Before I start, the title of this post is a bit of a misnomer, which I’ll explain soon. But it’s what I was asked to call it by two people who have asked me to write this post. Shan and Nicole, both friends from work, are realising that they’re finding it difficult to be fully informed about their vote this coming Saturday. They’re finding that there’s too much information out there – some of it conflicting – and they’re having difficulty finding their way around it.

So they asked me to write “Christian Voting for Dummies”. Well, they actually wanted it to be called “Voting for Christian Dummies”, but I figured that wasn’t the best idea!

So, although I feel slightly honoured to be asked to help them work through the information that is simply a maze for someone who is not politically engaged, I’m not completely sure that I’m the best person to do the topic justice. This post is my attempt, and your additions are welcomed.

Why the title of this post is a misnomer

The fact is, creating a distinction between the vote of a Christian and the vote of a non-Christian is a strange thing to do. That’s because there is no set way a Christian should vote (not every Christian will agree with me on this), and even though there are issues which Christians may tend to clump together on, it’s not necessarily going to be black-and-white when compared to a “non-Christian”.

Topics to tackle

The other reason the title of this post doesn’t completely fit is because I’m also going to cover things which are specific to the way our political system works anyway – i.e. generic stuff that doesn’t just relate to the way Christians might want to interact with politics.

Here’s a few things I want to tackle in this post:

• How Australia’s electoral system works – preferential voting, proportional voting, and the two houses of Parliament
• What YOUR ballot paper will actually look like
• How to decide what matters to you – the issues of this election
• Deciding what to base your vote on – personality, policies, platforms, and “presidential voting”
• Understanding that you’re going to have to compromise

Australia’s electoral system

The first thing you need to know about Australia’s electoral system is you are not going to be walking in to the polling booth and voting for Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott. The Prime Minister is determined by which party has the largest number of seats in the House of Representatives, and you’re only voting to determine which person (and which party) will hold just one of those seats.

Australia’s parliament has two houses: the House of Representatives (the lower house) – where the government is formed – and the Senate (the upper house), or the house of review.

Generally, laws are introduced into the lower house, discussed, debated on, amended and finally rejected or approved, and then passed to the upper house for review. Here, a similar process happens and if the laws are changed, they are sent back to the lower house to be discussed and debated again. Laws come in the form of a bill – which is essentially a large document filled with a number of rules – and once passed, become an Act of Parliament which then governs this country and the people in it.

Let’s start with the House of Representatives, because this is where the majority of the focus is, given that the government is formed here. This is where the leaders reside.

Australia is broken into 150 electorates – or divisions or seats (there are usually several names for something in politics). Because both Shan and Nicole live in Victoria I’ll focus especially on Victorian seats, although you can easily apply this to any other state. Victoria has 37 of these federal seats (the second largest state in Australia), 21 of which are in the Melbourne metropolitan area: because each seat is sized so as to, roughly, have an equal number of voters living within it.

Let’s take the seat of Chisholm as an example. It covers the Melbourne suburbs of Box Hill, Burwood, and parts of Clayton, and is currently held by the Labor Party after it’s candidate, Anna Burke, received 38,439 primary votes in the 2007 federal election. The Liberal Party candidate received 31,514 primary votes, essentially meaning that the contest in this seat is a close one – not as close as some, but there’s still a theoretical possibility of enough people changing their votes in this election for the seat to change hands.

Preferential voting

I talked about primary votes there. To illustrate what preferential voting is and how it works in the Australian electoral system, let’s take a look at the seat next door: Deakin. This seat takes in the Melbourne suburbs of Blackburn, Forest Hill, Mitcham, Nunawading and Ringwood. At the last election, the Liberals’ Phil Barresi took 36,501 votes, while Labor’s Mike Symon took 34,451 votes.

But Mike Symon won the seat!

Here’s how preferences work – and you need to understand this so that you can make the most of your vote on election day.

Say Candidate A gets 32,000 votes. Candidate B gets 31,000 votes, and Candidate C gets 5,600 votes. As the votes are counted up, these numbers refer to primary votes – that is, where the voter has put a number 1 next to the candidate they want to see elected.

Now what this means is that anyone who voted for Candidate C effectively won’t be getting a say in the outcome. Candidate C turned out to be an unpopular candidate, so the contest is effectively between Candidate A and B. If you voted for Candidate C, wouldn’t you like to have another go to choose between A and B? You’d probably most likely accept the fact that C didn’t get in, but you still want to have the opportunity to have your say between A and B.

This is where preferences come in. 5,600 people put a number 1 next to Candidate C on their ballot paper. Then they also numbered 2 and 3 for the other candidates. Here’s where it gets interesting though. 4,000 of these people put down Candidate B as 2nd choice. The other 1,600 voters put Candidate A their 2nd choice.

Once all of these 5,600 ballot papers are recounted and placed as new votes towards Candidates A and B, it turns out that Candidate B has received 35,000 votes to Candidate A’s 33,600 – and B walks away having won the seat, despite coming second in the primary vote!

There are two ways to vote on election day: to number the boxes the way your chosen party tells you to on their How to Vote Cards, or to number the boxes according to your own preferences for the candidates standing for election in your seat.

And, this is what happens in each of the 150 seats around the country. Usually, the Liberal and Labor parties will win most of the seats – and the party that wins an outright majority of seats has the right to form government. There are usually a few seats won by independents, and in this election, the Greens also have a chance of winning a lower house seat.

The Senate

Before we move on to have a look at what your own ballot paper will look like on election day, let’s have a look at the Senate.

You’re going to receive two ballot papers on election day. One for the House of Representatives, as discussed above, and one for the Senate. The Senate, as we have already established, is the house of review. It’s where laws, once passed by the lower house, are sent for review. When the government of the day also has a majority in the Senate, they can usually pass their laws through quite easily. If they have a minority, they must try harder – and potentially make compromises – to get the votes of the opposition party, or to get some of the independents or minor parties siding with them to create a majority vote.

