Is the media just lazy.

The mainstream media makes me laugh. I may not be qualified enough to make critical comments about the quality of our journalists. I am sure that if any professional journo happened to read this post, then they could tear me apart about my style of writing or my knowledge of the job they actually do.

However I do feel that I can speak as an everyday Australian that reads, listens or watches the work that they do. And I have to say that although not all but at least a very large proportion of what they do is lazy and ill informed.

I will honestly say that there are a small minority that do the work to report an unbiased, cross referenced and informed report of the issues. But for the most part the news that is presented by the mass media is opinion rather than impartial, is marketing rather than news or is simply cut and pasted from a media release that requires very little if any research.

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To explain myself a little the past few days have left me more than a little frustrated with the sausage machine style reporting on the new parliament arrangements. The media has been reporting to the Australian people that with the Coalition stepping away from the deal done with the independents regarding pairing of the speaker that this could leave the Government with only a one seat majority rather than two.

This leads me to believe that they do not understand or just don’t care to make the effort to report the facts.

The Government does not have any majority. The Greens and independents have only agreed to support the Labor Party on votes of No Confidence and Supply which has allowed them to form government. For all other Legislation or even a simple Division on the floor, they can’t guarantee anything.

Sure not pairing the speaker or losing any vote for whatever reason is a big deal but please report it for what it is not just what is easy. There are so many other ways the government may miss out on a vote and they are equally important to report. The opposition is going to be very touch on what they will accept as legitimate reasons to be absent from a vote. I had noticed that last year a member missed a division because he was in the toilet, at the time not so important but may be disastrous in this parliament. Good luck to the whips your work has just got much harder.

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If anybody had been out of touch during the two weeks after the election but was now catching the media coverage would think that the Labor party had simply won the election with a small majority.

How is this kind of reporting helping the Australian people to understand how their government will operate? The independents and many Australians are sick to death of the two party merry go round yet the media don’t seem to be able to break away from thinking that there is only the Red or Blue options. As I said earlier “don’t understand or just don’t care” about the reality that faces this parliament.

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So I say to all journalists (not just the political ones) remember what your job is. Report the facts as they are and don’t worry about if it matches some tired old model of fitting into a box of required ingredients. And please try and take the time to actually understand the content of your work. That’s when the Australian people will start to accept your work with some credibility again.

Congratulations

Congratulations to all successful candidates of the 2010 Federal election.

 

We have had 150 members elected to the Lower House of Parliament and Australia looks forward to your contributions.

To the new Greens member Adam Bandt and the new independent from Tasmania Andrew Wilkie we all wish you the best and look forward to your contributions on the floor. You will receive more media than any first term members in the history of the Australian parliament. Don’t let them get to you and remember why you went into politics.

The Upper House has all but been confirmed and candidates can feel  reasonably safe of their positions.

This election we have seen the Greens earn the largest number of representatives in their history with nine senators. It does look as though the DLP will have a new Senator elected (their first in 35 years) and with Nick Xenophon still having one term to serve we have a very large representation from the non majors.

So to all the returning and new members from all political views, GOOD LUCK.

You have offered yourself to take up a very important position we now look to you to lead our country for the next three years.

THANK YOU.

Not all votes carry the same weight

At this point most people think that Labor will be the party to form Government from the 2010 federal election. With the Greens Adam Bandt and the Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie offering their support for a Gillard lead Government; Labor has taken front position in the race to control the Australian Parliament.

But whatever way the remaining country independent choose to fall with their support will decide the victor, unless they choose to not support any party. That would of course see us going to another election. This will however be the least possible result, yet still the chance is there.

Many people have argued the merits of the voters in those electorates being the ones to have chosen the parliamentarians that may decide who forms a Government. But I say that is the way our system works and personally I think it is great. In fact I think it is a good reminder to the Australian people that although the major parties would like you to think that on Election Day you are voting for Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard in some form of a presidential kind election. You are in fact voting for a local member that may or may not be a member of either of those parties.

We need to value our vote and not take it for granted. When I was growing up in country Victoria my family were not much into politics nor were the families of many of my friends. I was told many things not very complimentary about politics and politicians. One however was that it didn’t really matter much who you vote for because all politicians are (insert any number of suitable noun here) and your vote won’t make any difference anyway.

How wrong they were. Yes we can discuss how the voters of places like the electorates of Lyons, New England or Kennedy have had a big say. But really those members although they are wielding enormous power but they won with big leads in the vote.

No what I mean is the voters of the very close marginal electorates. It now looks as though we know how the numbers will fall in the seat count and without getting into the discussion around if the WA National member will sit in the Coalition or the cross bench. I think we all know that wear it counts he is with the Coalition. So that considered we have the

Coalition on 73

Labor with 72

And the Greens and independents with 5

With any party hoping to form Government needing 76 I am not breaking any news to say it is close.

Knowing the two members mentioned previously supporting Labor that takes them to 74.

But this is where it gets interesting, let’s look at the seat of Corangamite. As I write this post the numbers look like this in the two parties preferred,

Liberal – Sarah Henderson 46,473

Labour – Darren Cheeseman 47,238

A difference of only 765 votes.

