FRIENDS and acquaintances have been citing Dorothea Mackellar and Hanrahan in recent days, as fires, droughts and flooding rains sweep the continent from one far horizon to the other.
But “My Country” and “Said Hanrahan” were written in the 19th century. The most recent weather events are showing signs of being different from the usual extremes of weather.
A “sunburnt country” view of the weather patterns of the first part of the 21st century seems a bit naïve and ostrich like.
In “Said Hanran”, farmers are mocked for their pessimistic “we’ll all be rooned” chants as the seasons unfold when everything turns out well in the end.
Of course, all this stuff can be quickly dismissed by saying that single weather events cannot be used as evidence of wholesale climate change.
But strings of weather events can. If you heat the oceans you get more powerful weather events. These are not isolated extremes. The 2011 and now 2013 floods were both record floods. And the 2013 floods were records in the rapidity of their rising.
And yet so little mention has been made of climate change. Of course, the news bulletins should be filled with the immediate. But you expect more from current affairs. The 7.30 Report on Monday and Tuesday was a pitiful regurgitation of the news – nothing much about insurance, population increases on the coast, climate change and so on.
Perhaps only money will speak. After 2011, insurance premiums more than doubled for many people. It caused more not to insure. That lowered insurance-company revenues which in turn will push premiums even higher and cause even more people to drop out.
And back at the 7.30 Report on Monday night, host Chris Uhlmann offered “our prayers” to the flood victims.
And to whom are we to pray? The same god who caused the deluge in the first place, perhaps?
DOT DOT DOT
Every journey to the South Coast carries a reminder of a flaw in our electoral system that will become further evident in this year’s election campaign.
The system of single-member electorates causes political leaders to pay nearly all of their attention to marginal seats. And Eden-Monaro is one of the most marginal in the country. It has changed hands with every change of government (and not otherwise) since 1972.
As it became more unpopular, the Howard Government decided to build the Australian Headquarters Joint Operations Command (HQJOC) in open grazing land15km east of Queanbeyan in a doomed attempt to save the political life of Eden-Monaro Liberal MP Gary Nairn who lost his seat to Labor’s Mike Kelly in 2007.
You see direction signs to the isolated complex on the way to the coast.
Expect similar idiocy this year as Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard tour marginal electorates misallocating millions of taxpayers’ money like Labor’s Sports Rorts of the mid 1990s and the Coalition’s rural and regional rorts half a decade later.
Abbott was out among the marginal seats in western Sydney last week. If you are not in one of the 20 or so marginal seats, the election is a complete waste of time. Your vote counts for nothing.
The system is never going to be changed, of course, and no-one would wish an unstable Israeli style proportional system on anyone.
However, a German-style system with a number of national parliamentary seats along with the single-member ones would at least ensure the political parties pay attention to the whole country. Those who fail to win a single-member seat would be eligible for a national seat if their party got enough votes.
It would also take some heat out of pre-selection wars in which so often hacks get the safe seats and quality candidates have to take their chance in marginal seats. Quality candidates would be more inclined to stand if they knew they could get a national seat.
That would not, however, apply in the Senate and would not have spared us the Nova Peris saga.
In any event, you cannot get a safer seat than to be the top candidate of a major party for a Territory seat in the Senate. The major parties have each won one Senate place in each territory in every election since the seats were created in 1974.
Territory Senate representation was created in a way to be politically neutral.
DOT DOT DOT
The Senate election this year will be crucial. Labor is defending its very good 2007 result (because Senators have six-year terms). In 2007 it won three of the six seats in every state except South Australia and Western Australia. They way the polls are, however, this year it can only hope for two in each state – a loss of four seats.
If the Coalition picks up all four it will have 38 seats and with Victorian DLP Senator John Madigan, who is not up for re-election, that will make 39, or a majority.
To prevent that the Greens would have to win one of the four seats. The Greens are defending three seats (SA, WA and Tasmania). They might keep all of them and win a seat from Labor in NSW or Victoria. After all, they got six Senate seats in 2010.
Alternatively, Labor might just hang on to its three seats in Victoria.
Failing that, an Abbott Government would have open legislative writ. Or might have a majority with the help of South Australian Independent Nick Xenophon (who is very likely to be re-elected).
In any event, the 2013 election is likely to cement a new model for Australian politics. From 1955 to 1978 the Liberal-National Coalition relied on the Democratic Labor Party for preferences in the House of Representatives and for votes in the Senate chamber. Without them, Menzies, Holt, Gorton and McMahon either would not have governed or would have been severely hampered. It made those Coalition Governments far more socially conservative than they needed to be.
It now seems that Labor will be similarly reliant on the Greens. In 2010 Labor relied on preferences in a record 48 seats.
And there’s a thought. A really Machiavellian Tony Abbott, armed with a Senate majority, might well consider amalgamating the Liberals with the Nationals and abolishing preferential voting, thereby capturing many of those 48 seats.
Then, as he inevitably becomes more unpopular a couple of elections later, he could do what Margaret Thatcher did in Britain in 1983: win 62 per cent of the seats with just 42 per cent of the vote while her leftist opponents (Labour and the Liberal-Social Democrats) got just 36 per cent of the seats with 53 per cent of the vote.
Electoral systems can be just as important as political popularity.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 2 February 2013.