BY ROBERT CATTO
They say a week is a long time, in politics.
For those of us who live in Australia or Canada—or if you’re a citizen of both countries, like me—this has been a very long week indeed.
Monday was the Canadian federal election, in which the Liberal Party of Canada pulled off the seemingly impossible and came from almost certain defeat to nearly winning a majority government. And here in Australia (as I write this, on Saturday May 3rd), polls are about 2h from closing in our federal race as well. It’s not nearly as contentious, but potentially just as consequential.
Curiously, and confusingly, the Liberal Party in Australia is the conservative side of the contest, versus the Australian Labor Party on the left. But, as with Canada, the notional monarch of both countries is currently the King of England, for reasons dating back over a hundred years. I’ve had to swear allegiance to him (or his family) a few times, now.
I’ve been living in Australia for almost 12 years, but this is my first time being allowed to participate in the electoral process here, having become a citizen at the end of last year; so at last, I get to actually have an opinion, and a say in what happens to the country.
It’s just that with voting comes hope, and expectations; and the potential for greater disappointment. When I couldn’t affect the outcome, it was harder to feel invested in the process.
But now, I’m part of it all.
So on the one hand, we have a Labor party who’ve been in office for three years, and (some would say) haven’t lived up to the hopes their voters had for them at the time; and on the other hand we have an alternative in the Liberal party who think nuclear power is a pretty neat idea, want to start a Department of Government Efficiency, referred to the national broadcaster as “hate media”, and want to stop government funding for schools teaching “woke ideology”.
I can’t think why that sounds familiar, but there it is.
Voters walk past signs adverting the Labor candidate, and (even more importantly), the availability of Democracy Sausages at this polling location.
The good thing is Australia has had preferential voting since 1918—that is to say, you get to number the candidates in the order you prefer them, so if your first preference gets eliminated, your vote flows automatically to your second choice, and so on until there’s a winner. This video explains it well (but swears a lot in doing so.)
And the even better thing? Is…Democracy Sausage. Somehow, along the way, Australians have turned voting into an event, a fundraiser, and a tradition. The music is pumping, there are around 20 people running a BBQ full time all day, schools get to raise some money, and everyone gets a snack. There’s an entire website devoted to finding the best sausage on election day. There are ongoing debates about proper technique and etiquette—should the sausage go on top of the onions, or the onions on top of the sausage?
Plus, they get to write satirical menus poking fun at the parties along the way…but please don't ask me to explain or translate them, it’s what might be called deep lore.
In a few hours, we’ll know how it turned out. And we’ll have to figure out what that means, and how to live within the country we’ve chosen.
But maybe the one thing we can all agree on is just this: Feel Good Bananas. If I’d known about that party before I voted—well, maybe? (After all, my vote could flow to my next preference if the banana didn’t get enough votes...!)
[Footnote: the conservative leader, described as “delulu with no solulu” by his opponent, didn’t win; and like the Canadian conservative leader, he lost his seat. Meanwhile, Labor appear to have taken their largest victory since World War II, in a country where no leader has won re-election in almost 20 years.]
