Election Day in Australia

Well, yesterday was the day everyone was waiting for.  I can't believe the campaign was SIX WEEKS long.  Who do these Australians think they are, anyway?  The 2012 Presidential Campaign began the DAY AFTER the election.  I just don't feel I can find out enough about a candidate unless I have FOUR YEARS to absorb all of the minutiae of the candidate's personal and professional life.  While I find their system of allowing the party to pick the Prime Minister strange, I really like their shortened campaign period.  The median is not littered with competing campaign signs, although they could very well show up at your door.

According the the Washington Post, it's too close to call and it could be a week before they know for sure:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/21/AR2010082100665.html

Another thing I like is compulsory voting - or you get a fine.  Now that may well bring in the "nutters" or the uninformed, but it still reminds the lazy that they do have a civic responsibility to execute (occasionally) - or it's less money for beer and chips down at the Footy Club.

We even got a ballot.

You have to mark it as they tell you or your ballot is "informal" and is discarded.  A friend of ours explained to us all the strategies for marking it in certain ways and frankly, it sounded like you were at the track and trying to win the Trifecta.

Interestingly, the "Liberal" candidate (think conservative) Tony Abbott only became his party's leader  3 years ago because the two leading guys couldn't get enough of a majority.  The "Labour" candidate Julia Gillard (the present PM) who recently did a Brutus on the Prime Minister and leader of the Party Kevin Rudd because he was slipping in the polls and she wanted to ensure a Labour win by calling an early election, has had to endure a lot of crap from the media here because she is unmarried, childless, and lives with her "partner" (her erstwhile male hairdresser).  The Australian media can really be a pain about this sort of thing and it's emblematic of a peculiar Australian habit know as the "Tall Poppy Syndrome" in which individual ambition and success is viewed with suspicion and thus you must of course be cut down to size to remind you that you aren't any more special than anyone else.  Historians may have pinpointed the likely reason for this, but when I mention it Australians get a little defensive, and I have to live here, so I will let Slate magazine describe it for me and the unfair way it is applied to Julia Gillard:

http://www.slate.com/id/2264377?wpisrc=xs_wp_0001

Here's some headlines on election day:

And not that this has anything to do with the election, but perhaps it's affecting Australian marriages?  It's probably Julia's fault.

Anyway, there was a hive of activity yesterday around the schools as people came in to vote.  The local charities use it as an opportunity to raise money and they set up "sausage sizzles" and coffee stands to capitalize on all the compulsory voters standing around.  So I wandered down to Yarralumla Primary School yesterday and was the object of some curiosity given I didn't HAVE to be there - but then I wanted a "kransky" (smoked sausage) with fried onions.  That's the line to vote in the background.

I almost forgot - there are also smaller parties such as the Greens and believe it or not a Hunting and Fishing Party.  The Greens do have influence because you need them to get a solid majority here.  They are pretty much single-issue - the environment - but that's OK because there are some problems here, like the once-might Murray River that's a shadow of its former self due to too much water being drained off for irrigation - that must be dealt with.

Strangely, I didn't see any Tony Abbott posters.  The women at my office say that she had lousy hair until she met her current partner, who seems like a regular guy (the "First Bloke").  Julia refers to her opponent Mr. Abbott as "Misterrabbit" which is pretty clever.  You do not want to get into an argument with this woman - at "Question Time" at Parliament she can be scathingly witty.

We went to the theater last night and at intermission here's what it looked like in the lobby as people watched the results, even the little girl below right:

So Australia awaits the results - it's extremely close. We'll report in with more news as it becomes available.

Here's my favorite pair of Australian satirists' take on the election: