The Killing Floor

The 2010 Australian federal election was somehow incredibly close and incredibly boring. There has been to date no clear winner between the over-managed Julia Gillard and a man I thought un-electable, Tony Abbott. How this became true is from both major parties standing for slight differences in approach and that's about it. The National Broadband Network will either get heaps of federal funding or put out to the market for more affordable options. The boats carrying asylum seekers will be stopped but will be sent to different ports depending on who you voted for. The mining tax will not go ahead with either party. Big business rules and the banks will be saved if they collapse as they are too big to fail. Both parties were micro-managed to make sure the least amount of people were offended and only fourteen million out of twenty-two million votes actually counted. There were many protest votes that went to the Greens, the Sex Party, Independents, One Nation and others.

I voted for the Sex Party and the Greens but not in protest. The Sex Party were the most honest about their focus and having the Greens as holding the balance of power in the Senate is something I approve of. The Greens now have one member in the House of Representatives and the option to put forward bills instead of simply reviewing them.

A twenty year old Liberal National candidate from Queensland made it into the House of Reps. It staggers my thinking as to how someone so young would support the conservative Liberal Coalition as youth is meant to be radical rather than radically boring.

Throughout the campaign I learned more about the personal lives of the political leaders rather than what they stood for. Gillard did the right thing by calling an election on her leadership after Kevin Rudd was taken out of the Prime Minister's seat but she did nothing to differentiate herself from him or the feeling she could be thrown out if her polls dropped like his. Tony Abbott on the other hand did differentiate himself from previous leader, Malcolm Turnbull, as being a wonky reactionary nerd. This didn't make choosing between them easy.

So the choice of who governs comes down to a few marginal seats, alliances with Independents and the prospect of a hung Parliament which hasn't happened in Australia since the second World War. The Second World War was gigantic and a deal breaker on the approach any goverment would take. In 2010 Australia is involved in Afghanistan but while that costs a lot it isn't a major issue. Australians have gotten used to the fact that we live in times of periphery wars. This was not a deal-breaking issue.

It's hard to get motivated about this political squabble, we either voted for Julia's red-hair or Tony's red speedos. What's scary is that who will actually have power is very important. The pandering to the lowest-common denominator shows how little respect the media and the political parties have for the Australian public.