In the Senate, there are effectively eight “electorates”. They’re based purely on the states and territories of Australia. Each state has 12 seats in the federal Senate, and each territory has 2. In the two territories, these 2 seats are up for re-election at each federal election, whereas in the states, each senate seat is safe for two election cycles – with staggered terms. What this effectively means is that at each election, in the six states, six of the 12 Senate seats are up for grabs.

Taking Victoria as an example again, there are 60 candidates running for the 6 Victorian Senate seats available at this election. That’s a lot of numbers you’ve gotta write… right? Well, yes, if you want to. But you can also put just one number 1 next to the party that you want to support – and then they’ll do the rest of the numbering for you (each party has already submitted to the Australian Electoral Commission their “group voting ticket”, which records these preferences for each state, and the AEC will apply these to the ballot papers as they count them).

On the senate ballot paper, each party is listed above a thick, black, horizontal line, and every candidate is listed – under their party columns – below the horizontal line. Hence, putting just a number 1 next to your chosen party is called voting “above the line” – and taking the time to number every candidate (which is much easier in the territories and the smaller states!) is called voting “below the line”.

We haven’t talked much about informal voting yet, but it’s worth mentioning now. If you make a mistake – such as missing out a number or listing the same number twice – your vote will be deemed informal and it will not count. Because there’s more chance of making a mistake when you decide to vote below the line in the Senate, you can actually also vote above the line as a fallback – and if, when the counting is happening, it’s found that you missed a number, missed a box, or repeated a number, your vote will fall to the preferences as determined by the party you selected above the line. Your vote won’t be wasted – you’ll just be getting “second best” (it’s also worth noting that if you’ve noticed you’ve made a mistake, you can just ask for another ballot paper!).

We’ll talk more about voting in the Senate shortly, and unpack it further with the help of a great website.

What will YOUR ballot paper actually look like?

When you visit the polling booth on election day, you’re going to be confronted with representatives of several political parties asking you to vote for them, and giving you How to Vote Cards showing exactly what numbers in put in what box in order to ensure your vote goes to the party of your choice.

If you want to follow those instructions, then there is little need to check out your ballot paper and research your vote beforehand.

But party preferences can sometimes do things you don’t want them to do. For example, in the race for the six Victorian Senate seats up for grabs at this election, if you vote above the line for the Liberal Party, your preferences will go to the Australian Sex Party before the Labor Party. That may be ok with you, but for me it’s not and I want to vote Liberal, so my only option is to vote below the line.

Let’s look at your ballot paper for the House of Representatives. To find what your paper will look like – and hence the candidates that you will be numbering 1 to 5 or 6 or however many on Saturday – you need to first find your electorate. To do this, visit the Australian Electoral Commission’s search app at:

http://apps.aec.gov.au/esearch/

Enter your suburb or post code, and in most cases, finding your electorate should be pretty easy. If you have any difficulty, just call the AEC on 13 23 26. Once you know your electorate, visit:

http://www.aec.gov.au/election/who-are-the-candidates.htm

It’s then pretty easy from here to access a list of the candidates standing for the House of Representatives in your seat. Now that you know who your candidates are, you can research them by googling for news on them, visiting their personal website, checking if they’re on Facebook, or following them on Twitter. You may even be able to talk to them directly through social media sites to ask questions you might not be getting answers to elsewhere.

Your state’s Senate candidates will also be shown on the above page, but I’d recommend checking these out at this website instead:

http://www.belowtheline.org.au/

I’ve already talked about voting above and below the line. Although 95% of Australians vote above the line, if you choose to make your vote count further by voting below it, the Below the Line website (thanks to Josh Withers for the tip) allows you to check whether voting above the line would result in a preference flow that you’re happy with, and if you’re not happy with it, you can drag the candidates up and down and print out your final list to take with you on polling day. Ingenious!

Deciding what to base your vote on

Now that you know how the Australian political system works, it’s time to work out what you are going to base your vote on in this election. You may decide to base your vote on a number of factors, and there may be more that I haven’t listed, but I’ve been able to narrow a vote down to four things:

• Personality: voting for your candidate based on their personality – perhaps their charisma, friendliness, or openness to your local community’s needs
• Policies: voting for your candidate based on their or their party’s policies, many of which have usually been announced specifically for the election
• Platforms: voting for your candidate based on their or their party’s platform – that is, the document that guides the decisions the party makes when in power and gives a good indication of their ideologies
• Presidential voting: voting for your candidate based on their leader – i.e. on who might become Prime Minister

Probably the most common way people make their decision is on a “presidential” basis, and that’s because this is how our media cycle works. In some ways it makes sense – the leader of the winning party will of course have a great influence over how their government is run, but they’re not the only influence – and as we saw with Kevin Rudd recently, they can be overthrown and you can’t really complain because you didn’t vote for them directly (remember how we talked about Australia’s proportional representation system you voting only for your local member).

I’m not personally against this being the primary method of deciding on your vote, but some will speak out against it. When I vote, I do put great weight towards the leader, but I follow it closely by thinking through the party platforms.

I haven’t actually read any of the party’s platform documents yet (I plan to one day!) but it is fairly easy to get a general idea of the ideologies that the parties come from by watching them over time. I don’t presume by any means to be the best judge in this sense – and this is where I really am not the best person to be writing this post – but I will try to outline some of the main party’s ideologies. I am borrowing heavily from their websites to do this, and I certainly recommend that you do not use this post as your only source of knowledge on the parties – there is just too much that I don’t know or don’t know how to express yet.

