Swinging - that's not my team

It’s been funny watching people get worked up about “idiot swinging voters.”  It seems that the concept that our democracy is based on has been evading them.  If a core group of swinging voters didn’t exist, the result of every single election would be the same.  If voters hadn’t have swung from Labor to Liberal in 1996, John Howard wouldn’t have been our PM.  If voters hadn’t swung from Liberal to Labor in 07 we wouldn’t have had Kevin.  We only really have elections to see which way the population has swung.

I guess what was different this year was that they swing wasn’t just between red and blue.  Lets not kid ourselves, there was still movement between the Lib-Labs, and probably more people changed sides than the “net” swings will ever show us.  But this year the movement favoured the Greens and the Donkeys.  This upset the status quo and has now left both red and blue scratching their heads.

To explore this idea further, we’d best have a look at why the concept of “swinging” is so strange to so many.  A lot of voters probably have a footy team and see their politics as an extension of this.  There are those people who exist under the umbrella of a certain socio-economic lifestyle, and see their vote as reflecting that.  There are people in dangerous jobs who are paid up unionists and use this to determine their allegiance.  But no one factor ever pins an individual to a team.  We all have to make trade offs of conscience and consequence to decide who is really better for us on the day.

Going into the election there were electorates where it is reported that 40% of voters remained undecided.  Apparently how-to-vote cards have been shown to significantly increase primary votes – if you have a representative at the booth you’ll gain ground.  Just a simple smile at a lost punter can make the difference.  So while those of us who’ve been loyal to one party for years might like to think it’s clear cut, for a lot of our fellow voters it isn’t.

So keeping in mind the results only represent the overall swings, and don’t show us exactly how many people fled screaming from somewhere to somewhere else, how did we end up?

Well Labor was down 5.4%, the informal votes were up 1.7%, Liberals were up 1.9% and the Greens win the most improved player award for an increase of 3.7%.  I don’t know how we read the fact that the increases add up to 7.3% and the loss from Labor is only 5.4%.  I consider it a mystery of politics.  (All numbers from ABC and correct on day of reading.)

At the end of the day I guess it’s safe to say people change.  Not only that, but parties change too.  Hopefully the way government runs will change.  And all this change will be good for Australia.  Because we may have gone off swinging this election, but our hearts still lie with Oz.

the lesser of two evils

So now the fallout has started with Labor voters blaming the Greensliders for their failure to form government it’s worth looking at this concept.  A few people have even said to me that my vote didn’t count, that the only way it would have counted is if I used it to vote for “the lesser of two evils.”  I don’t know if the irony has dawned on them yet that they consider their party evil.  A “lesser evil” to be sure, but still evil.

Apart from the year I voted Democrat because I thought they were absolutely brilliant, I’ve previously always voted Labor.  Do you know why?  I was a Labor voter because I hate Liberals.  Not on a personal level, I have a number of friends who will have voted for Tony Abbott whether I let them or not.  But on a policy level I hate Liberals.  Snide rich getting richer, big business in their pockets, poor get poorer, if you can’t afford it sucks to be you policies.  Policies that reinforce the class divides that only those enrolled in private schools before birth can imagine as a good thing.

So I clearly knew who I didn’t want to vote for.  Labor seemed the natural enemy of the Liberals, so it followed that the enemy of my enemy must be my friend.  Originally they didn’t seem to be screwing anything up, no doubt because they were constantly in opposition to a Howard government, so they maintained a sense of hope.  They probably wouldn’t have been perfect, but they certainly always seemed “the lesser of two evils.”  The day K.Rudd came to power was the sweetest election result I’d ever had.  Finally my guys were in and things were going to get better.

Only they didn’t.

Well some things got better.  I mean Howard went away somewhere, and that was great, and for a while Malcolm was in opposition, and he actually seems like a pretty good guy with some sound ideas – not enough to make me vote Lib, but he kept the Labs on their toes.  He respected climate change science, which is no doubt why the Libs did away with him and let Boatphoney Tony have a go.  But Kevin Rudd was a great speaker, he seemed to have a vision, but things didn’t really happen.  Not the things I was really interested in.

Enter this election where I really couldn’t tell the two parties apart.  Both would stop boats, prevent same-sex marriage, do something with the economy and refuse to tackle climate change in the way it needs to be done.  The only difference anyone could see was that one was a male “wingnut” and the other was a female “ranga.”  A lot of people shrugged and did what they always do, and voted “for the lesser of two evils.”  They were both evil people!  Surely there is more to life than electing E1 or E2 to government every three years?

That’s the mindframe I was in when I discovered the Green option.  I read their policies.  Humane, progressive, ethical, environmental with a nice serving of good old common sense.  The Greens weren’t the lesser of the evils, they were actually on the side of GOOD!  You can make all the jokes you want about how I’ve “swallowed the Coolaid” but I’m happy in the knowledge that my first preference went to the party I think is best for Australia.  Maybe my vote didn’t elect the government, but I’d rather be a loser on the side of good than a winner on the side of evil, be it the greater or lesser evil of the two.

A large chunk of Labor voters gave their first preference to the party they thought would screw them over slightly less.  In my best John Jarrat Wolf Creek voice "winnaaah."