seen as the conservative or right wing team, less sympathetic to trade unions, disadvantaged people or people on low incomes. They’re more likely to be seen in suits and ties, or nice dresses. Same for the women. People who favour keeping the Queen of England as Head of State for Australia are more likely to vote Liberal, for example. Notable Liberals have included John Howard, Peter Costello and Jeff Kennett. The founder of the Party and the most famous Liberal ever was Sir Robert Menzies, who was Prime Minister of Australia for a record twenty-six years, most of them after World War II.
Colour Liberals blue.
The Labor Party, the left wing, has traditionally been the party for the battlers, and has favoured taxing the rich to help the poor. Sometimes in the past they’ve been accused of being communist in their outlook. Many trade unions are associated with the Labor Party. Labor people are more likely than Liberals to be seen in jeans, open-necked shirts, casual clothes. Notable Labor Party leaders have included Kim Beazley, Geoff Gallop, Paul Keating, Gough Whitlam, Peter Beattie, Bob Carr and Steve Bracks.
Colour Labor red.
You might notice that women are not prominent in either party.
The best known smaller parties are the Greens and the Australian Democrats, who often stick up for environmental issues, and the rights of minority groups.
However anyone can stand for Parliament. If you and your mates want to form a group called the ‘Free Jaffas for Everyone’ Party, go right ahead. But it’s unlikely you’ll win enough ‘seats’ (electorates) to become the Government. Frankly, it’s unlikely you’ll win any seats.
Sometimes, though, a new party comes along and quickly gathers support. The most recent is Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party.
When you vote you list the candidates in the order in which you think they should go. This is called preferential voting. So you might vote like this:
Anderson, Jessie (Liberal) 4
Masters, Gwenda (Independent) 1
Hong, Lee Kwan (Greens) 5
Karavannis, Joseph (Labor) 3
Zouvali, Adanthe (Australian Democrats) 2
Bowater, Alfred (Be Kind to Dust Mites) 6
Now, Gwenda Masters, whom you voted number 1, is an Independent, which means that she doesn’t belong to any party. That’s OK – Independents do occasionally get elected. But Gwenda doesn’t have a lot of support, and when the primary votes (all the number 1 votes) are counted, the results look like this:
Anderson, Jessie (Liberal) 20,153
Masters, Gwenda (Independent) 14
Hong, Lee Kwan (Greens) 1,459
Karavannis, Joseph (Labor) 19,333
Zouvali, Adanthe (Australian Democrats) 2,530
Bowater, Alfred (Be Kind to Dust Mites) 16
Informal 881
‘Informal’ are the ones that don’t count because, instead of voting, some people coloured in the squares, or wrote rude messages, or put a number 17 in one box, or whatever.
So, you look at this and you think, ‘OK, Liberals win!’
Ho ho. You idiot. You didn’t think they’d make it that simple, did you?
The fact is, preferential voting works on the belief that, if your first choice doesn’t get in, you shouldn’t be stuck with someone you absolutely hate as your member of parliament – if that can be avoided. So, you voted for Gwenda Masters, but unfortunately she only got 14 votes – and 13 of those were from her relatives – and she came last. At this point Gwenda gets kicked out, and her 14 votes are recounted. The vote you gave her no longer counts, because Gwenda’s been sent home, so your second vote now becomes your first vote. You put Adanthe Zouvali from the Democrats second, so she now gets another vote, to take her to 2,531. The thirteen other people who voted for Gwenda Masters have their votes redistributed too. Six of them put Labor second, four Liberal, one Democrats and two the Greens. So the new vote count reads:
Anderson, Jessie (Liberal) 20,157
Hong, Lee Kwan (Greens) 1,461
Karavannis, Joseph (Labor) 19,339
Zouvali, Adanthe (Australian Democrats) 2,532
Bowater, Alfred (Be Kind to Dust Mites) 16
Well, it’s the end of the Dust Mites Party, as they are now last, so they get booted out of the count. Their votes are rechecked, and the second choices of people who voted for them are now treated as first choices. The Labor Party picks up another 10 votes, the Liberals 4, and the Greens 2.
Anderson, Jessie (Liberal) 20,161
Hong, Lee Kwan (Greens) 1,463
Karavannis, Joseph (Labor) 19,349
Zouvali, Adanthe (Australian Democrats) 2,532
This process keeps going until someone gets more than half the valid or formal votes counted in this electorate. In this case that means 21,753 votes. You can see that, although the Liberals are still leading, they haven’t got 21,753 votes.
So, we continue. Now the Greens candidate is kicked out, and the second choices of people who voted for him are redistributed. Most of them put Labor or the Democrats second, so now we have this:
Anderson, Jessie (Liberal) 20,369
Karavannis, Joseph (Labor) 20,072
Zouvali, Adanthe (Australian Democrats) 3,064
Gosh isn’t this exciting! Suddenly we have a ‘cliff-hanger’ election. Remember when the Liberals had a lead of 820? Now it’s down to 297. So, it’s goodbye to the Democrats, and there’s 3,064 votes to be distributed. 1,723 of them go to Labor. And now at last we have our final result:
Anderson, Jessie (Liberal) 21,710
Karavannis, Joseph (Labor) 21,795
The Labor Party has won by 85 votes, so Mr Karavannis becomes Member of Parliament for the electorate.
This electorate will be known unofficially as marginal, or a swinging seat, because the election was so close. At the next election the big political parties may put a lot of money and effort into this electorate, because both of them will think they have a good chance to win it. If the result had been very one-sided, the electorate would be known as a safe, or blue-ribbon, seat.
In this fantasy election the Labor Party wins more seats than the Liberal Party, so the Labor Party becomes the Government and the Liberals the Opposition. Mr Karavannis has won three previous elections in this electorate – so he was already the ‘sitting member’ – and has been a member of parliament for eight years. The leader of the Labor Party, who now becomes the Prime Minister, is pretty impressed by Mr Karavannis, partly because Mr Karavannis has been enthusiastically sucking up to him for a long time, and the Prime Minister makes Mr Karavannis the Minister for Health, a senior job. With this position Mr Karavannis becomes a member of the Cabinet, a group of senior people within the Government, who are responsible for the biggest workloads. They’re the ones seen on TV most often. They include the Treasurer, who’s usually number two in the Cabinet and number two in the Government, because he or she has the vital job of keeping money matters under control, and making sure that Australia is able to pay its Diners Club bill at the end of each month.
Another type of election is a by-election which happens when the member of parliament in an electorate resigns or dies and has to be replaced before the next big, or general, election.
Referendums (or referenda) are held when a question that’s really important is voted on by the whole adult population of Australia – for example, ‘Should Australia become a republic or keep the King/Queen of England as its Head of State?’
Every few years Australia also has a census, where a count is made of every person in the country, to get statistics on how many people live in the city, and how many in the country, how many of them were born overseas – stuff like that.