What if say 400 of those voters reversed their vote giving the seat to the Liberal party, making the numbers Coalition 74 and Labor 71.

This could make all the difference as for Labor to claim the win they would need the support of all the cross benchers and this would almost make it impossible for them to claim a stable government and Tony Abbott would only need two. Also if he was to get all three country independents he would have a tidy little buffer and may get support from Andrew Wilkie making it nice and safe.

Wow 400 votes may have totally swung the election, kind of destroys the theory that any one vote doesn’t have much power.

I also know that early in the election the Victorian Branch of the Liberal party were just going through the motion as they didn’t really give themselves much hope of doing well in this state. That’s not to say they were not trying at all but they were not pulling out all stops until later in the election when the polls improved.

The moral of this story is if you are a voter or a political party; do not take any single vote for granted.

Friendly for now

Both parties are making a lot of noise about how they are working towards changes in the way parliament operates. But more importantly to the Independents they are saying all the right things about wanting a stable and effective government. Actually Julia Gillard is saying more often than she said “moving Australia forward” during the election campaign. That’s not to say that Tony Abbott is innocent from using it though.
Of course they want a stable and effective government when they are trying to convince the independents why they should support their party. And it stands to reason that the party that does get the privilege to for government will be very keen for a stable and effective government.

But if anybody believes that the party that ends up in opposition will do anything but not want a stable and effective government then get out of wonderland.
That party will do anything to show that the government is ineffective and maneuver for an early election. They will want to show that it should have been them and the only way to correct this injustice is to take it to the Australian people to decide.

The back room maneuvering will be fever pitched with more plays than an American Football game. One mistake from the whips and a crucial division could be lost. There will be votes of no confidence more often than there will be questions in question time.

But with all this I still think it is good for Australian Politics.
Bring it on the next few years will be exciting.

No rush!

Australia does not need nor should we rush into a decision to form a new government.

The media keep pushing the delay and whipping up public expectations of who will be the victor. But we should not let the medias need for a 24 hour news cycle with a major outcome every day in time for the nightly news drive the process. The medias inflexible approach to the Labor or Liberal coverage is partly what has put is into this position.

I would much prefer all the players take their time so that we come up with the best result for the Australian people. The independents are doing exactly what they should be doing. I would be far more critical if they had of rapidly jumped into bed with one of the Major parties within a day or two of the election. The Australian people deserve better than that.

The medias need for a simple news story which doesn’t make the journalists have to work to hard is not any way to run our government.

For now there is a caretaker government that will keep the country running, the public service will continue to get paid, the military will not undertake a coup, and the traffic lights will continue to be red - amber or green as we all drive our cars to work or the shops. The schools will even keep teaching our children.

In fact it is more stable today than if we are to have a change of government. If the coalition does form a government we then have a handover to the new cabinet and that is a far more tumultuous time than now. Even during the election cabinet members had to manage their departments and run a campaign, not so now. Actually they can dedicate all their energy into running the bureaucracy as they do not even have to worry about the next parliament sitting.

If anything now is a very stable time for the country, not so much for the major parties. And that is what they are actually concerned about, their own political survival.

Just another example of why the independent members deserve the time to make up their minds in a way that works best for the Australian people.

Governing from a Minority

Isn’t it funny, when a party finds itself needing support to form a government. Suddenly they become excited by the idea of a minority and feel that it can be good for parliament.

All the comments around how it will be a good thing for the government to be held to account and say that it will result in better policy.

Yet at all other times they complain about the independents and cross benchers being a disadvantage to governing. 

Again the two major parties continue to play games showing that what they really care about is how much power they can wield. They will say or do anything to get that power and the second they don’t need the cross benchers they will return to the autocratic approaches of the past. 

I think the three Incumbent Independent members are taking the correct approach. Now is their chance to make changes that the major parties will never do any other time. Often it is the approach of the major parties to limit the effectiveness of the minor parties and independent members. Effectively entrenching their positions as either the government or as opposition.

I won’t go in to depth about the ways they do this but it may be a topic of a future post. 

However this does pose a little bit of a crossroad for both Labor and the Coalition, if they sell the farm now to gain power they may well give away some of that control in the future. It will be interesting to see how far they will go to gain control of the parliament.

I think they have been caught out a little by the terms from the three independents, I would think that almost anything was on the table at the start.

It may well have been easy for either party to swallow their pride on many of their policies but how will they react to loosing some of their hold on future power.

First thoughts

I have sat her thinking about what I should put in my first post. My first post should be thoughtful and enlightening, it should be shocking and groundbreaking.

So I have pondered what I should write about and come to the conclusion.
Just get on with it.

So I start here and it will just be some quick remarks about the state of play since the election last Saturday.
Firstly what a great result, sure the Greens have emerged as a power house in Australian politics and that is good. More independent members in parliament are a good thing and the possible new senator from the DLP is all good for the small parties.
The fact that the major parties have been called out for their poor performances and they now may see that they can’t show that much contempt to the Australian voters can be a good thing.
Bob Katter telling off the media for their lack of interest in rural Australia is a great thing.

But for me the best thing is that the result has sparked the interest of the average Australian in politics. They are interested in what is going on and can see that there is more to all this other than a 15 second sound bite on the nightly news and then back to the same old shit.