Hard News: Long will be the lunches
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merc,
At present, there is no statutory basis which establishes the office of Attorney-General,...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney-General_(New_Zealand)
Feeling even better about our new overlords now. -
At present, there is no statutory basis which establishes the office of Attorney-General
You didn't finish the quote about the Office being referenced in statute, however. The office of Attorney-General is referred to widely in statute law.
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Are these 'centres of resistance' similar to the upper houses and state legislatures in Australia? They've certainly provided an effective check there on the kind of crash-through 'reforms' we've experienced in NZ.
Quite. When the only check on the power of the Legislature is civil uprising or the triennial electoral process, an inordinate amount of damage can be done by the likes of Sir Roger and Ruth-less and there's precious little that can be done to stop them.
Talk of rolling things back is all well and good, but when some of the changes have undone decades of work it's like saying you can just re-build that 1:25 scale replica of the Cutty Sark that you constructed lovingly from matchsticks over the last 20 years, after dear great-aunt Harriet, who's at least 70kg overweight, tripped over and sat on it.
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it's like saying you can just re-build that 1:25 scale replica of the Cutty Sark that you constructed lovingly from matchsticks over the last 20 years, after dear great-aunt Harriet, who's at least 70kg overweight, tripped over and sat on it.
I think you need to move on dude, it was a long time ago.
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I think you need to move on dude, it was a long time ago.
Purely hypothetical, Kyle. But you do illustrate the point :)
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The impression I get of Australia, which is certainly not direct, is similar: more conservative parlamentarians in many respect, a more conservative public discourse than NZ, but a more textured society that makes it harder to enact pure free-market measures
By god you're an eloquent chap Giovanni. There's something in this. Australia is more institutionalised, by this I mean, there's more and larger institutional actors beyond governments and this tends to abate radicalism (not that all of these actors are conservative mind). Perhaps these are "centres of resistance" you speak of. Also, the federal arrangements means broad, national reform is harder to agree and even harder to implement. I know this from direct experience.
It is a more conservative place, George and Ben's comments above are consistent with my experience. But within that, and compared with NZ, there's more, large progressive groups that exert direct influence over public policy/experience (and attract corporate dollars)... the group percapita (I might have mentioned them before) have been very influential in all public policy of late (but that might change if there's a Coalition government).
In conversation with NZ friends, I'm quick to point out that my experience living in Australia doesn't really give me a great insight into the broader Australian pyschology since I live and spend most of my time in the equivalent of Pt Chev... out west is a different place...
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The politics seemed weirdly backwards and conservative...
gender roles are more narrowly defined than in NZ
Last time I was in Sydney (2005), we looked through the Yellow Pages for Car Hire and found an ad that shouted "No Bloody Women...You Don't know how to Bloody drive!!!". Must be the Aussie sense of humour - definitely wouldn't see the light of day in NZ.
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Whereas in New Zealand, we just have TV ads that directly compare losing your job to the atomic bomb dropping on Hiroshima.
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Plenty of darkly negative ads on Australian television during the last election campaign, and little to hope for. If voting wasn't compulsory, I think the turnout would have been much lower.
I also hear Australians speaking with pride about their Electoral Commission. But there are a lot of things they should be reluctant to crow about. The system is a mess - voters theoretically have preferential voting. They can either give their preference to a party, who will allocate it. Or they can vote preferentially themselves - but should they choose to do so, they must number each and every candidate from 1 onwards. Given that there were up to 80 candidates on the ballot, that's a big ask - especially since if you screw up any of it your vote is invalid. Almost 5% of votes were invalid, although some of that was protest against being forced to vote. Lines at the polling booth I was at were up to half an hour. There's no impetus for reform, with everyone accepting such peculiarities as normal.
There's also the fact that parties can advertise on the day, with posters and billboards and "how to vote cards" which are necessary because of the confusion noted above. I was handing out the cards, as every party does at every booth, and it just felt wrong.
There were also plenty who missed out. Australia's AEC isn't a patch on the NZEC. In Australia you have a short window of time to enroll before an election, and there is a fraction of the resources and advertising put into enrolling voters. Most kids enroll when they're at highschool, but plenty don't. And they're forever on the margins politically.
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. . . it just felt wrong.
Something's definitely wrong with a system that delivers the NSW State Government. Actively loathed and mocked by pretty much anyone who isn't a party member, and an equally hopeless opposition. Whoever made the comment about Tony Abbott being the first federally elected State Premier had a point.
