Bob's my Uncle.

I'll miss Bob Brown as Greens leader.  I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't.  But I miss Malcolm Turnbull as Libs leader, and Bob Hawke leading the Labs.  We always miss great leaders and the world is a poorer place when they retire.  But great leaders are never immortal.

Bob was one of those great statesmen, a phrase that's been bandied around all over the place.  He had class, charisma and spoke with a kind of clarity that's hard to come by in modern politics.  He was upfront and honest, but still retained that kind of quirky humanity, that underlying hippy Uncle who can tell you about the bad old days and how far we've come.  The Uncle who reminds you we've still got a hell of a long way to go, and maybe it's up to us to get there.

It was Bob's voice of reason that led me to vote for the Greens in 2010.  Amidst the scuffling and scurrying, the lies and frenzy of election campaigns I heard the calm tones of "this time I've voting Green in the Senate."  I don't vote for a leader, but Bob was speaking sense.  So I looked up the Greens policies and liked what I saw.

The Greens stand for what I think is right.

And when I go to vote again, I'll be voting for what I believe in, regardless of the leader.  Bob may be my uncle*, but the Greens are my political party.

*Bob is not my actual uncle, although I do have an actual uncle Bob, but that's a very different person.

viva la revolution - is democracy dead?

We've had a spectacular few years for uprising and revolution.  We've seen the "Arab Spring" lead to protesting on the streets, violence, civil  wars to overthrow dictatorships and widespread changes.  We've seen parts of Asia getting excited about the prospects of democratic elections.  We've seen London burning, Wall St "occupied" and Wikipedia come down.  Everywhere you look someone is fighting for a better life, a better vote, a better world.  E-petitions are signed for a thousand causes as Australians "fight" for change.

Then we go to the polling booth and vote like it's a pain in the arse.

Wake up, Australia.

It seems we're blinded by our "lucky country" status and can't see the democracy for the trees we're signing petitions to protect.  We already have such powerful systems in place to let our voices be heard and yet when we go to do so we're incoherent.
"Mumble.  I care about equal-marriage. Mumble.  I want action on climate change.  Mumble.  So I'm voting for ...mumble."  We cling to our secret ballot with some kind of troll-like satisfaction - "nobody knows who I've voted for. I'm smug and I'm clever and you'll never know what I said."  Congratulations.  The one time we can really petition for change and you've gone silent.

We need to look at the waves of revolution currently enjoying so much success for political inspiration.  The "Arab Spring" relied heavily on Twitter with users sharing statements of support and organising protests.  Occupy was only possible because people had intent and shared it, through Twitter, through Facebook, through whatever other medium they could.  Even the London riots required people to communicate their intent and targets out loud - one guy doing it in isolation is a burglary - not a riot.

If we want to organise our world for change, if we want to show the world what we care about, we should start by speaking out about our voting intentions.  Because whenever you vote, you are petitioning for the change you want to see in the world.  Make your voice heard before the ballot and lend it to a very tame form or revolution.

viva la vote! (for change.)

Disproportionate Representation.

Having just watched the Queensland election unfold I thought it might be an interesting idea to revisit the failings of a democratic system that doesn't represent its people.  Queensland elects on a first past the post system - whoever gets past 50% of the vote wins, and everyone else loses.

Consider the very simplest contest for an electorate - Party A vs Party B.
Party A gets 51%.
Party B gets 49%.
Based on these results, Party A gets elected and gets to speak in parliament and make decisions that will change the lives of everybody in the electorate.  Party A speaks for a (very slight) majority, but claims to have a "mandate."  However, 49% of people are now lacking any kind of representation.  Their views, and indeed their political existence has ceased to exist, as anyone who's contacted a Liberal member in support of equal marriage can attest.

How can we continue to support systems that offer us the option to choose who speaks for us and then silences our voices?  How can only the majority be "right"?

In Queensland the Liberals have secured just 49.9% of the total vote, but will soon have 87.6%* of the voice.  How is that effective representation?  51.1% of people did not vote for them.  How is that the government the people want?

If Queenslanders had proportional representation, more people would have their views heard in parliament.  Tasmania is an example of a state that uses the Hare-Clark system to elect five members per electorate, giving a more diverse parliament.
TAS: 10 Libs, 10 Labs, 5 Greens.

How might the Queensland parliament look different if they had proportional representation?**

A diversity of voices represented would lead to a much healthier democracy.  Proportional representation should become a key feature of all Australian democracies.

Because every Australian and every vote should count.


*calculated on the predicted outcome of 78 seats out of 89.
ABC QLD Election Coverage

**based on the raw statewide percentages as there is no current proposal to redraw the electorates for prop rep.  An actual proportional representation election might not have come out exactly like this.

How To: How To Vote.

