The Native Iowan

Sunday the 10th. Slow, cool, relaxed morning. Have some good UFC coming up. It should be a relaxed, quiet day… but the lil girls are here. so a relaxed noisy day?

Damn they can be noisy. Everything is punctuated with loud screeches. Like nails across a black board. They can be hard to endure.

Note the Masters is on, and that olTiger is back, giving it a good go. Looks like he is still in the play. Has not been cut. Good for him.

Here in The Land of Aus, we have an election coming up. It’s a good case study of modern-day politics, in that Aus is a smallish country, a stable country, perhaps a predictable country… the two party system here offers the “Liberal” party, and the “Labour” party. Of course there are the standard greens and orange and purple parties, but for all practical purposes we have power being consistently concentrated in one of the two main parties.

Current state of affairs, the status quo if you will, is that neither of the two dominant parties has held sufficient sway to form a non-coalition government for ages and ages. What this means is each of the two main parties, Liberal and Labour, must entice players from the minor parties, in order to have the numbers required to form Government. And, interestingly, the one or two seats required can hold the coalition ransom. Make their policies dominant, even though they represent such a small % of the electorate.

Recently the “Greens” have been good at being the one or two seats required to form a government. And, who ever caters to the Green Party Line gets the votes. The result is policy can be dominated by the needs of the minority party(s).

The tyranny of the minorities?

The good thing about Aus is that elections are “called” by the party in power. This means that, within a given time frame, the Prime Minster can set the date for the federal election. He can try to use momentum and positive results to try to time things to be in his favour. There is no real set schedule for election, like in the USA.

Of course, like everywhere, Aus has its scandals and rumours and mud slinging. And, like most other modern lands, elections have little to do about policy and forward planning. It’s about personalities, promises and pimp juice. It’s a lot more of a beauty contest than an important democracy ballot being cast.

Big issues, as I see them?

China and the threat they pose and the slack they have been given is huge on my list. Solomon Islands recent closeness with China is a good example of the shadow China wishes to cast over the region.

Of course the whole “carbon” thang is important. If we continue on the path of foolish, wishful thinking we shall be broke before we reach woke.

A government is elected to “manage” aspects of our society like… Health Care, Education, Infrastructure, National Security, Immigration, Law and Order… Free needles (as in Melbourne) and free crack pipes (as in the US) may be on the list but down quite a ways from the top.

And the beat goes on…

More later