• Liberal Party: Conservative social values, and a friend of business. Believes in freedom for all people and prefers smaller government, with less interference in people’s lives, and a larger private (business) sector. Believes that business and individuals – rather than government – create wealth and employment. Wants to see all Australians enjoy the highest standards of living, health, education and justice, and believes that Australia should play a constructive role in maintaining world peace.
• Labor Party: Progressive social values, and a friend of the working class. Has strong links to the union movement. Wants to see a society that values equality, security, fairness, compassion, and environmental sustainability. Wants to see workers have better living and working conditions.
• National Party: Represents regional Australia. Believes in building stronger regional economies and communities, and the preservation of health, safety, social and economic welfare standards. Conservative social values, similar to the Liberal Party.
• The Greens: Grew from a foundation of protection of the environment. Believes in action on global warming, peace rather than war, conservation, social justice, grassroots democracy and energy efficiency. Believes that human beings are part of the natural world, and that all forms of life on Earth deserve respect.
• Family First: A party based on advocacy of the nuclear family unit and on policies supporting families. Has conservative social values, many of which are based on Christian ethics. Believes in supporting the raising of children, an appropriate work-life balance, and a reduction in marriage breakdown.

So Australia’s main political parties summed up in one word:
Business – Workers – Regional Australia – the Environment – Families

It’s also worth noting here the special arrangement between the Liberal and the National party in that they are represented federally (and in some states as well) as a “coalition” – or rather, they are referred to as the Coalition. The Liberal Party is the larger of the two and provides the leader (the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader), and the National Party provides the deputy leader (i.e. the Deputy Prime Minister, who is acting in the Prime Minister’s job when he or she is out of the country – when the Coalition is in government of course!).

If you base your vote on party platform, remember how the preferential system works, and that only two parties really have a chance of governing. So it’s important that as you vote, you consider where your vote will go if your first choice isn’t elected. This is especially true when you preference a minor party first, because they’re less likely to win. What this doesn’t mean though is that you should ignore minor parties: quite the opposite – if their values appeal to you, then go for it, because in the Senate especially, they have a fairly good chance of election.

Deciding what matters to you

Now, we’ve covered a lot, but believe it or not, there’s something else you could choose to take into account if you wish: policies. In every election campaign period, the TV, radio, newspapers and even your letterbox are filled with information on specific policies being released by the parties that want your vote. Especially when it comes down to letterbox fliers, the policies could be as specific as being about a train station, a school or a park just down the road from you – and when it’s as local as this, it usually involves promised funding to improve or reopen a community facility.

The key word here is ‘promise’ – and it’s well known that politicians don’t always (or can’t always) keep their promises. This is the key reason why I’m personally a bit skeptical about relying on policies released in election periods – and I prefer instead to base my vote on overall party platform or on tried and tested, long-term policies. But that doesn’t mean you have to.

Moving wider than a local focus, the specific issues of this election surround the following:

• the Economy: economic management; sustainability; returning the budget to surplus; the recession; interest rates; and an economic stimulus plan
• Immigration: asylum seekers, offshore processing, and turning back the boats; and general population growth
• the Environment: climate change; a carbon tax; and an emissions trading scheme
• Jobs: workplace relations; and unemployment rates
• Communications: a national broadband plan; and internet filtering
• Other issues: education; health; the war in Afghanistan; the super profits tax; the removal of Kevin Rudd; and the religious beliefs of party leaders

While many of these issues are always around, a lot of them have a specific focus in this campaign period and you have no doubt already seen many of them discussed in the media. Over the next few days before voting day, if you are considering basing your vote on current policy announcements then it may be a good idea to buy a couple of papers, watch some TV news bulletins, listen to the radio, or do some online reading of major news sites.

But… I don’t have time to do any more research!

Fair enough. Fortunately, there are many organisations that have already done the research for you. They’ve put together questions and had the major parties answer them all for you, and scored them based on criteria that the various organisations pre-determined.

There are a number of these “checklists” or party comparison tools that you can check out – and often which one(s) you use will depend on what your voting priorities are. You may also find it interesting to check out checklists covering policy areas that you don’t really think are important – you may discover a policy idea you didn’t know existed!

Here’s a selection that I’m aware of:

• ACL’s Australia Votes: The Australian Christian Lobby has put together a website for the election, where you can (among other things) compare responses that parties have given to a range of questions on topics that Christians might be concerned about
• Make Poverty History scorecard: if international aid is important to you, this is a good checklist to check out
• Australian Christian Values Checklist: if conservative issues from a Christian point of view (morals etc.) are important to you, this checklist will answer alot of them
• GetUp Election Day Scorecard: if workers rights, health, and a “fair go” are important to you, this checklist might cover some of your interests (it’s not very extensive though)
• News.com.au Vote-a-matic: An interactive tool that takes you through a number of questions and gives you a suggestion of who to vote for at the end

You’re going to have to compromise

The final point to make is that when it comes down to it, you’re probably going to have to compromise in who you want to vote for. Usually, no one party or candidate is going to suit your beliefs, values and passions down to a tee – and you’re probably going to have to make a decision on what you want to prioritise. I would suggest thinking not just about yourself, but Australia as a whole nation – and consider who is affected by the policies that the nation is governed on (that includes people who do vote and people who don’t vote, as well as people who don’t even live in Australia).

In the end, it’s your decision, and you’re extremely fortunate to live in a country where you are free to exercise your vote. I hope this has helped, and choose wisely!

References: To help compile this post, I drew from the following resources: Wikipedia; ABC; The Liberal Party; Australian Labor; The Nationals; The Greens; Family First; Australian Electoral Commission; Below the Line.

Your input: Although this is a fairly long and comprehensive post, it would not be complete without your input. What have I forgotten? Was I wrong on anything? Do you have a question? I’d really appreciate your comments.

I write to you today with a warning. I could simply point out that I don’t agree with the way this particular group does politics, and I could simply point that out with a quick comment rather than a whole blog post making use of the strong word “warning”… but, when I thought about it, there are enough people that don’t delve into political games enough to really be able to tell when something is biased. And so, I’ll take it on myself to point it out.