Normally I enter the gauntlet at the polling booth with a dramatic announcement:  “I vote from a no paper platform.”  I abhor the mounds of paper handed out to voters on election day.  I know who is who, I know how to preference and I don’t need a piece of paper to show me what to do.  So I felt like a hypocrite when the Greens asked me to hand out How To Vote cards and I said yes.

The good news was that the Greens actually had to recycle their HTV, not just out of the goodness of their hearts, but because in my electorate, funding didn’t cover the amount of cards that would be needed to begin with.  So we had recycling boxes set up specifically for greens HTV, and we implored people to bring them back to us directly, which probably 1/3 people did.  What was most entertaining about this was that those who did bring them back to us also brought back Liberal and Labor HTV at the same time – to the somewhat baffled amusement of their representatives.

I learnt a lot of things about voters by doing HTV.  Some of them like to make a big show of taking one parties cards, and not the others.  A lot of people refuse to take any cards, and those that do take them will most often take all of them.  Some come back and tell you that they “want you to win” and some come back and tell you to “fuck off and hug a tree.”  Some are downright rude to certain parties HTVers.  Which, in general, is just plain funny, because as soon as they’re gone, the opposition HTVers will come over and check you’re okay.  Because at the end of the day, the HTVers are probably closer than most people can imagine – handing out cards and being involved in democracy is a very unifying process.

At one booth I worked at, the three of us had it down to a system.  The Labor lady stopped the punters and asked if they were going to vote.  If they said yes, she’d say “Well look, we have a variety of info you might be interested in.  I have info for Julia…” then the Lib chick would say “and I have info on Tony…” and I’d follow up with “and I have the info on Bob, and our handout is smaller.”  It’s amazing the amount of appeal a smaller flyer had to some voters.  But the end point is that the three of us, the Lab, the Lib and the Green all got along like great mates.  They shared their party funded lunches, I confessed I’d never voted Green before.  The Lab admitted she only ever votes Green in the Senate.  The Lib confessed she hates Tony Abbott’s guts.  Doing HTV is about as committed as selling tickets in a chook raffle – you’re by no means the poster child for your party.

Not only that, but there is a lot of common ground on election day.  In fact, the young Lib I talked too and I had so much common ground that we were left a bit confused as to why we didn’t actually vote for the same parties – that bit was left unsaid, but we both knew it was out there.  It wasn’t just individuals with common ground, in my electorate, the Libs and the Greens both agreed that Labor was 2^nd preference on the HTV.  Naturally, we all wished our voters were smart enough not to actually need the cards. 

PS.

How To Vote cards - are they important? 

And a site that explains HTV although it's too late now.  The last mock HTV card is quite entertaining.

howtovote.com.au

Policies – no party is 100% perfect.

Do you agree with all of Labor's policies?  How about all of the Liberal's policies?

No?

Interesting, because roughly nine times out of ten people have voted for one of those two parties, despite not believing in every policy they have.

I bring this up because it’s the biggest reason I’m given not to vote Green.  “I could never vote Green – I don’t agree with their policy on free tooth extraction of rotten molars in the under 50s*…” you know, that sort of thing.  People are hung up on some small time policy that they’ve been scaremongered into believing will cause the downfall of all society as we know it.

The thing is that I doubt anyone believes in all the policies of any one party.  I’m pretty sure Penny Wong isn’t completely down with Labor’s stance on same-sex marriage, and I sure as hell know Malcolm Turnbull isn’t down with the Liberal’s lack of “real action” on climate change.  If even the party faithful aren’t true believers, then it’s going to be pretty rare for the average punter to find a party with a 100% policy match.  That is of course, if you could figure out exactly what each party’s policies actually are – and if you could find points of difference between the Lib-Labs.

I repeat what I’ve said before – I saw more policy on The Age’s “vote-a-matic” than in any other piece of campaign paraphernalia.  The Age didn’t oversimplify, and it let us play “three party preferred” games.  Instead of giving a red or blue answer, it showed us a breakdown of how our ideals matched those of the three major parties.

81.3% - on most tests that would be an "A."

This was a little revolutionary – choosing a party based on policies!  I had friends emailing me to reveal their results and their resulting confusion.  People who’d always voted Labor who now found they were actually in more agreement with the Libs.  Liberals who were actually Green at heart.  People who were split in perfect thirds.  Just like politics, voters are complicated.

