Political GraffitiUntil I arrived, I'd never paid much attention to Aussie politics, partly because there's enough of it back in the UK to keep me entertained, but mostly because UK news reports Aussie politics with minimal context, merely relaying the facts.
From what I've seen so far, the political scene shares as many similarities as it does differences with the UK. The most striking is the effect that compulsary voting has on politics; the political parties really target everyone, as everyone has to vote. There's no slant towards those who are more likely to vote, as in the UK, as everyone in Australia votes.
From speaking to people here, Howard (current Prime Minister [Lib]) is not popular with the younger generation, who feel he only offers empty promises. There's kerfuffles to do with winding down unions (legislation has been brought in to allow individuals to sign away their legal rights to certain things at work in return for more money... hmmm) The Labor* candidate, Rudd, apparently has more of a younger following and seems to be tending centre/centre right, similar to the current UK Labour government**.
It has been suggested to me that every time there's an election here, there's a terrorist threat or incident - the Bali bombings happened before an election and some other incidents have occured at election times too, pushing Howard back into office on each occasion. How true this is, I don't know :)
Things are starting to ramp up for the general election in a few weeks. I've been given leaflets from all parties, and coffee shops are having "bean polls".
* The word 'labour' is spelt correctly here (ie: with a ewe), but the political party of the same name chooses to remove said beastie.
** Yes, yes, contentious :P
0 comments:
Post a Comment