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Is anyone else surprised no-one's done a parody of the Australian federal election campaign set to the tune of Genesis' "Land of Confusion"...?
Craig Y
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I also hear Australians speaking with pride about their Electoral Commission. But there are a lot of things they should be reluctant to crow about.
Sure - but blaming the AEC is like stabbing the waiter with a steak knife because your meal tastes suspiciously like lukewarm medical waste. Having said that, am I the only person who finds it hella weird reading reports of the AEC "predicting" outcomes? Surely, that's not their job?
Something's definitely wrong with a system that delivers the NSW State Government.
I often ask myself how sleazy, incompetent and incestuously feral the NSW Labour Party has to get before it's kicked out of office? Kristina Keneally might have an answer for us...
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They can either give their preference to a party, who will allocate it. Or they can vote preferentially themselves - but should they choose to do so, they must number each and every candidate from 1 onwards. Given that there were up to 80 candidates on the ballot, that's a big ask - especially since if you screw up any of it your vote is invalid.
It's baffling, truly baffling. I was at my daughter's school which was a polling booth, to run the obligatory sausage sizzle fundraiser. People were bemoaning the effort to allocate their own senate preferences and the voting sheet appeared to be the size of a table cloth.
There's also the fact that parties can advertise on the day, with posters and billboards and "how to vote cards" which are necessary because of the confusion noted above. I was handing out the cards, as every party does at every booth, and it just felt wrong.
The difference in the (lack of) restrictions on spruiking parties across this side is another curiosity. I'm not surprised you felt like it was wrong. On the other hand, when I told friends about the limits in NZ, they smiled patronisingly... naive little kiwis they clearly thought.
I often ask myself how sleazy, incompetent and incestuously feral the NSW Labour Party has to get before it's kicked out of office? Kristina Keneally might have an answer for us...
If I could comment on this Craig, I would...
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I often ask myself how sleazy, incompetent and incestuously feral the NSW Labour Party has to get before it's kicked out of office?
They're still a few notches on the sleazometer below the late unlamented Robert Askin's State Liberal government, and that blatantly corrupt old horror left office adorned with accolades. It's the legacy of the penal colony. As Michael Duffy noted about the 1808 military coup against Governor Bligh:
The Rum Rebellion has slipped into historical oblivion because it is widely misunderstood. It is popular belief that the autocratic Bligh was removed because he threatened the huge profits that were being made from trading in spirits by the officers of the NSW Corps and by businessmen such as John Macarthur. This view suggests it was nothing more than a squabble between equally unsavoury parties.
Plus ça change/cunts are still running the world.
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They're still a few notches on the sleazometer below the late unlamented Robert Askin's State Liberal government, and that blatantly corrupt old horror left office adorned with accolades.
Quite possibly, but I'd like to think there's much in the world where 1965-75 is not seen as a desirable baseline to measure yourself against. That's not lowering the bar as far as Australian state politics is concerned; it's running the bar through a wood chipper and using the dust to mop up spilled beer and offal.
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CR, you're letting off Queensland far, far too lightly. The entire state is dysfunctional and backward and should never have been settled in the first place. And in their case, prolonged right-wing croneyism and incompetence lasted almost two decades under Bjelke-Petersen's regime. No wonder Rudd was such a basket case...
Craig Y
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Added to which, none of this squares with what I know about the institutional history of Australian politics. Yes, federalism and ALP corporatism may have slowed the neoliberal project compared to New Zealand, which is a more unitary state.
However, that reversed during the last decade. There was clearly a Liberal/Republican Australian-American axis during that period and Thatcher/Muldoon style authoritarian populism ran rampant. Do not forget, unlike New Zealand, Australia has no Bill of Rights, nothing more than an administrative framework 'constitution', a miserable indigenous rights record, stronger conservative Catholic presence, a federal same-sex marriage ban and partial welfare privatisation occurred under Howard. Moreover, while its federal and some state Upper Houses (and Tasmania's Legislative Assembly) are elected through STV, it doesn't have our history of electoral reform, either.
Granted, Australia is more progressive than New Zealand on issues like abortion rights. Granted, the strength of their union movement meant their ECA, "WorkChoices", lasted only a short time before the ALP repealed it. However, in many ways, New Zealand is a more open and democratic society than our nearest neighbour.
Craig Y
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Granted, Australia is more progressive than New Zealand on issues like abortion rights.
Provided you aren't in Queensland!
