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I'm writing this on the Sunday night after the Australian Federal Election.
Thank God, I think to myself. Thank God.
The centrists are in power, but while they're close to "independent" power (that is, having a clear majority in the Lower House, and a significant voice in the Upper House), one of the things that happened this time around was that a lot of Independents got elected, too. Most of them on a "environmental platform" in traditionally conservative seats. They're called "Teal Independents" because they're a mix of blue (the colour for conservatives in Australia) and green (the colour for the environmentalists in Australia).
If you've seen maps floating around, then the colour for the centrists is red, which is likely guaranteed to give most Americans reading this a complete panic attack: it's okay! The centrists/red-coloured party are basically the Democrats - both the good and the bad of it.
For the Americans confused as fuck, the system goes like this:
We have the (Neo)Conservative Party, the (Right)Centrist Party, the Rural Party, the Environmental & Social Justice Lefties Party, and Independents.
Those names are description, not what they're actually called, but it makes it easier for you to identify because "The Liberal Party" in Australia is seriously more like the Republicans than anything you'd imagine as liberal.
Essentially, Labor currently has 73 of the 76 seats in the Lower House (House of Reps) it needs to win outright and govern without needing to make a deal with the "crossbenchers" who are the reps who are neither "the NeoCons" nor Labor.
It's a pretty damn huge win for the Labor party (the Centrists) and those seats aren't even counting the Independents, who are currently holding 9 seats, of which, I think 7 are new - and plenty of them were elected on the basis of their stance on Climate Change. Three of them are on the north side of Sydney, where I live.
Once upon a time, all the north side of Sydney was conservative heartland: full of well-off, wealthy, educated people or those who aspired to be. There was no way Labor (originally working class, unions, people's party) would ever make inroads into that space. And, to tell you the truth, they haven't really. But a conservative government that didn't respect women, that played it all 'old blokey', that dismissed the science of climate change? That was never going to fly in an electorate full of educated, independent, we-may-not-call-ourselves-feminist-but-we-expect-our-rights women. So this election, a few female candidates ran in those electorates, with a stated desire to see policy change on climate change, and they cleaned up a bunch of conservatives - even "moderate conservatives".
Alas, none of them ran in my electorate. But we did see a swing of 12% against the incumbent. Unfortunately, since he was at 48% after the first round of counting - even before we got to preferences - he was comfortably in the door.
Too confusing?
The short version in US political terms: the equivalent of the Democrats won, along with a bunch of Green Democrats, and while I have no doubt that politics will still get us nowhere very fast, we might now be able to start getting somewhere slowly.
Thank God, I think to myself. Thank God.
The centrists are in power, but while they're close to "independent" power (that is, having a clear majority in the Lower House, and a significant voice in the Upper House), one of the things that happened this time around was that a lot of Independents got elected, too. Most of them on a "environmental platform" in traditionally conservative seats. They're called "Teal Independents" because they're a mix of blue (the colour for conservatives in Australia) and green (the colour for the environmentalists in Australia).
If you've seen maps floating around, then the colour for the centrists is red, which is likely guaranteed to give most Americans reading this a complete panic attack: it's okay! The centrists/red-coloured party are basically the Democrats - both the good and the bad of it.
For the Americans confused as fuck, the system goes like this:
We have the (Neo)Conservative Party, the (Right)Centrist Party, the Rural Party, the Environmental & Social Justice Lefties Party, and Independents.
Those names are description, not what they're actually called, but it makes it easier for you to identify because "The Liberal Party" in Australia is seriously more like the Republicans than anything you'd imagine as liberal.
Essentially, Labor currently has 73 of the 76 seats in the Lower House (House of Reps) it needs to win outright and govern without needing to make a deal with the "crossbenchers" who are the reps who are neither "the NeoCons" nor Labor.
It's a pretty damn huge win for the Labor party (the Centrists) and those seats aren't even counting the Independents, who are currently holding 9 seats, of which, I think 7 are new - and plenty of them were elected on the basis of their stance on Climate Change. Three of them are on the north side of Sydney, where I live.
Once upon a time, all the north side of Sydney was conservative heartland: full of well-off, wealthy, educated people or those who aspired to be. There was no way Labor (originally working class, unions, people's party) would ever make inroads into that space. And, to tell you the truth, they haven't really. But a conservative government that didn't respect women, that played it all 'old blokey', that dismissed the science of climate change? That was never going to fly in an electorate full of educated, independent, we-may-not-call-ourselves-feminist-but-we-expect-our-rights women. So this election, a few female candidates ran in those electorates, with a stated desire to see policy change on climate change, and they cleaned up a bunch of conservatives - even "moderate conservatives".
Alas, none of them ran in my electorate. But we did see a swing of 12% against the incumbent. Unfortunately, since he was at 48% after the first round of counting - even before we got to preferences - he was comfortably in the door.
Too confusing?
The short version in US political terms: the equivalent of the Democrats won, along with a bunch of Green Democrats, and while I have no doubt that politics will still get us nowhere very fast, we might now be able to start getting somewhere slowly.
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