WE’RE NOT STANDING

I want to go back to an issue I’ve been yabbering about for a while. Actually, for about thirty years. Compulsory voting. It’s undemocratic to force you to vote. Even when you have no idea who the candidates are in council elections. And don’t waste a phone call or an email telling me it’s not compulsory. You just have to turn up at the polling station on election day. Andrew Peacock’s been using that weak argument on me for eons.

We’re the only western country where it is compulsory. It’s not compulsory in New Zealand, or Canada, or the United States or even Britain –on which we base our Westminster system of government.

And never is this sick joke more obvious than when a by-election comes around. And a major party decides not to even stand a candidate. It is going to happen twice next month in by-elections for the vacated seats of former Liberal Leader Brendan Nelson in Sydney and former Treasurer (and would-be Prime Minister) Peter Costello here in Melbourne. In the seat of Higgins.

Both are regarded as safe Liberal seats – although in these turbulent days nothing is a given. And the Labor Party, the party that Australia put into office  two years ago, won’t even stand candidates. What message does it send when a Government won’t even put up a representative? 

What happens to the 25,000 people in Higgins who voted Labor in the 2007 election?  They don’t have a candidate this time but if they don’t vote they cop a fine.

Tell me this is democracy at work.  And this big electorate covers people in South Yarra, Toorak, Prahran, Windsor, Ashburton, Camberwell. And more.

Costello was a high profile candidate. He held that seat for nearly twenty years. Surely, with a new candidate, a former Costello staffer, there’s a chance for others.

Whatever happened to the principle of giving a young, fresh, candidate a go. Give them some experience. Expose them to the voters. Get them blooded.

And tell this to a political novice called Maxine McKew. She not only took on an entrenched member. She took on a sitting Prime Minister who had held his seat since Noah was a boy and was aiming for a record fifth term in The Lodge. McKew took on John Howard and she won.

(Hasn’t done much since playing Max the Giantkiller but you get my point.)

The Liberals squibbed it at state level after Steve Bracks quit as Premier only months after being re-elected and his deputy, John Thwaites, went the same day. The Libs decided not to stand candidates in Port Melbourne and Albert Park.

But back to the Nelson and Costello by-elections. Surely a Government, half-way through its first term, should go in there with guns blazing and, deep in Liberal territory, tell them that  the ETS is right and their handling of the economic crisis is right  and the stimulus packages were right. And their handling of the boat people is right. Or don’t they truly believe it all and fear a traditional anti-Government by-election backlash? Are they scared or just arrogant?

Friday, October 23, 2009

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009