Category: Politics (Page 5 of 5)

Recently we have seen another Federal Budget come and go. The pork barreling has happened again, and of course no one is surprised, especially in an election year. This is what we expect months out from an election. According to the media, this was a good budget in that it gave something for everyone and no one missed out.

In the budget we were also introduced to the Government’s own version of Kevin Rudd’s ‘education revolution’. In addition to what we saw in the budget, we have seen the Government soften its stance on its contentious industrial relations laws by introducing a fairness test. In the process they clearly outsmarted the Opposition.

Australians have become used to such budgets and such promises by our leaders, and we have also been numbed to the media response. We are not surprised at the media’s reporting that these government initiatives are very strategically thought out to put the Government in the best position to outsmart the Opposition and prepare itself for the upcoming election.

We are told that the Government has been very clever in outsmarting Labor by giving something for everyone (although, as it turns out, there are some losers again, notably the poor who don’t earn enough money to pay tax and who will miss out on the tax cuts that many of us will enjoy). We have even been told, probably correctly, that the Government held back on some spending in the Budget, particularly on climate change initiatives, to be able to roll out more spending closer to the election in an attempt to try to convince the electorate that it is the party to trust when it comes to combating climate change. It is well thought out indeed, timed to gain maximum votes from a closely watching Australian public.

The game of politics is alive and well in 21st century Australia. And the thing that disturbs me is that so many people seem to swallow it. The underlying message in all these political games is that this is all about winning an election, and not what is best for Australians. I have yet to read an article decrying the hypocrisy and blatant dishonesty of our leaders rolling out massive spending and other initiatives like this in an election year and then having the hide to say, as Mr Howard did recently, that this proves that he is a Prime Minister who listens to the Australian people. Does he really expect us to believe that he would not have softened his stance on IR laws if this was not an election year? And do we really believe that Labor would not have done exactly the same thing if it was currently in Government?

The media has only touched the edges, at best, of the immorality, let alone the short-sightedness, of these attitudes. We have seen opinion pieces by none other than Laurie Oakes in The Bulletin talking about Howard’s tactics as being of ‘gold-medal quality’ and stating that, regarding the IR changes, the government “now has something saleable”. Paul Daley, also in The Bulletin, stated that Howard’s tactics “demonstrate the…benefits of election-year incumbency”. This is the closest that I have seen to anything like decrying the tactics of our nation’s leaders. Australia’s leading journalists are reporting on the politics, and not the morality, of the way our leaders do their job. And the public, by being offered no other options, inevitably fall for it.

To echo the famous slogan of Gough Whitlams’ Labor party in the early 1970s, it’s time that this country had some moral politics – God’s politics, as Jim Wallis from Sojourners has so eloquently written about. This is too serious for petty games, for playing the Australian public for fools. It is too serious for us as a society to be asleep at the wheel when we need to be wide awake to the gravity of these issues. When are we going to see spending that is genuinely aimed to bring relief for the most disadvantaged in our society, not timed to gain the maximum votes to keep the incumbent party in power? And when are we going to see the media speak out about this blatant hypocrisy and short-sightedness from our nation’s leaders?

The United States is also gearing up for an important election in 2008, and they seem to be a little more aware of the need for old-fashioned virtues like integrity and courage in their leaders. Newsweek recently ran an article about the fact that America is crying out for a ‘new Truman’. Harry Truman, who was president in the 1940s and 1950s, has gone down in history as an honest man who told it like it is. Wouldn’t it be great to see Australians crying out for a new Curtin, Chifley or Deakin?

Our political leaders and the media have failed us in recent weeks in their playing of the game of politics. This nation is crying out for leaders with the integrity to make unpopular decisions at an unpopular time if need be. Imagine a leader who was willing to take an unpopular stand right before an election because it was the right thing to do, and who did not hold back on the truth for the sake of staying in or obtaining power. Proverbs 29:18 says “Without a vision, the people perish”. Imagine a leader in this country with such vision, a leader who would genuinely wish to see justice roll down like a mighty stream and would risk their political career to see that come to fruition.

However it is easy to make judgments from afar. Thankfully in this country we have the ability to affect change. We are a fortunate nation indeed when we can speak out for political change without risking our lives. We have the ability to lobby, to write letters and to make loud noises about what we think is best for our nation.

It is our task as followers of Christ to seek first His kingdom, to do what is right and count the cost if need be. Let us be encouraged by the boldness of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who stood up to Nebuchadnezzar by refusing to worship other gods. Let us be encouraged by the boldness of the prophets of old, people like Jeremiah and Amos, who raged against the injustices of the rulers of their times. And let us be encouraged by Jesus, who went through the temple and overturned the tables in the Temple, the servant leader who laid down his life for us. There have been many other great and inspiring examples for us down through the ages. They include the early Christians, who would rather die for their faith than to deny Jesus as Lord, who stated openly that, even though they had been told to stop proclaiming the good news, said that they would obey God rather than the ruling authorities.