All relationships, even those between voters and political parties, come with deal breakers.  Dr Phil and Oprah would be proud of me for internalising this.  You have to decide what your deal breakers are first, and if your party isn’t giving you what you need, you have to “kick them to the kerb.”  Maybe you don’t agree 100% with the exact boundaries of the Green’s marine parks, but as a lesbian fisherwoman in Bob Katter’s electorate, can you really vote for the man who doesn’t believe there are any homosexuals in North Queensland?  Maybe you’re a unionised teacher from inner Sydney who doesn’t agree with the Greens acceptance of refugees who come by boat, but did you really agree with Labor’s myschool website?  Maybe you’re a selfish merchant banker who’s rich uncle is about to die, and the Green’s death duty tax might shave a bit off your preposterously large inheritance, but you’re making your own fortune trading renewable energy and carbon offsetting shares… so do you really want to keep voting for the Liberal’s lack of action?

Find your dealbreakers.  Analyse the policies.  Kick someone to the kerb.  I thought I was a Labor voter, but it turned out 80% of me wanted the Greens – how red or blue were you?

*As far as I’m aware, not an actual or specific Green policy.  But it does sound like a good idea to me.

Illiterati – call the reading and writing not-line.

How would you feel if you were a football coach and half your players didn’t understand the rules?  Not only that, but half of them fail at tackling, kicking and receiving the ball.  Would your games seem like a lost cause?

Welcome to the playing field of Australian literacy.

We live in a “lucky” country where 46% of Australians DO NOT have the level of literacy required to cope with everyday life.  46%!  Nearly half of our countrymen cannot read and comprehend at the level necessary to successfully navigate everyday work requirements.  That’s before we look at numeracy, where 53% of people are failing to make the grade.

I am appalled and shocked beyond belief.  Despite the fact that Australia is supposed to value a fair go and give everyone a chance at making something of their life, it’s pretty clear this isn’t the case.  An education system (or systems) that fails to close the literacy gap is directly contributing to keeping a large slice of Australians downtrodden, poor and unemployable.  The ABS found that scores in prose literacy alone were reflected in a large gap in median weekly income:

            Highest Levels of prose literacy = $890/week

            Lowest Levels of prose literacy = $298/week

If you told kids at school that excellent reading was valued at $592/week for the rest of their lives, would you see an improvement?  How about if you told their parents, carers and families?  By these calculations, failure to achieve literacy costs the individual $1.2million in a working lifetime of just 40 years.  (That’s $592/wk x 52wk/yr x 40yrs = $ 1 231 360 for those numerate types playing at home.)

If illiteracy costs that much to individuals, consider what it costs companies and businesses struggling to find employees.  The Australian had a great article on this topic earlier this year  – Forging New Strategies to tackle Workplace Illiteracy

In brief, what Heather reports is that:

-       75% employers report being affected by low literacy/numeracy

-       4 million workforce members can’t confidently use typical workplace documents

-       no improvement in workforce literacy in 10 years

-       poor spelling and grammar wastes time and money

-       jobs where low literacy/numeracy levels can get by are disappearing

I for one can’t comprehend why students are allowed to leave school without the basics.  Repeating until you achieve seems to have become a thing of the past and no-one knows why.  We all hear “they need to stay with their friends – it’s bad for self esteem to be kept down” but I’m pretty sure being illiterate isn’t great for your self-esteem either.  Some fingers are pointed at governments, claiming that students are moved on to keep costs down – a student who repeats costs more.  I’m pretty sure that if you looked at it long term, the cost comparisons between literate and illiterate students would come out in favour of repeating.  A year or two extra at school vs many years on unemployment benefits?  I don’t think you have to be super-numerate to figure that one out.

If Australia wants to be a world leader in the economic game then we’d better start teaching our students to read and write properly.  Or else, like so many European soccer clubs, we’ll have to start importing star players from overseas.

PS.

Australian Bureau of Statics – Australia’s Literacy and Life Skills 2006

ABS - Australia's Literacy and Life Skills 2006

PPS.

Act Now – the who, what, when and where of illiteracy

Act Now - Illiteracy

Green Vote Is Up. Wall Street is Down.

There has been a lot of talk of historic third party highs and the potential for the Greens vote to crash out before the next election.  It seems to me they’ve been around for 20 years federally and pretty much only gone from strength to strength.  Nothing represents this better than a graph.

Green Votes on the Up.  (data from Wiki)

Unless this years Green vote can be considered as their third party peak, having already exceeded the best results of both the Democrats and the mysterious DLP, then it looks pretty certain that their vote will continue to grow.  Since 1996 the Green vote has only increased – in net terms they have never lost a voter.  So for all the Liberal nay-sayers trying to rain on the parade, I have to pull you up.  If you saw a graph for the economy looking like this, you’d be stoked.  In fact, if you were an astute investor, you’d probably be rushing out to buy shares.

PS.

Read the Greens blurbs on the Greenslide.  In brief, in three seats the Greens have beaten the Liberals to become the two party preferred vote with Labor.  Also worth noting that rural and regional seats had an average Green swing of 3%.

Greens election results.