Middle Road

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Griff

OMG! A functional democracy!

I'm not so sure, it sounds like three or four people hold an awful lot of power, even if they are good and decent people. Or course it depends, when it comes to actually getting shit done, if Labor, or Liberal/National, will vote as a solid block. It wouldn't take many mavericks to derail the party's plans.

[Griff]

Yeah, it seems more like an accident in this case. I wonder if the queen is busy?... hmmm... the next generation of royalty isn't looking that sharp though.

Seriously though, when you have a severely split electorate it must help a little to force compromise on the politicos. You don't get grand scale things done but you can govern small.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I'm not so sure, it sounds like three or four people hold an awful lot of power,

Nelson, Lieberman, Snowe, and Collins.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Exactly, that's why I wondered if Griff wasn't overly ecstatic about the Aussies.

[Sundae]

Seems to have worked out reasonably well for you.
Good luck.

Jim keeps asking when when I'm going over there.
He seems to forget it's kinda out of the price-range of someone not working...

[Aliantha]

A week later and still no government.

The rumors are starting to circulate. Dirt files are coming out. There are equal boasts from both sides that they have the winning margin.

Either way, nothing is going to get done, and unfortunately Griff, Aus politics doesn't really work so that Federal government representatives can just look after thier own electorate. In a way they can by representing the wishes of their people when it comes time to vote on a national issue, but smaller local issues have to be addressed by the local or state government, depending on which one controls the issue.

[ZenGum]

The most striking thing about the situation is the total lack of hysteria, noisy protests, and so on. The vote counting won't be finished for a few days, then comes the horse trading, and most people are mildly interested, about the same way we would be in a particularly slow test match of cricket. There is a process to follow and most people seem content with that.

Several of our state governments have been minority governments lately, propped up by a few independent members who are allowed to vote against specific bills if they really want to. That is probably what will happen here.

Longer term, it might also open the door for people to take a third party - the greens - seriously. In the very long term, the greens might end up displacing labor - faction-ridden and union-dominated - as the centre-left social conscience party.

[casimendocina]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

...most people are mildly interested, about the same way we would be in a particularly slow test match of cricket.

Speak for yourself. I'd say there's much more interest in this than a particularly slow test match of cricket. Too much more time though and people will probably start to switch off (regardless of whether that's the best way to approach the situation or not). At the moment it feels like, having cast their votes, the electorate is fairly powerless until either the new government is formed or another election is called.

[casimendocina]

Things seem to be moving along with the election results. Labor and the Greens have formed an alliance. I have never seen Bob Brown looking so happy. Wayne Swan (the Treasurer) is as if he's not 100% sure about the arrangement. Tony Abbott is arguing that this coalition, as it is not an established coalition, will not be able to provide results for rural areas. Guess we'll just keep watching and see what happens next.

[ZenGum]

Labor has turned green, Gillard is tickled pink, Abbott is seeing red, all due to Bob Brown.

Anyone want an update?

The Liberal/national Coalition have 73 seats, or maybe 72, because one chap (Tony Crook, ) says he is going to sit as a cross bencher, despite still being a member of the National Party.

Labour have 72 + 1 + 1 = 74, being their core 72, one green (signed a deal a few days ago) and Wilkie, a left-leaning independent, whose career has involved military service, then defence intelligence analyst, from which position he resigned noisily in 2003 to publicly protest the invasion of Iraq when, as he said at the time, there was no good evidence of WMDs - before the invasion!.

There are three independents left:
Katter: right wing, rough and confrontational type, naive economic politics - wants to peg the dollar and slash interest rates, eg - wears very big hat.
Oakeshott: centre right, social progressive, looks like a school teacher or something.
Windsor: centre-to middle right, less public profile, keeping in background a bit for now.

Labor needs any two of these, coalition needs all three. The three are having a good long think over the weekend, we should probably get an answer early next week.

It really has been fun watching the two major parties finally get grilled on the issues that they should have been getting grilled about all along. It is especially amusing watching Abbott struggling with the temptation to be his usual belligerent self, trying to be all softly-softly with these guys, woo them without insulting them ... and at the same time trying to keep his own party members from chasing the three and pressuring them.

The main thing is, we have a process to resolve the situation, it is progressing.

[TheMercenary]

Sounds like it is working, but in situations like that don't you think it concentrates the power to the three independents? That seems counter intuitive to the whole process, I just don't know enough about it though.

[casimendocina]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Sounds like it is working, but in situations like that don't you think it concentrates the power to the three independents? That seems counter intuitive to the whole process, I just don't know enough about it though.

In this situation, that's exactly what it's doing. Originally, the system of checks and balances was meant to prevent any one party or group from having too much power. I'm not sure that anyone ever envisioned a situation where the level of support (or lack of it) would be so evenly divided between the major parties.

[casimendocina]

For those in Australia, have just been reading a magazine put out by one of the radio stations. There's a segment put in by one of the of the comedy shows entitled "The Chaser's Top 5 Politician Cameos We Can't Get" (basically, they like to have politicians on their show and see how well developed their sense of humour is). No. 3 on the list is "Barnaby Joyce challenged to give a speech that makes sense to anyone besides Barnaby Joyce."

[casimendocina]

After 17 days, we have a PM and a government!

[ZenGum]

Phew. That was close.

The Sun rose with the coalition on 73, Labor on 74, three undecided.

Around noon, Katter announced he was supporting the coalition. 74 all.

Then Windsor, and then Oakeshott, very s-l-o-w-l-y announced that they would support Labor. 76-74.

The incumbent (Gillard) remains as Prime Minister with a minority in the lower house, with support in matters of supply (passing the budget) and motions of confidence from four of the five independents.

Labor also have a minority in the upper house, with Greens (mostly) holding the balance of power.

So, in effect, the "working class" city folk are the government, but they have to be nice to the bushies and the greenies; and the middle and wealthy classes make up the opposition.

There are mechanisms in our constitution for early elections if government becomes unworkable. Will this strange arrangement last a full three year term?

I'm really happy with this result, both for the immediate political arrangement and for the reinvigoration of the parliamentary process.