When Jim Wallis from Sojourners was in Australia in 2006, he made the brilliant observation that politicians walk around with their fingers in the air following the direction of the wind, referring to the prevailing mood of the times. He then said that our task was to change the direction of the wind. The task has now fallen on us to hold our leaders and our media accountable and to let them know that politics is not a game. The responsibility is great, but God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind.

On 4 April, Klaas Woldring wrote an article on Online Opinion about the apparent benefits of voluntary voting. I wrote a shortened response as a comment on the website. Comments on Online Opinion can be no longer than 350 words. Below is my full response.

The article by Klaas Woldring seems to be mainly about the electoral system rather than the negatives of compulsory voting.

He makes a number of points that, in my opinion, can easily be countered. Firstly, the motivation behind the ideas quoted by Hill, Louth and Hill, that exporting compulsory voting would reverse the rather modest decline in voter turn-out in countries which currently have voluntary voting is true. However, you can hardly compare exporting compulsory voting to the so-called ‘Pacific Solution’. I imagine that suggestion of comparing the issue of compulsory voting to this country’s immigration policy would also offend many people.

Woldring then states that the introduction of voluntary voting in Australia, resulting in a turn-out of 40-45 per cent, would increase the quality of the vote. This also may be true (and I emphasise ‘may be’). However, this is a generalisation and does not outweigh the negative consequences of having less than half the population vote. You could say that it is a true representation of what people really want because only those who really care would vote. I understand this point, but in a country with even our relatively small population of 20 million, it is more of an indictment on our political processes if more than half the eligible population don’t vote. Again, I believe we are talking more about the electoral system here than about the negative implications of compulsory voting. Additionally, Woldring’s statement does not take into account the fact that, with voluntary voting, many poor people would be less inclined to vote, as happens in other countries, not because they are disinterested, but because they would find it very difficult to get to a polling booth. With compulsory voting, the incentive to get to a polling booth is a lot stronger. And while I agree that knowledge of the political system, the Constitution, public policy, and so on, in Australia is appallingly deficient, once again, this is more an indictment on our political and educational processes than on the apparent pitfalls of compulsory voting.

Further on in his article, Woldring states that “many have had quite enough of the political system simply because they are compelled to vote for the major party candidates many of whom are not regarded highly at all, for many reasons.” However, no one is compelled to vote for the major parties. The higher vote for minor parties over recent elections shows this.

Woldring also states that compulsory voting forces the major parties’ policy programs to the centre of the spectrum and this has helped make them become look-alike parties. Forcing the major parties’ policy programs to the centre is actually a positive, as it highlights their policies and forces them to be scrutinised. One of the dangers that the ALP faces in the run up to this year’s Federal election is strong scrutiny of their policies. Many commentators are saying that, while the ALP’s primary vote is high at the moment, it is still to be really tested, and therefore many voters are still undecided about whether or not the ALP would make a credible alternative government.

The article by Woldring then goes on to the issue of longer and costlier election campaigns. He states that “arguments that major parties would have to mount longer and costlier election campaigns if voluntary voting was introduced, to get the voters out, are valid, but these are arguments against voluntary voting that benefit the major parties. More public funding is the remedy here, nothing less, if we take democracy seriously.”. However, major parties would benefit from more public funding here as well as they already have a much larger supporter base and attract much larger donations. The arguments of mounting longer and costlier election campaigns are more than valid; they are a major negative aspect of voluntary voting. In the US, they have a system whereby the candidates with the most money are the only ones with a realistic chance of being elected. Just in the last week we have seen that Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama have raised more than US$30million each for their respective campaigns. What chance does an intelligent, charismatic candidate have without millions of dollars worth of support? This is hardly democracy at work.

In the end, when we take all these arguments into account, we are talking about democracy, that is, government for the people and by the people. In most countries, voluntary voting means that at least half the population do not turn up to vote, as mentioned by Woldring above. When so few people turn up to vote, as a result of voluntary voting, we are making a mockery of democracy. If we take the 2000 US election as an example, we had a situation, in a country with voluntary voting, where, George W Bush received approximately half of the popular vote (although he won enough electoral college votes). The voter turnout for that election was 50%, more than Woldring mentions above when he talks about voter turnout being around 40 – 45%. Rather than voter quality increasing in that election, we had a situation where they now have a President who was elected by, at most, a quarter of the eligible voting population, and they call that democracy. Let us not take that route and damage the integrity of democracy in this country.