Two For One

In 2022 Victorians faced a federal election in May and then our own state election in November. Here I will discuss both my personal experiences as a citizen and my feelings on how both went. As a progressive swinging voter I chose to offer support to both the Greens and the Reason Party (making sure to keep such work separate in distinct electorates). But I set some pretty strict limits because I have a history of saying yes too much. In each election I decided on approximately six hours of volunteering at pre-poll centres (preferably over two days) and 500 pamphlets worth of letterboxing. This is a level of involvement I’m happy with.

Letterboxing is pretty basic. I walk anyway, and enjoy seeing unknown back streets. I usually get into a pretty good flow but this can be hampered by those pesky sprung slot-covers that result in much fiddling. Still, a few hours of walking and a drink at a local cafe is a nice way to contribute to candidate recognition.

Offering How-To-Vote (HTV) cards to voters is far more important and pre-poll has ceased to be the open secret it once was. Huge numbers of voters get it done at early voting centres so having a presence is vital. Once more, I get into the flow of things pretty well, and find this is a far simpler task than anything like door-knocking. At polling places voters come to you and expect some interaction. Many welcome it. Furthermore, the campaigners for other groups are almost always polite-to-chatty.

There are exceptions, however, and I noticed something interesting. A handful of campaigners, usually those working for alternative micro-parties, behave face-to-face as if they are in some combative online space. They utter slogans robotically. They talk at or past you rather than to you. And in discussion they constantly loop back to the same dull assertions even if you have addressed those. I must admit, I was scared that everyone would become like this, given how many of us seem to act online but, that is yet to happen, which I’ll get back to later.

Speaking of curious behaviour, I witnessed some at a federal meet-the-candidates forum, which I had visited in a neigbhouring marginal electorate. This event was hosted by climate strike teens (and what looked like their grandparents in the background making the coffee and staffing the info stall). The oddest thing was a candidate for a rural-centric conservative micro-party who insisted that the worst greenhouse gas was Nitrous Oxide and that the problem of carbon emissions was a furphy. This provoked exchanged glances among the audience and I later looked into it. If you have the same quantity of NO2 as CO2 then, yes, the former has more impact on the climate, but as a civilization we produce far more of the latter, hence the justified focus on carbon. Here we had encountered something more interesting than just blanket climate change denial, and in a twisted way I think it shows how far we've come. The sheer force of fact and opinion acknowledging human-driven climate change is such that even the staunchest naysayers are having to change. Here, then, was a way for former climate deniers to enter into a more environmental milieu while seeming distinctive and saving face.

We all make mistakes, and I placed a bet predicting minority Labor government during the federal campaign. Pollsters and pundits had been foreshadowing a very close election so I was following that, but there was also an element of wishful thinking. Yes, I wanted a change of government. But I also find the negotiation necessitated by hung parliaments both interesting and enriching to our democracy. The swing of House Of Representative seats to Labor was marked, however, but that is okay, because a Senate in which nobody has a majority still involves negotiation. I was less sure or just less motivated to bet in the state election, and there are other ways of enjoying campaigns.

Voting in Australia is compulsory and our election procedures are designed for ease-of-access. Moreover, our culture has developed incentives to vote, in the form of local non-profit barbecues, cake stalls and plant sales at polling places. I tend to vote before election day, but in May still visited the closest school for some sizzling sausage and fried onion on white bread with tomato sauce and a soft drink. In November I missed out on this, but I did visit some politically switched-on friends for dinner and viewing Victorian election night coverage, which was a good bit of spectator sport, and a chance to express opinions in a relaxed atmosphere.

Federally we had a change of government and we sure needed it. The Morrison Coalition government was the worst Australians had endured in a long time. We saw marginal electorates help form the new Albanese Labor government, but it went further than that. Safe Coalition electorates have become vulnerable to grassroots campaigns run by moderate to small-l liberal independents (a trend started several years ago with Cathy McGowan in rural Victoria and Kerryn Phelps in Sydney).

There is a growing interest in the electorate for accountability, inclusion and sustainability. Such concerns now cut across political divides, with the new 'teal' independents to the right and the Greens to the left, to put it simply. There are now several such independents in the House Of Representatives, but as Labor won a majority in that chamber, there are limits to what they can do. However, the like-minded David Pocock was elected to the Senate, and has already played a role in legislative reform with Labor and the resurgent Greens.

But what of other and smaller parties? There are some, like the two Lambie Network senators, who have clannish instincts but, once exposed to genuine debate, can mature towards a more engaged civic mindset. There are two One Nation senators who, as always, are locked into stunted bigotry. And the United Australia Party (UAP) returned, this time as the party-of-choice for those who protested government intervention into our lives during the most risky phase of global pandemic. The sole UAP senator was elected in Victoria, a state which had never supported that party.

Similarly, in the Victorian state election, a One Nation candidate was elected for the first time. This, combined with the state sending a UAP member to the Senate, suggests that our lockdowns of 2020-21, the longest in the nation, did have some electoral impact, which will now last up to six years federally and four years at a state level, till more elections come around. I feel this is a small price to pay for all the lives saved during lockdowns.

I will admit, however, that till the results came rolling in, both in May and then in November, I was concerned. One can never tell what masses of strangers are thinking, and those opposed to health-and-safety measures seemed confident that tomorrow belonged to them. That hope all-but-fizzled. Too much of debate is couched in terms of 'good or bad' but I think most voters understood that some things are 'harsh but necessary' and had bounced back emotionally. However, the angry populists who felt they had their finger on the pulse never truly engaged with anyone who felt differently, just as I had noticed while pre-polling. I’m relieved that those who did well in elections this year showed that they can 'read the room' in face-to-face campaigns, even if they play it differently online, and understand that sometimes tone and setting do matter.

At a state level we re-elected the Andrews Labor Government with a bigger majority. On the Coalition side, the Liberal Party went backwards but the Nationals grew somewhat, noting that independent candidates had lost the element of surprise for them. The Greens came back in force but the replication of the May 'teal wave' never occurred in November (I suspect because there was no Coalition government to turn away from this time). And, among other parties, there were some interesting developments.

One is the revival of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) for a third time in Victoria this century. They returned at a state level back in 2006 then federally in 2014 with one Senator John Madigan. On both those occasions they were removed from public office by internal party ructions followed by poor election results. 2022 is more interesting however, because Adem Somyurek, the sole new representative of this historically Christian party, is Muslim. The involvement of a former Labor representative in Democratic Labour might be opportunistic, and further ructions might occur, but there is another possibility. Adherents of this minority perspective, combining traditional cultural values with economic redistribution, can be found across all world religions and, in an Australian context are more likely to exist in recent migrant groups, but they rarely work together because of sectarian divisions and a lack of political inclusion. However, I wonder if this latest development could result in communication crossing lines of creed. I'm personally at odds with this particular strand of community belief, yet find it interesting to observe and speculate.

The one big pity for me with the state election was the loss of Fiona Patten, sole representative of the Reason Party, sitting between shades of green and teal, and a very effective legislator for harm-minimization across a range of issues. But maybe there is some compensation in another new development, the election of two Legalise Cannabis members, which is both heartening and amusing in the same breath. Overall, I enter holidays feeling more politically positive than I have for some time.