Once again the Australian votes have demonstrated why we should do away with this old fashioned notion of democracy and just make me supreme leader of the universe (ok, I am prepared to settle for supreme leader of the Earth to start with). Why they chose to re-elect that lying rodent is beyond me. I am starting to think I may be cursed to live out my entire life under conservative governments. The Conservative Party in the UK ruled from 1979 until early 1997, about six months after I left when Labour was elected in a landslide. Conversely Labor ruled in Australia for pretty much my whole life until a few months before I moved here when Honest John came to power and looks set to stay there until at least 2020. It is not all bad though. I am thinking of using my curse to do some good by visiting North Korea. Just days before my arrival the communist dictatorship will be overthrown to be replaced by an economic rationalist, social conservative one — a slight improvement, I have to admit.

Unfortunately this is not the worst of the election result. It is understandable that those idiots, I mean voters, might vote Howard back when we are living through one of the strongest periods of economic growth and stability ever. The really scary thing is what has happened in the senate. No government in Australia since the 1970s has had a majority in the Upper House meaning no matter how large their Lower House majority, they always had to compromise on some of their more radical ideas. It also meant the Senate had the power to set up committees to investigate any abuses of power by the government. Yesterday’s vote gave the Coalition at least 38 Senate seats. This is precisely half and means the next time someone forgets to mention to Johnny that there weren’t any children thrown overboard or there aren’t any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Liberals will be able to block any attempt by the Senate to find the truth.

There is an outside chance that the Coalition will win another Senate seat in Queensland giving it an outright majority and allowing it to get all its legislation through without negotiating with any other party. All the things on their wish list will be able to be put into action. The rest of Telstra will be sold. Media laws will be able to be changed to give the likes of Packer and Murdoch ever more control over the view of the world we are given. Industrial relation reforms will get rid of that pesky idea of workers’ rights and changes to Social security will rid us of all those bloody dole bludgers.

But wait there is more… Thanks to preferences it looks like Family First will win a senate seat in Victoria, and maybe SA as well. If they do, and the Coalition only win 38 seats then the vote of Family First would pass government legislation. So in order to get some of its economically conservative ideas through parliament, the government may need to agree to some of Family First extremely socially conservative ideas. In many ways Family First is more dangerous than One Nation. Right wing radicals are bad enough, but Right wing radicals who reckon they are doing the work of God are far worse. Just to give you a taste:

In Queensland Family First refused to preference the Liberal candidate for Brisbane, Ingrid Tall, because she was a lesbian, while a party member said he supported burning lesbians to death.

Meanwhile the Victorian Family First Senate candidate Danny Nalliah put out a leaflet saying:

“Spot Satan’s strongholds in the areas you are living (brothels, gambling places, bottleshops, mosque, temples — Freemasons/Buddhist/Hindu etc, witchcraft… If you are ready to pray against it, do so. If not, bring it to your church and ask your intercessors, through the pastor, to pull these strongholds down.”

Frankly I am pretty scared about what Australia might look like in three years’ time. The only saving grace is that the American Election still seems reasonably close. But if Bush wins there I might have to abandon this planet to the Evangelists and continue my plans for galactic domination somewhere else.

734

This entry was posted by the illustrious Andrew Coulthurst on Sunday, October 10th, 2004. It concerns such pressing issues as . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.