Australia held a Federal election yesterday. They do this every couple of years and also change Prime Minister about halfway through each term, for reasons nobody really remembers. Perhaps this is rather like how the winter and summer Olympics are held 2 years apart to keep everyone interested?
Like many “new” countries, Australia has a written constitution. When one speaks with Australians, they claim theirs is quite analogous and heavily-based upon the USA constitution.
This claim is accurate only to the point that there are States (but also “Territories” which differ to a “State” somehow) that can write local legislation and the Federal government that can write national legislation.
The similarities come to a rather screeching halt there.
The USA Constitution is, in my opinion, one of the greatest and most beautiful pieces of written text in the history of the English language, staking the primary claim that the rights of the individual are paramount.
It’s a work of philosophy first, a declaration of nationhood second. It has stood the test of time and is still the envy of everywhere and everyone else in the world. If you are in any doubt about that, Google the statistics on where potential immigrants would prefer to relocate to and from. The jihadi supporters might shout “Death to the USA!” in the streets of Gaza but they individually change their tune the moment there’s a hint of a Green Card being granted.
Interestingly, Liberia was founded on an almost direct copy of the USA constitution, perhaps demonstrating that national, cultural and ethnic differences might be slightly more important and harder to assimilate than the cultural marxists would like to believe.
One of the wonderful consequences of the American system of maintaining separate Legislative, Judicial and Executive branches acting as checks and balances on each other is the constant drag on making radical changes to anything of importance; a “Hitlarian” populist character simply can’t enter the Whitehouse and start jailing his or her enemies. So, despite what the increasingly insane left would like to think about Trump’s motivations, he’d be hamstrung even if he was maliciously-minded.
Let’s just repeat that in another way, for the simple-minded folk who have let their hatred of Trump cloud their judgement; either Trump is Hitler/Maduro/Erdogan/Jong-Un and wants to jail dissenting voices but the system stops him, or he isn’t actually a malicious person after all.
Either way, brilliant news for Americans and the rest of the world!
If you accept that the system prevents dictatorships, consider that this is a design feature, not a bug, of the American system.
No such designed constitutional devices exist in Australia. The constitution is, in effect, the result of a few months of horse trading and pork barrelling by the rich and powerful at the turn of the last century. There’s even a clause in there explicitly allowing laws to be passed discriminating against racial groups, despite there being no legal definition of what a “race” is in English Common Law. Oh, and there’s the classic “New Zealand can become Australia if they ask nicely” clause.
Did you hear that, Jacinda? You could get those gnashers finally fixed up on Medicare. It’s a shame Uncle Helen Clark didn’t realise that, eh?
However, Australians are a canny bunch. They don’t need a high fallutin’ philosophically-based document to define their nation. They can find more practical ways to slow shit down.
This latest Federal election is a fantastic example of this phenomenon.
Spoiler alert; the incumbent party, the Liberal/National Coalition (ie a left wing party but not the extreme left wing party) won but without a workable majority. The amusing part is that the Labor Party (yes, they deliberately use the American, not Australian, spelling for some bizarre reason) were supposed to win in a landslide.
Turns out people lied to the pollsters. Now where have we seen that before?
This is now the 3rd minority Australian government since 2010 and is likely to remain so for the next three years. At which point, 8 out of 11 years will be under zombie governments.
Why has Australia suddenly started to emulate Italy?
My hypothesis is this is due to a combination of two almost uniquely Australian factors:
1. Compulsory voting. Everyone, even the completely politically disengaged, have to turn up to the local school on a Saturday and write on a form. Many people, me included, resent this forced “right” and either spoil their votes or decide to not vote for the major parties.
2. “Preferences”. If your preferred first choice doesn’t win an outright victory and has no chance of being elected, your vote is recycled to the political party your candidate has nominated. You have no say in this. Democratic?
The experienced consequence has been that the system has incentivised a proliferation of micro-sized single issue parties, usually staffed with people with zero political experience and often little useful experience of anything much at all. QV The Motoring Enthusiasts Party.
Bill’s Opinion
Great! By a complete accident, Australian has landed on a system that makes large scale radical change highly unlikely.
Given that the economy is showing signs of slowing, it’s possible that Australia might recover more quickly than if a “strong” government were in power with a sizeable majority and an instinct to meddle (politicians of all persuasions seem to have this in their DNA).
Why?
(a) Good to see two posts in quick succession after a hiatus that left me increasingly frustrated after my daily check-in.
(b) Australian electoral issues appear to be increasingly framed by small bands of activist zealots.
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It is interesting that the polls are getting these events wrong. While it is possible that people lie to the pollsters, it is not clear that this is the case. What has changed is people’s ability to broadly canvass the population via phone has changed. Previously, when people had the curiosity/need to pick up because they weren’t sure if it was a friend or just someone wanting their opinion. You had to take the risk that it wasn’t some Manila boiler room with the next best deal (or spruikers for Axsesstoday’s Simple Corporate Bond – but perhaps I repeat myself), or a pollster, or old mate arranging a few drinks on the weekend.
So part of the problem could be that more of the sample that is polled are those who want to give their opinion, and that these people align more generally with the busybodies on the left, or sitting at home. It is only a small shift to get it wrong, but once a lot of people are on the phone, it is more difficult to tell people to go away than it is to answer the questions.
Having said all this, I am not sure how they do these polls nowadays. I should go and look at this.
A counterpoint, and even more interesting is that betting markets had it wrong also – giving someone your opinion costs nothing. But maybe they were just following the polling.
Overall, the scolds of the Labor party just aren’t that attractive as rulers, but it will be fun watching them double down.
You could go down a conspiracy theory rabbithole with this stuff. 54 consecutive polls were wrong?
In that case comrade, the polls were right, just the outcome was wrong.
That’s the spirit.
The Wilkinson/Fitzsimons dinner table must be amusing this week.