Now It’s Not Easy to Beat Albanese?
Australian Federal Elections are now approaching the final week of campaigning.In the home stretch, after five weeks, Mr Anthony Albanese, the Labor opposition leader seems just a step or two ahead of the incumbent prime minister, Mr Scott Morrison of LNP, Liberal-National Party coalition.
‘Albo’,as he is familiarly and fondly called, after a series of initial hiccups,is doing better than expected. Anthony Albanese is emerging as a wining candidate for a Labor PM, after almost ten years.
Almost every poll puts Labor ahead of the Liberal-National Coalition. Voting booths opened last Monday for those who can’t make it on the Polling Day, 21 May, this Saturday.
Political pundits are wary of predicting final results based on the random national polls.They don’t want to experience what happened three years ago – Mr Scott Morrison won against all odds. It was, for the Pentecostal PM, a miracle.
“I’ve always believed in miracles,” he declared from the winner’s podium.
Most elections are determined by a few seats with regional electorates with regional concerns rather than national popularity of a party’s policies.’Regional’ here means regions within Australia.
The elected Government’s term in Australia is normally for three years but elections can be called at any time. In the UK and India , the term is five years; in the USA, it’s a fouryear fixed term.
Voting is compulsory here for every adult over the age of 18.
‘Scomo’, Scott Morrison, the current PM, is politically astute and media savvy. He was in advertising before joining politics.
The Liberal-National Coalition has been in power for almost a decade. They claim to be the better managers of the national economy, though coronavirus pandemic has wrought its havoc for over two years.
Australia’s struggles
Almost 8000 people have died in Australia in this deadly pandemic.
The US death toll has reached over one million; a grim milestone in a world that has lost more than five million to COVID-19 and its visceral mutations.
One consequence is that the National Debt has mounted to over one trillion, whatever that means. Who is counting these staggering panicky figures?
Australia is a rich country in resources. It occupies an island-continent almost twice the size of India – its population is barely 26 million. India’s is 1.25 billion at the last count, and increasing annually.
The indigenous people were originally called Indians, Aborigines, and now Aboriginal and Torres Islander people, or euphemistically the people of the First Nations?
That they have survived for the past 60,000 years is the real miracle on planet Earth. No living culture is that ancient. But they are still fighting for a voice in the Federal Parliament, barely 122 years old.
It was only in 1967 that they were recognised as citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia. What began as a penal colony in Botany Bay on 26 January, 1788, is today the multicultural, multidimensional city of Sydney, and the nation is one of the world’s most progressive democracies.
The rule of law dominates even when laws are not always just and justice is not only delayed but often denied.
Despite all the problems of race and inequalities , it remains a dynamic democracy, flawed and free, with some enlightened institutions and remarkable individuals.
Albanese’s campaign
During the campaign Albanese has emerged as a compassionate person with deepening empathy for the disadvantaged and the dispossessed,the aged and the ailing.
There’s no doubt about the sheer sincerity of his policy commitments. And he is man of character, rather than charisma.
His respect for ordinary Australians is genuine and, if elected on Saturday, he may infuse a new and urgently needed change in the directions of Australian political life where respect and self-respect are of immense importance.
Character of leaders is under public scrutiny: it is the political destiny of many in power.
In several democracies there’s a diminishing trust in politicians: hence people prefer the strongman autocrats, with bulldozer style, not conducive to any decent democracy.
Albanese’s sense of justice underpins his political philosophy and he keeps reminding the electorate that he grew up in a government housing flat designed for single mothers. He comes out as a decent ,caring human being with a heart —a rare commodity these days as people here are crying for a National Integrity Commission against Corruption, especially for politicians and other public figures who wield power often without proper accountability to the people: power without responsibility —the prerogative of ,well, some politicians.
His shadow ministers are a dynamic lot with ideas and ideals to inspire a post-pandemic generation.
COVID-19 has caused great disruptions all over the globe with natural disasters on this continent : droughts, fires, floods have inflicted massive damages in rural and regional areas.
Catastrophes of climate change, cost of living, China’s inscrutable incursions in the region,child care, medical care, wages,are the main issues in this election.
Issues
Mr Morrison is harping on the management of the national economy as the most vital issue which has gathered some traction among voters while he rattles statistics with glib gusto.
