Australian Election

I voted yesterday in the Australian Federal Election. Snork Maiden came along, even though she can't vote here, and I was surprised to find we had to stand in line to vote, like (now former) prime minister John Howard in the picture. I didn't encounter that in previous years here (or in England). I voted Labor for the first time here in Australia. Labor seem to have finally moved much closer to the centre than in any time in their eleven years out of power. The Hawke-Keating Labor government before 1996 was a very reformist administration, but after they lost power the party swung left and stayed out of power till now. The Liberal Party didn't seem to have much of an election pitch except to warn of the dangers of electing Labor claiming them to be inexperienced and extremist. Many people seemed to have also decided to give the other guys a chance. Labor's main difference with the Liberals was on their plan to roll back some of the Liberals labour market reforms - this would have put me off voting Labor. What swung me to Labor was their more convincing approach to climate policy. In fact I voted Green with my second preferences to Labor. In Australia we get to order candidates according to how much we prefer them rather than just choosing one candidate. If your first choice candidate doesn't get enough votes to win a seat your votes are transferred to your second choice candidate and so forth. Another unusual feature of Australian elections is that voting is compulsory.

Here in the ACT it is pretty much guaranteed that Labor will win both lower house seats and that the Senate will split one Liberal and one Labor senator. So voting for a minor party can indicate a policy preference while your vote in the end goes to one of the major parties. I've long thought it would be nice if we could de-bundle political parties - choosing different parties to represent us in different policy areas.