My warning is about the Christian Values Checklist, released recently for the 2010 Federal Election (and also released for several past federal and state elections).

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

On the surface this checklist looks like a decent guide for Christians to follow when voting at the upcoming election (which is now only two weeks away! Gosh how that did that come so quick…). Based on this checklist, Christians should vote for the primarily Christian parties first (i.e. Christian Democratic and Family First), put the National & Liberal parties before Labor, and basically – put the Greens last as much as possible because their policies are basically anti-Christian and they only stand for one thing Christians stand for.

Fair enough. But if you look closely, there’s some glaring omissions in this checklist. There’s nothing about foreign aid (what about the Millennium Development Goals?), refugees, homelessness & housing… or other traditionally “left-wing” issues.

That’s right. This Christian values checklist – apart from a token environment question at the bottom – focuses only on right wing issues. It’s not a guide to how a Christian should vote – it’s a guide to how a right-wing group, run by Christians, thinks you should vote.

Now, I’m not saying the questions they ask aren’t important, but the fact that they leave out any issues that are traditionally championed by the left side of politics – well, it smacks of clear conservative bias. And as a Christian, it is clear that there are some issues on the right and some on the left which we really should be caring about.

And that’s my warning – when you’re told how to vote as a Christian, make sure you dig beneath the surface of who is telling you, and what they’re saying (that includes digging beneath what I say as well, and by the way, I generally vote conservative but there are clear issues in this election that drive me to critically analyse that).

Here is another Christian resource which helps lay out the positions of most parties on some key Christian-related issues: the Australia Votes website from the ACL. It will take you a little more time and effort to read, but it is a lot more balanced in the issues that are discussed.

I’d welcome your comments on this… do you think my criticism of the Australian Christian Values checklist is justified?

I’m a public transport tragic (or, railfan), and I especially love studying several aspects of public transport: the operations, economics, signaling, communications, planning, history and equipment. And now living in a city with generally good public transport, I’m having a lot of fun.

But I’m also getting frustrated and upset when things don’t work the way they should.

I’m not talking about delays and cancellations, fares and ticketing, stop-spacing and timetabling, or even overcrowding. What I’m getting most frustrated about in Melbourne at the moment is this strange problem the Victorian government has where they seem to think they can outsource their problems.

If you missed the lead story in Melbourne’s news today, check out the latest article in The Age. Every single electrified train line in the Melbourne network (which is every single line bar one) had multiple cancellations, and delays upwards of 60 minutes, throughout the morning peak this morning. It cost an estimated $12 million in lost productivity and directly cost Melbourne’s train operator, Metro, $1 million in government fines (and possibly more with the cost-sharing of a free-public-transport day this Friday).

Seems fair – the city’s trains grind to a halt, and everyone takes their cars into work causing doubling of peak-hour road travel times which in turn blows out tram and bus timetables. It was a pretty tough morning if you needed to get anywhere and don’t happen to own a pair of wings.

Yes, it seems fair to blame and fine the train operator. Except the problem started with electrical wiring at 4:55am this morning near Southern Cross Station, one of the city’s busiest. As a train with 20 passengers on board traveled underneath, the wire overhead suddenly snapped, failed, or got tangled – depending on which news report you read – and took out all power bar emergency lighting at the Southern Cross station. Because no trains could then travel through Southern Cross (which all trains on the Melbourne metropolitan train network must), a bank-up of trains started and steadily grew, right into peak hour when power was finally restored. However, it was already too late – services had been cancelled and delayed and there were too many services to run and not enough time to run them in. The problems extended right through peak hour and continued until late morning.

So, whose fault was it?

Well, the exact details are scarce, and I hope we’ll see more in tomorrow’s papers. But if you ask the government, it’s Metro’s fault, and if you ask Metro, well, they’re apologising, then saying they’re sorry, then apologising again.

The maintenance of all electrified track in Melbourne is the responsibility of Metro. But they only took over the contract to manage and operate Melbourne’s train network at the start of December last year, after warning in their management tender that “many of the older track components are in a condition which does not provide the level of reliability and ride quality that is required by a modern metro system” (according to a Herald Sun article from earlier this year). Metro have now had control of Melbourne’s 16 train lines – made up of 200 stations and 830km of railway track – for less than 8 months, in which time they’ve been continuously held to account by the government to run on-time services for 20 hours every day. They’ve done a good job, but due to equipment faults, unruly passengers and “police requests”, they haven’t yet met targets on an out-of-date, inherited system that has been mismanaged – and likely underfunded – for decades.

But it’s still Metro’s fault. It’s their branding on the train, so even though they’re not in control of these problems which have plagued the Melbourne train network for years before they won the contract to manage it, the government can take the convenience of outsourcing the problems as well as the management (and fining Metro when it’s not all magically fixed).

Am I missing something really huge, or does this state government deserve no votes on the 27th November?

What a day. “Momentous” is the word people are using to describe it, which is apt given it means ‘significant’ and ‘important’. The holder of the highest office in our land (at least, that with any real power) changed – seemingly overnight. It wasn’t until most of us got into bed last night that the news was becoming real, and it’s entirely probable that many returned home from work today knowing nothing, went to watch the 6pm news, and discovered we had already had a new prime minister for the last 6 hours.

The events of the momentous day were evident everywhere. One of my bosses, who gets a headache when he hears anything of politics, said today that not only would he ‘allow’ us to talk about the leadership change, but that we ‘must’ talk about it. I spent the first part of the morning watching Twitter – and Twitter only – on my iPhone in order to feed updated information to one of my other bosses – Clayton Bjelan – who anchors the weekday morning shift on LightFM. And when I got home and watched the news, my housemates joined in for the first half of the bulletin (which is unusual).

