The Race That Really Stops a Nation ...
Aug. 26th, 2018 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrasteSo, this has been a bit of an exciting week in Australian politics. By which I mean that everyone I know has been glued to the 24-hour ABC news channel or walking around yelling 'WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING???' at each other and there was a lot of sound and fury that signified nothing. (This is easily the most pointless of all the leader-stabbings that have occurred here over the last decade, and I expect that very little will change except that Andrew Bolt and co. will be whining about someone different in Monday's papers. The chance that they will develop self-awareness and shut up for a bit seems, um, remote.)
While various people were shanking various other people in an attempt to become our next glorious leader, journalists entertained themselves by showing the general public pictures of Liberal leadership candidates Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton and asking who they were. It turns out that just over half of people surveyed knew who Scott Morrison was, and Dutton's recognition rate was much lower than that. So the country is full of people who get up every day and go to work and take their children to school and make dinner and watch TV and don't know who the Treasurer is.
I cannot imagine what that must be like. I literally cannot remember a time when I didn't know these things - I grew up with two political junkies for parents, and at the age of four, I proudly announced my intention to vote for Bob Hawke. My parents did not have the heart to tell me that pre-school aged children were not allowed to vote, so after I 'helped' fill in the ballot paper at the next federal election I loudly announced that we'd voted Labor to everyone at the polling place. Since we were living in a very safe National seat, they hurried me back to the car ... When I was nine, I had to correct my teacher about who the opposition leader was. (To be fair to her, Andrew Peacock had shanked John Howard only a short time before. Because this kind of thing has always happened, just not with such shocking regularity and not usually to actual Prime Ministers.)
A few years ago before the last federal election, I found myself explaining the difference between the Labor party, the Liberal party and the Nationals to my best friend's younger sister. She's a geological engineer, both intelligent and well-educated, but she'd never taken any interest whatsoever in politics. Like far too many people, she thinks that it's boring.
Which is the other thing I will never understand. Being a political junkie is endlessly frustrating and frequently heartbreaking, but boring??? Especially now that we have a leadership spill on a near-annual basis!
While various people were shanking various other people in an attempt to become our next glorious leader, journalists entertained themselves by showing the general public pictures of Liberal leadership candidates Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton and asking who they were. It turns out that just over half of people surveyed knew who Scott Morrison was, and Dutton's recognition rate was much lower than that. So the country is full of people who get up every day and go to work and take their children to school and make dinner and watch TV and don't know who the Treasurer is.
I cannot imagine what that must be like. I literally cannot remember a time when I didn't know these things - I grew up with two political junkies for parents, and at the age of four, I proudly announced my intention to vote for Bob Hawke. My parents did not have the heart to tell me that pre-school aged children were not allowed to vote, so after I 'helped' fill in the ballot paper at the next federal election I loudly announced that we'd voted Labor to everyone at the polling place. Since we were living in a very safe National seat, they hurried me back to the car ... When I was nine, I had to correct my teacher about who the opposition leader was. (To be fair to her, Andrew Peacock had shanked John Howard only a short time before. Because this kind of thing has always happened, just not with such shocking regularity and not usually to actual Prime Ministers.)
A few years ago before the last federal election, I found myself explaining the difference between the Labor party, the Liberal party and the Nationals to my best friend's younger sister. She's a geological engineer, both intelligent and well-educated, but she'd never taken any interest whatsoever in politics. Like far too many people, she thinks that it's boring.
Which is the other thing I will never understand. Being a political junkie is endlessly frustrating and frequently heartbreaking, but boring??? Especially now that we have a leadership spill on a near-annual basis!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-26 10:55 am (UTC)I do think it's a bit different for rural people, though, in that we have often met the local MP (and complained to them at length!) whereas when I was living in Melbourne I never once saw either of my local members in the whole time I was there. People where I live might not know policy differences between the major parties but they definitely know who's meant to be looking out for them.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-26 11:34 pm (UTC)I mean, I still only give him my second preference, and how you can be active in a community that's home to so many refugees and still be ALP Right is beyond me, but he's good at his day to day job.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-30 07:11 am (UTC)(And then there are people who are terrible on every possible level - apparently Dutton is not even a good local member. You would think the Liberals might have learned something from Sophie Mirabell's example ...)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-28 12:41 am (UTC)If ScoMo really wants to win the election, he should get himself some contacts and hope to confuse everyone about who is in charge of which side.
It is true that people in the country tend to see their local member more - except when electoral boundaries get redrawn in stupid ways and you end up with someone who doesn't know how to get to where you live. My parents live in Stawell and somehow ended up in the same seat as Warnambool. They did not see that guy, ever. (Now they are going to be in Dan Tehan's electorate, and are no happier with that prospect.)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-28 01:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-28 11:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-26 10:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-28 12:44 am (UTC)I cannot blame anyone in the USA for pretending to be a ostrich right now. I think your status quo is even more depressing than ours.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-26 11:37 pm (UTC)I once had to explain to a university graduate that the Coalition is two separate parties who join together to form government, and if the ALP were in power (this was in the Howard years), they would not become the Coalition.
But yeah, how do you just ... walk around! And not know this stuff! (My earliest Australian political memory is Keating knifing Hawke. I was vaguely aware of stuff before that, but that was the first time I followed along. Baby's first spill!)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-28 11:49 pm (UTC)Oh dear.
I was eleven during that particular spill and it was SO EXCITING. (My early enthusiasm for Hawke had waned a bit now that I had matured and reached double digits, and I was a keen Keating supporter. I still regret that he was gone before I was old enough to vote.)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-27 12:23 am (UTC)To be honest, it still doesn't hold much interest for me but I DO pay attention because I recognise how important it is. So I kind of understand where people are coming from, but they are ignoring their responsibility to themselves and their nation by not paying attention.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-08-30 07:13 am (UTC)