Something on Australian Federal Election

I went to BORDERS, Bondi Junction last Saturday and spent my whole day there. The bus that took me there followed a route that passed through two public schools. Coincidentally, it was the Election Day for Australia, and the two schools were consequentially transformed into polling places. Posters and flyers were everywhere, while there were people taking the chance to do last-minute campaign to the arriving voters. The colourful posters, coupled with the sounds made by the scurrying of the campaigners provided an election atmosphere at its best, at least from my bare eyes. As the bus continued on its way, the sight of the schools disappeared, and so did the atmosphere I was telling you about.

There were no posters or banners or whatever anywhere else, not even on the ground right next to both schools. No more men and women campaigning at the eleventh hour, nothing at all. It was weekend as usual for the Sydneysiders. In fact, I would not be surprised if all of a sudden someone who could not be bothered to read the newspapers or watch the news prior to the D-day came to me and cringed that he or she was not aware of the election. There was simply no visible sign on the street that the country was due to go to the polls, far from the Malaysian famous fashion of war of posters and banners in the running to the election. Speaking of this, I remember questioning myself as an 11-year old during our 1999 General Election upon looking at one of the many posters, what is actually the use of all those posters? Not that the onlookers will change their mind if there are more BN’s posters than PAS’ or vice versa. Hmm..

Then there were also equal campaigning rights given by the mass media. Having come from a country whose main newspaper and TV channels are heavily in favour of the government, I must say it was a bit of surprise to see campaigning adverts from all parties freely aired on local TVs, or opinion polls that clearly did not go to the government’s way in the front page of main newspaper. Perhaps the most laudable effort made by this media is in reporting faulty play by several individuals from the Liberals party, headed by the then Prime Minister John Howard, which involved distributing fake flyers from the non-existent Islamic Federation Australia and associating it with the Labour Party. Nik Nazmi has a good account on this, just in case anyone is somewhat vague about it.

Anyway my sincere congratulations go to Kevin Rudd and his newly-elected government line-ups. I must admit that apart from his promises to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq immediately, sign the Kyoto protocol and seek public apology from the Australian Aborigins, I have too little knowledge of this guy.