With each new person I saw today, the first thing said was something to do with the leadership spill – that is, after the first pause while both of us had to work out how to start the conversation without asking the painfully obvious “So, did you hear what happened to Rudd?”

The change of a prime minister is huge, so of course it has to be talked about by political tragics and phobics alike. But the way it happened was an even bigger event. Here’s some of my thoughts.

Today’s machinations have ultimately cheapened the office of Prime Minister

That’s a direct quote from a tweet posted by comedian Daniel Burt tonight. It echos my flabbergasted thoughts exactly, which is why I retweeted it and am quoting it again now. I used to look at the office of Prime Minister as one affording respect, and requiring some sort of longevity. But now, it’s just another political job that can be held by one person one day, and someone else the next (much like an opposition leader).

I don’t know if I could now ever see it the same as I saw it growing up, with the role filled – for a very long time – by John Howard.

Social media is a news breaker

I probably say this too much, but social media (especially Twitter) was amazing throughout this whole episode. Twitter broke last night’s news to me, and kept me updated throughout the day, particularly when I had to be in a meeting during all three of the leader’s press conferences (Rudd, Gillard, and Abbott).

Given that prominent journalists also tweet regularly (I mainly follow Latika Bourke & Malcolm Farnsworth), Twitter breaks news (and takes you right to the source) before any other media can (even with live TV, it’s only a couple of seconds behind AND provides live commentary too).

Oh, and today’s newspapers were out of date and useless by about 9:15am.

24 hours is a long time in politics

Forget ‘a week’. Like I said, if you didn’t watch the news after 6:30pm last night, 24 hours was a very long time for you today.

I find the political definition of loyalty chilling

That, was tweeted by Simon Thomsen tonight. And again, it echoes what I couldn’t have said any better myself. This morning, one news report said that Wayne Swan’s loyalty was with Kevin Rudd, but that he’d now moved his loyalty to Julia Gillard. Uh-huh. Some loyalty.

The time of adjustment and the stages of grief

Once I had a look at pm.gov.au and saw the maintenance page, that was when it home to me. We just changed prime ministers. Again. For just the 3rd time in my living memory (and 4th since I was born). And with that comes an adjustment time – of learning to associate the title ‘prime minister’ with the new person, and of learning to respect – and respond to the leadership of – the person in the role.

And today I found myself going through some of the stages of grief. Even though I really didn’t like Kevin Rudd at first, I did really warm to him as a person. Despite disagreeing with probably a majority of his policies, I still had a respect for him and especially for his leadership capability, and for his down-to-earth nature on the rare moments that he allowed it to show through the usual Ruddbott. I liked him. I looked up to him. Today, I was in disbelief, denial, and anger, and am now probably just edging closer to some sort of acceptance.

I had to stop and reflect quietly after glimpsing Kevin Rudd sitting on the backbench in Question Time this afternoon.

I like Julia Gillard even less than I first liked Kevin Rudd

Which, as I said, wasn’t much at all – at first. Seeing Julia Gillard on the 7:30 Report tonight just sickened me. She failed to answer most of Kerry O’Brien’s questions – granted, they were provocative, but they were what we all wanted to know the answer to – and she just turned on the new Gillard robot.

I wasn’t impressed. At a time like this, we want to know the new woman-in-charge is going to be honest with us. She’s our Prime Minister, after all.

And I don’t think I trust her. I find it hard to believe she’s in the job to help people, as she likes to quote.

But I do believe that Rudd’s first concern was for the country, and the stable governance of it, rather than for himself.

I think I’m in the bargaining stage of grief now – bargaining on Rudd’s behalf. If only he had said one or two things differently a few days ago – if only.

I’ve debated about whether or not to post this… but I lose my chance in just over 12 hours, and given that it’s the most important election of the year, I have to put some sort of comment into the blogosphere. So here goes.

Today, Americans go to vote for the person to fill the most powerful office in the world. Much has been said about the Christian vote, and how if Christians are concerned about the direction America is heading they should be voting for John McCain. I’ve been getting many, many e-mails on this topic – from right-wing religious organisations, from concerned Christians, and from other people who thought I might be interested (and I am, but I don’t agree).

If you’ve been reading this blog for a little while you’ll know that I voted here in Australia for the Liberal Party – in both houses – at last year’s federal election and at this year’s ACT Legislative Assembly election (the Liberal Party in Australia being the conservative party).

But for this election – if I was eligible to vote – I would be voting for Barack Obama. Yes, it’s a bit of a shift to the left.

My politics aren’t yet set in stone (I say yet, because as soon as they are, I plan to join an appropriate political party). I still need to do a lot of research on the differences between left and right politics. Many times I find myself in the centre. Sometimes I lean to the right, and sometimes I lean to the left. When I lean, I more often find myself leaning to the right – especially disagreeing with much of what the Labor Party does in Australia based on their industrial relations (unionism) and economic policies.

But to me – and my limited-compared-to-real-political-pundits’-understanding of politics – there is one big issue at the US election:

John McCain is too old, out of touch with where America (and much of the world) wants to head, and has shown very bad judgment in his short-term-political-interest-protecting choosing of Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Barack Obama on the other hand is younger, has some experience, and exudes confidence when he talks. He has surrounded himself with people more experienced than him – such as Joe Biden – and has managed to capture the attention of many, many followers. His leadership begs following, and he is bringing about change which in part is exciting. He also knows how to use e-mail.

But there’s a bigger issue behind all this, which I want to focus on. The e-mails I referred to above have focussed solely on moral issues and the protection of the Christian religion. None of which, I believe, are what we have been Biblically mandated to do.

Let me explain.

One of the e-mails I received the other day started like this:

This is from an attorney in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has a very strong faith in the Lord. Please read this and pray!

Unfortunately this turned me off from the start. Because someone claims to have a strong faith in the Lord, I should trust everything he says? Of course I’m not questioning his faith, but if someone expects me to agree with whatever they say just because they are a Christian, I am probably not going to be agreeing with them.

