About Australian Politics

Before I begin this rant, I just want to say that the Mayor of Sydney is named Clover Moore. She goes by the title of Lord Mayor. I don’t know why, but I find this amusing. Whenever I hear reports about the activities of Lord Mayor Clover, my imagination depicts the otherwise dignified politician as a frivolous animated skunk or a cud-chewing cartoon cow.

Australia is a democracy.

That statement concludes my in depth understanding of how the federal government here functions. I have had several people explain it to me, and I always find myself sporting the same expression of confusion I witness on others when I try to explain the Electoral College, which I also don’t understand.

Basically, when it comes to federal elections, you don’t vote for a candidate, you vote for the party. There are two major parties: The Labour Party, which is liberal, and the Liberal Party, which is conservative. Whichever party holds the majority of seats in parliament gets to select the Prime Minister. Currently, the Liberal Party is in power and John Howard is the Prime Minister. He has the personality of a mean garden gnome.

The upshot of this system is that the television is not clogged with political commercials for individual candidates. Advertisements are supported by the parties (not lobbyists) and refreshingly deal with policy issues, primarily concerning labour laws, but occasionally touching on how to handle the delicate matter of drunken child molestation among outback aboriginal settlements.

In spite of this system, there is still intense campaigning between the party leaders, and television journalists are the soldier pawns in a war of popularity. Every day, the morning news shows report the latest poll on who is leading the race for preferred prime minister. Favour is lost or gained on a daily basis in reaction to information supplied to the media by the respective parties under the guise of news stories.

This week’s furor concerned a visit to a New York strip club by Kevin Rudd, the Labour Party Candidate, while he was on a government sponsored trip to the United States for some reason that remains vaguely elusive. Under attack from the Christian right, his shocking defence was that he was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. The Australian public seemed entirely satisfied with this explanation. The "man on the street" said the incident had a humanizing effect, but my favourite sound bite came from a minister of something-or-other who said “Frankly, I am quite disappointed in Mr. Rudd. I mean, Melbourne has several world class strip clubs right here in Australia.”

Keep Australian dollars in Australian G-Strings…except here the dollar is a coin…I guess that would make Australian strippers world class.

Eventually, the broadcasters got around to mentioning that Kevin’s strip club adventure occurred in 2003. To their credit, the general public immediately recognized the story as a blatant attack by the Liberal Party and dismissed it on the grounds of poor sportsmanship.