Interesting times

 

For those few of you who are following this blog I have an explanation for my absence. My wife convinced me that at my advanced age a Carribean cruise would be just the ticket. So, of course we went. During the course of said cruise I became afflicted with what I thought were kidney stones. However, on arrival back in Canada we discovered that I had kidney failure due to hydronephrosis (look it up, I did). This resulted in a hospital stay and two surgeries, the second yet to be performed.

As a result of all this kerfuffle I am now fully retired and bored out of my tree. Expect a more consistent writing in this blog. My target in the future will be the inadequacy of the Canadian health system.

However, for the moment, I would like to comment on the election results in Australia and the lessons for Canadians.

The outcome of this contest was that the incumbent Liberal (read faux conservative) government was narrowly defeated by Labor (NDP/Liberal) resulting in a minority government supported by the Greens and other minor parties. Labor is led by a fellow that thinks the answer to inflation is higher wages for all and the Greens lost no time in demanding closure of Australia’s major export commodity, coal.

Australia should be looking forward to interesting times.

Writing in The Conservative Woman, James Allan notes that,

“There was no enthusiastic move to Labor. In fact, both major parties scored woefully low first preference counts. In any country with a first-past-the-post voting system both big parties would be reeling. There’s a reason why only Australia and one small South Pacific nation uses preferential voting: because it works as a protection racket for the two big parties.

The only way to show your displeasure with your own side of politics – because you can’t even stay home when there’s also compulsory voting – is to preference the other side.”

And there lies the lesson, we may not like first past the post but the outcome of elections at least, most of the time, gives a strong voice to one party, even if you heartily dislike the winner and it gives minor parties a chance of making a difference or even becoming the Opposition if not the government.

Minority governments do result but they are never longed lived. Mainly due to politicians over-arcing desire for power.

The Australian result also puts the lie to compulsory voting, there is no way to show your displeasure with all the choices, you must show up and pick one or in the case of preferential ranking, hold your nose and list several.

Bitching about the outcome is usual but at least with no compulsory voting you can tell the non-voter to piss off when your side wins.