The e-mail continued:

I have never been one to read things circulated on the Internet, much less write them, so it is with no small reluctance that I do so now. However, the Lord has laid it heavily upon my heart to call His people to a day of prayer and fasting for the upcoming November 4 elections, and this provides an excellent medium to get the word out quickly to a large number of believers.

America stands at a crossroads, not just politically but also spiritually. The current election cycle is nothing less than a battle for the very soul of our country. The discerning among you already know this to be true. The deepening political polarization we have witnessed in the past few elections is merely a symptom of an ever-intensifying spiritual polarization, as the battle lines between the righteous and the wicked are drawn with increasing clarity. The stakes are enormous, whether politically, economically, morally or in terms of our physical security. We are about to step off in a direction that could very well lead to our destruction as a nation — and so many millions are blind to this reality.

As I observe popular attitudes and watch the public opinion polls , my heart grieves for our nation. We have abandoned the principles upon which our nation was founded, principles which in turn were anchored in the person and principles of God. The wicked grow ever more powerful and influential. Once respectable journalistic organizations have degenerated to little more than propaganda organs for the political left. Godly leaders who can rise up in defense of righteousness and our God-given liberties seem nowhere to be found. As a nation, we have cast God out of our thinking. The murder of the unborn is championed in the streets and in the courts. Homosexual “marriage” is trumpeted as a constitutional right and as the sign of a so-called progressive culture. Sexual immorality, drug abuse, violence, idolatry, pornography, and a host of other sins have overtaken us. As a nation we either justify these things or, at a minimum, turn a blind eye to them. And God’s people have certainly not been immune from these things.

Now we stand ready to reap the fruits of our national godlessness. God sometimes judges sin by giving people over to the very things they desire and allowing the natural consequences to play out. Generalizations are often dangerous, but I think it is safe to say that generally the sins I mentioned are associated with the political left. It is my sincere conviction, and I have often said to those who will listen, that the leaders of the American left represent the force of evil in our political arena. Admittedly there are wicked and corrupt people on the right as well, but experience has shown that a conservative political ideology finds its roots, to large extent, in scriptural truth. Consequently, conservative politicians are generally (but certainly not always or completely) aligned with the Word of God. However, as the wicked gain the upper hand in the halls of power, all of us of whatever political leaning will experience the predictable consequences.

So where does that leave us? Current polls indicate that the left is in position to seize decisive control of our entire political system, including all three branches of government. They stand to take the White House , both houses of Congress and, by inevitable extension, the courts as well. If that happens, they will take the country hard to the left in a way from which I do not believe we will ever recover. Socialism, moral libertinism, contempt for the sanctity of life, and increasing efforts to stifle political dissent (and I would add, to silence biblically based “hate speech”) are sure to follow in short order. If God severely judged Israel for her wickedness, who are we to expect differently?

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

What can we do to prevent the unmaking of America from happening right before ou r eyes?

We can call upon the name of the Lord, who is rich in mercy and mighty to deliver His people. We can pray along with the psalmist that the designs of the wicked and the oppressors would be thwarted by the hand of God . We can pray that God would lift the evident blindness that has gripped our nation, and that He would grant widespread repentance. We can pray that only the most godly men and women would be elected to lead this nation, and that they would lead in righteousness. We can pray that such righteousness would again exalt our nation as we return to the Lord in humility and repentance. We can pray that, regardless of what happens on November 4, the people of God will manifest “the swe et aroma of the knowledge of Christ” in ever increasing measure.

To that end, I am asking every believer in Jesus Christ to set aside Monday, November 3 as a day of fasting and prayer . I would urge you to review the prayer of Daniel on behalf of his people in Dan. 9:3-19, and to pray that way for our nation. And finally, I would ask you to distribute this call to prayer as widely as possible so that the greatest number of people would lay hold of the throne of grace all at once. It may be that God will show mercy to America, that He will shed His grace on her once again. Thank you for joining with me in this effort.

D. Johnson

That was the e-mail in its entirety. I have hundreds of problems with it, but I’ll highlight a few.

The first one is that this attorney – and alot of the religious right – seems to be missing the safe and comfortable Christianity that America was founded on (Australia also). Well, the world is going left, and by standing our ground as Christians way over on the right, we’re not exactly going to achieve much. Complaining that the wicked are too powerful doesn’t do a thing (evil triumphs when good men do nothing), apart from engendering an even greater dislike in the world for Christians – and through it, Jesus Christ.

The e-mail mentions that “godly leaders are nowhere to be found”. I probably don’t agree with his definition of “godly” in this sense, but in the sense he’s referring to, they’re probably nowhere to be found because they’re all writing e-mails like this and holding prayer vigils. I’ve mentioned before a great quote I saw somewhere: “Pray like it depends on God, but act like it depends on you.” What is this guy – and the others who are writing these e-mails – doing to actually bring about change? There’s no point standing up and saying “it should be this way instead”. You have to gain respect before you gain the right to influence.

By the way, in this e-mail, mention is made of the Democrats standing for drug abuse and violence – among other sins. Huh? No powerful political party in the western world is for the increase of either!

The e-mail also states that the right is generally more aligned with the Word of God. This is the only part of the e-mail that I agree with, but yet I only partly agree with it. Conservative politicians are generally better aligned with the moral side of the gospel, but liberal politicians are generally better aligned with the social side of the gospel (eg. feeding the hungry and looking after the sick). So that means Christians should really be trapped between left and right.

But – what is our Biblical mandate? See the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46. Or the great commission in Matthew 28:18-20. Remember also that Jesus gave wine to drunk people as his first miracle on Earth (John 2) – uh-oh, where were his morals? Also, consider Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 9.

Is our mandate to try to align the world with Christian morals (the agenda of the religious right)? Or is it to get to know the people around us, to meet their physical and spiritual needs, and show them who Jesus Christ really was and still is?