I've been over here for a few months (come over and go camping for about 4 months each year) and was careful to be in the bush and away from any radio, etc. as election day drew close. Imagine my horror when the first thing I heard when I got out a day or so later was that now there will be weeks of discussion about what might happen next. Sigh.
Today I bought a Weekend Australian and was amused to see that NZ actually gets a mention. Normally the only mention made of NZ is some joke article, nothing serious. But this time there is an article by Michael Stutchbury (Economics Editor) which reviews the situation in NZ since we went MMP. So far so good. Except that his sole informant seems to be Roger Kerr. You can imagine the rest: Australia will go down hill like NZ if you have minority governments and the environment gets any standing whatsoever. This claim seems to have the standing of a law of physics over here. Sigh. No wonder Lange said at least we aren't just a large quarry.
The most interesting observation I've made here is that a lot of people loathe the Greens. On occasion I've been somewhere in the bush where there is a political conversion going on and I've casually mentioned that I am a member of the Green Party in NZ and all conversation stops. After an embarassing silence something else like footy gets to be the topic of conversation. Spooky. Like one of those scenes where the stranger comes into the pub.
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I am about to move to Queensland for a period of months. I will report my findings.
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Do not forget, unlike New Zealand, Australia has no Bill of Rights, nothing more than an administrative framework 'constitution', a miserable indigenous rights record, stronger conservative Catholic presence, a federal same-sex marriage ban and partial welfare privatisation occurred under Howard.
There's a much greater religious influence, which comes from identifiable religious groups - particularly contestable lower and middle class Catholic voters from immigrant backgrounds, which gives them greater sway. Not all of the difference, of course, but some of it. If National had been able to play Pacific Island New Zealanders in the same way, it might have been a different country (of course, many other things would have had to have happened).
. After an embarassing silence something else like footy gets to be the topic of conversation. Spooky. Like one of those scenes where the stranger comes into the pub.
Have you seen Wake in Fright? I recommend it to anyone trying to understand Australians. There's a deep dark undercurrent behind that sunny 'mateship'.
Queenslanders are weird, even considered so by other Australians. The Australian Greens picked up very good results (10-15%) at a lot of Queensland booths on election day, and quite a few rural ones, so it may just be pockets which are large in area, but sparse in population.
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On occasion I've been somewhere in the bush where there is a political conversion going on and I've casually mentioned that I am a member of the Green Party in NZ and all conversation stops. After an embarassing silence something else like footy gets to be the topic of conversation.
Are you sure it's an anti-Green thing? Maybe they're just shocked that you'd show an interest in something as trivial as the environment, when there are such pressing matters to be resolved as those bloody refs not enforcing the line-out rule properly.
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the politics seemed weirdly backwards and conservative, whilst at the same time far more socialist than NZ.
and
It's far more acceptable to be openly racist, for example, and gender roles are more narrowly defined than in NZ.
Much of the social conservatism and public racism in Australia is simply evidence of a vigorous and thriving working class, who don't give a flying fuck for middle class sensibilities. It only seems wierd to New Zealanders because in this country the working class has been destroyed as a political force and the only voice heard in public discourse is that of our (largely) neo-liberal middle class. I think it is why the British are so absolutely besotted with Australia - Kath and Kim are instantly recognisable to them, but in Australia there are no toffs to look down on them.
What I mean is the pure nakedness of power within political party membership, with warring factions whose aims are primarily winning over the other bunch within their own party, everything else being a distant second.
Why? Does the evidence indicate that this has hampered the effective governance of Australia? Personally, I like my politicians to be ruthlessly ambitious for power - they are politicians, for God's sake. I am deeply suspicious of anyone who DOESN'T display enough hunger for power. Being a ruthlessly ambitious politician doesn't make you a bad politician - in fact, the exact opposite is probably true. I would have thought our experience with non-politician religious zealots like Douglas and Richardson would have made us envy the flint hard and honed politicians and union leaders of Australia.
I'd love to have our political parties full of people you can't bullshit and to cynical and calculating to be swayed with pseudo-religious ideologies. Don Brash? Roger Douglas? Ruth Richardson? They would have been eaten alive by the Aussie unions and party factions.
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Geez Tom Semmens - would you actually know working class people if they reared up and bit your insufferably stupid ankles?
Because that's what you are saying: working class = too fucking dumb to know what's good for 'em. Eh?
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I'll reply in due course, but I'll just add for the moment that you have a fairly flawed understanding of race and class in Australia, Tom.
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Good lord, I've been ravaged by a south islander! Extraordinary.
To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, that's like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
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