[NYTr] Howard Defeated and the People Rejoice: First-Person Melbourne Report

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Ed Pearl - Nov 26, 2007


Howard Defeated and the People Rejoice: First-Person Melbourne Report

by Keta Hodgson

Thought you might appreciate this little report from the ground in 
Australia. Saturday night I went to the opera here in Melbourne. On the
way in I noticed that the cafe adjoining the theatre had a television
showing election returns and discussion. As I left the performance I
heard this enormous cheer and thought it was from an adjoining tent
theatre. But no. It was people watching John Howard concede the
election to Labor. I tried to imagine this at the Music Center complex
in LA, which is similarly set up, but just couldn't. Here it was a very
public space and people were overtly partisan and thrilled that the
Liberal party (which is anything but) had lost. One man even shouted,
"Thank you, George Bush!" As Howard finally stopped talking (he must
have said, "and finally" about 18 times, everyone was shouting, "Hip
hip hooray," something I've only seen done in English movies. We can
only hope that this is a portent for the next presidential election in
the US.

Melbourne and surrounding areas went decidedly for Labor and the
Greens, though some incumbent Liberal candidates held on to their
seats. Australia uses something akin to instant run-off voting (IRV)
which they call preferential voting. The intricasies of their system
elude me but as the Greens are poised to take over leadership of the
Senate it looks like the folks in the US who are promoting IRV as a way
of leveling the playing field may be right. That said, even as all of
the results were being reported, the announcers kept teasing out the
two-party preferential percentages from the overall votes. I also note
that incumbents of whichever party rarely lost their seats, with the
possible exception of John Howard (that vote is still too close to call
officially).

Two more points about the Australian elections that we could learn
from: 1) voting is mandatory; there is a fine if you do not do so and
2) elections are held on Saturdays. Based on conversations with various
people I don't think that mandatory voting actually makes people more
interested in politics but voting on Saturday certainly makes it easier
for most people to exercise their rights and responsibilities of
citizenship.

Here's a link to the Virtual Tally Room election results: 
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/

G'day, mate.

Keta