I was looking through my e-mails yesterday morning and saw a CNN news alert where Larry King was discussing former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination – and I thought, hmm, they missed the word ‘attempted’ there. But low and behold, after some digging below the Christmas and holiday news at the headlines of the Australian news outlets, she had indeed been assassinated.

I really don’t know all that much about Benazir Bhutto, but after seeing her recent return from self-imposed exile and hearing her talk, I developed an appreciation for her, her pro-democracy stance, and her determination. Although I guess it was almost inevitable, I’m rather disappointed, for lack of a better word, that an assassination attempt against her was successful. It can only mean bad news for Pakistan, and the war on terror.

Other news related to the war on terror today is David Hicks’ release from Yatala Prison in Adelaide (David pictured on right in green shirt; picture from News Limited). He has been taken in a black car to to a ‘secret location’, but with media cars and choppers tracking it I’m sure it won’t be long before that secret location becomes public.

There is a lot of controversy about whether he should now be afforded a private, normal life or whether he should continue to be monitored. Well, I think someone who was so immersed in what he was immersed in, and who believed so strongly in Islamic fundamentalism, doesn’t just suddenly change his mind and want to become a normal citizen. It’d be nice if he did, but honestly, why would he? He met Osama bin Laden at least 20 times and wrote a letter home to his parents saying that Osama was a “lovely brother”. He joined al-Qaeda of his own accord. He became a supporter of the enemy of Australia, the US, the Western world…. in fact, when you think about it, the rest of the world too. And now he’s suddenly decided that he wants to be an Aussie again.

None of us can claim to know what’s really going on inside his mind, but wouldn’t underground terrorist cells in Australia be already trying to get in contact with him? Maybe they won’t be yet because his phone calls are being monitored. But some are calling for this monitoring to be removed because “existing laws and surveillance techniques would suffice” – a view held by the Australian Democrats according to AAP. I’m sure existing laws allow for increased monitoring when it is warranted. I think it’s warranted.

The Democrats are obviously making this a political issue (see the above linked article) but I hope that the Labor government won’t. Just as the previous government made unpopular controversial decisions in order to protect the public (such as Kevin Andrews with Mohammed Haneef), I hope the current government will continue to put the safety of the Australian people above political popularity.

See also: differing opinions on NEWS.com.au with Lou Fortescue and Ray Chesterton – Does Hicks rate a break? – Update 11/01/2008 7:17PM: the article I linked to seems to no longer exist, and is now replaced by a one sided editorial from Natasha Stott Despoja – I can’t find the original anywhere. Pity, as it was a pretty good argument from both sides.

I’ve decided that I’m missing writing on here enough to warrant venturing, slowly I might add, back into the world of dialup Internet.

I have discovered tonight that once Windows automatic updates start, I can’t actually stop them. And whilst I can try in vain to terminate wuauclt.exe, it can always just start up again seven seconds later (and it seems to make a habit of it). Furthermore, an audio file that I wanted to post here was actually left on my computer at work so I’m attempting to download it.

This all makes browsing a much more frustrating experience, but I guess it gives me more time during page loads to write! (And I’m writing this in Word, by the way, because my blog’s login screen hasn’t loaded yet).

Oh how I remember the world of broadband. I really had forgotten how slow dialup was. Luckily sharing is turned off now – three guys trying to use the one dialup connection wasn’t fun!

So it has been an interesting few weeks, even apart from the Internet not working. I went up to Sydney for the Heart 1032 open day and learnt a lot about how a capital city commercial-like community station is run, and gathered some ideas and inspiration for things I can do at 1WAY FM. I also met Guy Sebastian. I have a photo, but of course I’ll be here for years if I try to upload it, so I won’t do that right now. I also saw Wendy Mathews, Marcia Hines, and the woman who plays Irene Roberts on Home and Away (I can’t remember her name and Google will take too long to search for it).

I’m going up to Sydney again this weekend (I think it’s my second home… I must be up there at least fifteen or so times a year) for Open House’s Christmas party – yep, I can’t get enough of Heart 1032! Having many more resources, coming naturally from being in a bigger market, there is so much to learn from what they’ve done and are doing. So my brushes with fame continue – I will be meeting Jason Stevens, and probably Darlene Zschech as well (I decided to wait out the time for Google to load to check that I’d spelt that right – turns out I had!).

Back to Canberra, and to completely change topic, there has been some interesting news for the ACT Liberals this week. Leader Bill Stefaniak and his deputy Jacqui Burke both stepped down yesterday morning after a week of turmoil in which one party member launched an attack on the leadership of Mr Stefaniak and ended up being dumped – and became an independent. It’s probably good news all around though – Jacqui Burke told me yesterday that the calm that is evident now within the party has really not been seen for three years. That must mean that they’re in a better position now to win the next ACT election in October. I get the vibe that a lot of Canberra doesn’t like Chief Minister Jon Stanhope, and having young blood in place with Zed Seselja may make the Liberals a viable alternative!

Of course, if I had broadband working, I would post the interview that I did with Jacqui yesterday, but I’m really having too much trouble downloading it from work.

Hmm… if I had broadband working I would also be able to post some audio from the Carols by Candlelight in Jerrabomberra last Saturday evening – 1WAY FM broadcasted live from the event, and I managed to grab an interview with Santa of all people! He has really moderned up this year – he turned up in a fire truck (I think his reindeers were too busy getting ready for Christmas Eve), and he’s lost a lot of weight!! His trick, he told me, is to eat lots of vegetables.

I really could write a lot more but I’ve already spent collectively about an hour on the phone tonight to Internode trying to resolve our ongoing connection problems… and there’s other things I could be doing. So until I manage to brave dialup again, or until our Internet actually gets fixed, au revoir!