Climate Change is the top issue though, followed by the ‘Economy, Stupid’,as always. Somewhere down the list is featured National Security, but it has hardly grabbed the imagination of Australian Public despite Putin’s madness in Ukraine.
Scomo tried to bring national security, the xenophobic fear element,centre stage until the decision of the Solomon Islands to sign a ‘security arrangement’ with wily China surfaced like a submarine that the French never delivered but still got over $5.5 billion.
No-one here knows the details of this arrangement. And Labor’s Penny Wong, the shadow Foreign Minister, said this is the worst decision since the Second World War: the cat among the pigeons moving surreptitiously.
Some ministers went overboard in their rhetoric with inflammatory language and sensational imaginings. The Chinese coldly called it ‘crazy’.
Many see the Chinese intrusion as new and dangerous phenomenon in a region full of problems, none bigger than the devastations likely to be caused by the climate crisis. This will be the most urgent issue in the minds of many thoughtful islanders. Hardly anyone on the island continent pays any serious attention to these islands in the midst of major crises enveloping the world.
The South Pacific is a comparatively peaceful region: where rugby rules the waves and sometimes waives the rules.
We are part of the Australasian region, its history and its future possibilities in migration and movements of our people.
Australia’s has more than a moral responsibility to the Pacific peoples, if we are a family.
But the Chinese intervention is a new phenomenon: a totalitarian regime now has a tentative foothold in the South Pacific, not to mention a port in Darwin on which the Chinese have a 99-year lease and control.
Wild statements are coming out of the mouths of a few ministers – ‘to preserve peace, prepare for war’, as if the human mind has no other alternative.
A ‘red line’ is proclaimed without fully understanding its implications – the Chinese love anything red!
Comparisons are made with Nazi Germany of the 1930s as Putin is creating ruins in Ukraine. And there’s the talk of World War III with nuclear threats.
The new world order we all thought was possible is now vanishing.
The world has not known the rise of a power like China. Its population, its economic muscles,its military machinery, its cyber tentacles, its ancient civilisations,its humiliations by the imperialist powers, European and Asian, its special version of communism make it a truly formidable force, but not a foe.
Virtually everything we wear and use have ‘Made in China’ tag stitched in some corner.
And its leadership doesn’t seem accountable to anyone. There are, however, brave Chinese citizens who are resisting the regime. They are simply imprisoned and never heard of again.
Who remembers Hong Kong or Tibet?
South Pacific’s role in election
So suddenly the South Pacific became important in this election. ‘Our Pacific Family’ is the common label in the political parlance of the day. But the region is really full of poor relations.
Labor is likely to alter the emphasis and the Pacific Diaspora may acquire more significance in the Australasian imagination. Both Australia and New Zealand are existentially Pacific lands washed by the Pacific Ocean.
Regional solidarity and security ought to be integral to our imaginative thinking, daily acting within a global democratic polity.
In the many issues that crowd this Oz election , there’s scarcely any discussion on the fate of refugees. Turning the boats to protect your borders is one thing; keeping genuine refugees in island detention camps for years is quite another.
The inhumanity of the rich nations is revealed in every report.
Yet we know how refugees are created overnight. How can one ever forget 14 May 1987 in Fiji. Almost 10 million citizens of Ukraine have become refugees and exiles in less than two months.
Climate crises will create many more before long, especially in our region.
‘Today 85%of refugees are live in developing countries, while the richest nations host just 15%.’
Even Britain is deporting refugees to Rwanda,one of the world’s poorest countries. The lands of sanctuary are becoming islands of selfish sanctions: the doors are being closed.
This of course is the hidden issue even in this Federal Election. No-one wants to talk openly about it. It’s a pity,really.
Because the Lucky Country can become a Loving Country.
Pity and terror are the essential ingredients of a tragedy and as Ukraine has shown just the other day, the maglomaniac regimes can break borders and neighbours.
The wisdom of King Solomon is imperative in dealing with the Solomon Islands soon after the elections. A totalitarian regime has no place in the Pacific. Peaceful resolution is still our best choice and must be pursued with passionate conviction. The new Labor government may shed some new light on some perennial problems of our region.