I am disappointed. The Howard and Costello team played a large part in growing Australia’s economy – they abolished the debt their government inherited from Labor, they took unemployment to a 33 year low, and they had the guts to implement change where it was needed. Yet the majority of Australians decided that they’d prefer a beaming, inexperienced Kevin Rudd to lead us through (at least) the next three years.

But, Australia has decided, and this is what it wants. Howard’s political career is over (prematurely if you ask me) and Costello is going to be an opposition backbencher that we’ll probably never hear from again. That’s how democracy works though, so I’m going to have to accept it!

Right up until the results started coming in last night I was still standing by my earlier prediction that Labor would pick up about 10 seats, 6 or so shy of the amount they needed to easily form government. And it never even entered my mind that John Howard would be defeated in his seat of Bennelong – but now that looks incredibly likely (I will be very surprised if he hangs on to it now, after the 5000 or so postal votes from the seat are counted).

My predictions probably were hampered by wishful thinking. So I turned out to be wrong, and disappointed at the result at the same time!

The biggest issue of this election, aside from the leadership, was undoubtedly WorkChoices. I firmly believe that the attitudes of unions and those who stand by them are uncooperative and unproductive, and it is my dream to see a workplace culture in Australia where each side – both employees and employers – can see the other side’s point of view and can work together for mutually beneficial outcomes. Of course this view comes from the fairly good working life I’ve had – from running my own micro business (although without any employees), from working in management for a small business where the owner of the company was focused on his staff before anything else (bar of course the customers), and now from working in a very small business with a manager who wants decision making to be as far down the line as possible. So I know it’s possible. I know I’ve had it fairly good. And I also know that alot of Australians don’t have it so good at work – they work for the money then go home, back into their normal life, and dread going back to work again. How great it would be if everyone enjoyed their jobs – the employers enjoyed working with the employees and the employees enjoyed working for the employers. If everyone could see what the other person’s situation was like, and could empathise with it, how much more would everyone enjoy their working life, and therefore their life in general?

It’s about being a reasonable person. And of course there are lots of people that are unreasonable, and there probably needs to be laws in place to keep them in check. I think the activities of unions are completely unreasonable, and do nothing but agitate the people on the other end of the bargaining stick which ultimately results in a very sour relationship. It is not very easy to see the other person’s point of view, empathise with them and act reasonably if they’re doing the exact opposite to that.

WorkChoices certainly wasn’t perfect, and it still left room for unscrupulous employers to have the upper hand on their employees. That’s a fault of the employer, not of WorkChoices. The employee is always free to leave their job and find an employer who actually cares about them. So sure, there was probably more WorkChoices could have done. I’m not quite sure how you solve that problem. But the thing was it was a start – it was a big start, which means it’s going to cost a lot of money for business to go back on it (and, hmm, that’s bad for the economy, isn’t it?).

So it will be interesting to see what happens to our workplaces and our economy now. I’ll be watching intently. Now that I’ve had a part in deciding the government of Australia, I’ll be watching them even closer than I have over the last year, and next election… well, I don’t know what it’s going to look like yet. With what I know now though, I am still very disappointed that Costello and Howard weren’t given the opportunity to continue the good work they have done over the last 11 years. But best of luck to the new Rudd-Gillard government.

Joe Hockey, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, was interviewed on Hack, Triple J’s youth current affairs program, on Thursday (listen here). I’ve just been listening to the podcast of it – he was very down to earth, and made some very good points. I wrote a message on his Facebook wall to let him know what I thought.

Since I haven’t been contacted by the AEC yet, I’ll assume that my application for work for this election was unsuccessful, and thus I’m going to start making political comments again. Actually, they don’t really say anything on their site as far as time frames go, so maybe I should make my comments a bit more subliminally just in case they’re still organising themselves? I mean, I can always start refraining from it if I’m offered a position, right? Don’t vote Kevin Rudd.

So, Joe made some good points in the interview.

On unfair dismissal laws he said “we removed the unfair dismissal laws because we found small business was not prepared to take a punt, particularly on young people”. He goes on to say that small business wanted “only people with experience”, and didn’t want to employ people with a “chequered employment history”. Once the Coalition removed unfair dismissal laws for businesses employing less than 100 people, they found employment surge because small business said “we’re going to take a punt on these people; if it doesn’t work out we can get rid of them”! Whereas before… the chance to get into the job was never there!

Joe later said to a caller: “We didn’t remove the unfair dismissal laws from business to make it easier to sack people, we removed them to make it easier to hire people”. Labor obviously doesn’t think so though – by scrapping WorkChoices, they’re going to send the unemployment rate right back up…

Later in the show there was a caller who spoke about a promotion he was offered – to act as a supervisor for a period of time – without being given any real extra remuneration for the extra responsibility. To that, Joe said “if you’re given the chance at a promotion, run for it!” I completely agree – and I think it’s simply a case of attitudes. I cannot comprehend how someone in their right mind would turn down an opportunity to gain more experience and move further along in their career just because they’re not not offered enough money for it. Isn’t that making a mountain out of a molehill? Taking issue with a non issue? It’s asking for money because you believe you’re entitled to it, and when unsuccessful, stubbornly refusing to help the company when it’d be helping yourself too – and it’s simply out of spite!

I’d take the promotion, write down the experience on my resume, and if the company did take a turn for the worse and ended up leaving a sour taste in my mouth, I’d move on to somewhere else where my skills and experience would be appreciated (they’d be worth more if I’d done time in that new position than if I hadn’t).

This is one of the major problems I have with the Labor party – and with their supporters. It’s all about attitude. I know this is a generalisation, but I believe it’s generally true – Labor supporters have a “woe is me” attitude. They want all they’re entitled to, and will stop at nothing to get it – even missing out on a good opportunity for themselves just to “punish” the other side. This is why, at this stage, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to vote Labor. I don’t agree with the attitudes of the working class. Don’t vote Kevin Rudd.