The Irony Party of Australia
Encephalatronicalogical Pamphlet
July 28th 2006
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The Democratic Coincidence
Our attention might be further sharpened by apprehension of the fact that in many eras in history, and in many places in the world today, people elect to power people they have little wish to elect, by virtue of coercion - sometimes by thugs in uniform serving the current controllers of the apparatus of State, or through threatening words on the radio or whispered on the street. Of course there is no comparison between these historical cultures and distant nations and our own sanguine mise en scene. But in light of the rarity and brevity of periods of genuine happy democracy in history we might consider what maintains such a salubrious state of affairs, and, on a more sinister and worrying note, what signs might herald the departure of the good fortune that has thus far so intricately served our nation's interests.
The Australian Labor Party and the Coalition - that agreeable composite of Nationals and the Liberal Party - have exchanged roles in Government and Opposition for decade after decade enjoying the significant majority of the vote across Australia. With certitude and confidence they have led a preposterous - I'm sorry, prosperous - country, without shame or fault, and with the clear conscience that derives from the understanding that their parliamentary Members are the people's chosen champions - paragons of virtue who could never have attained high office but for their overwhelming merit and the people's trust.
Of course there are critics of the Australian political system, which has its venerable roots in the ancient democracy of Athens and the democracies of northern Europe of the last millenium. Some academics and persist in denouncing the Westminster system as unre. Worse, others claim that it is naive to believe Australian democracy is anything other than a depraved farce,that our Federal and State elections have become mere performance, or ritual, the remnants of an attempt at representative Government, that the hundred democracies around the world are in many cases similar to our own - political systems already hollowed out from the inside by parasites who, for a century, have dressed in robes of two colours and shouted at one another in a chamber in a pretence of debate and dissent that has become embarrassingly formulaic and indiscrete.
But every election-time Australians prove these critics and naysayers, these silly detractors ,wrong. Every election the Labor Party and the Coalition find themselves well represented on ballot papers around the country, nominated by an even-handed jury of their peers for this or that seat for the Senate or the House of Representatives. So overwhelming is the improbability that all of these great women and men who have led the nation for the better part of a century have been drawn from only two political parties - two enduring institutions, that here the tenuous reality of the precious coincidence that so ideally preserves this fair and representative country in the happy state it exists today becomes apparent. It scarcely seems possible that there exists two groups, two organisations capable of so consistently producing beings of such sterling worth that they are selected time and again without favour from among the multitude to lead us all.
And yet, unerringly, the Australian people, in their wisdom, have made exactly this choice, at every election for as long as anyone can remember. Their sense is remarkable, for at State and Federal elections time and again their free intuition has led them to elect to Government one of only two political institutions that are ever likely to win enough seats to take office. Every three years the citizens of Australia gladly perform their compulsory duty at the ballot box.
By election time, preferences have already been traded, dead wood dropped, branches stacked, preselections overrulled, fatuous promises made and endlessly reiterated, posters posted, sabotaged and reposted, internal factional deals on prospective ministerial positions are underway, and once voting - the last of the complicated rituals of democratic elections - has been indulged, the count reveals that by the grace of whatever favours our peaceful and contented State, the people have again decided in vast numbers to align themselves without doubt or misdirection with the only two serious contenders, preferring against all others to be represented in Parliament by LibLab - sorry, by the Labor Party or the Liberals and the Nationals in coalition.
In part, it can be said that Australia's political system dictates that the power of two parties are elevated above that of any others in the Parliament. The Westminster system is structured on the basis of a Parliamentary chamber in which two groups of bawling, insensate champions of the people face each other across a long table, by turns outraged, tactful, and smug. Therefore the politics of dichotomy are enshrined, with the result of a democracy with two and only two prominent players. And once entrenched, two particular parties, so established in the roles of Government and Opposition, with the resources that flow from electoral success to hand, and the ability to change the rules and therefore reinforce their power, are not likely to be unseated as long as the Parliament and the Constitution stand.
But this analysis of realpolitik only serves as a further demonstration of the difficulties that must be confronted if ever a nation is to obtain the conditions of a happily functioning democracy, and, consequently, how rare and infrequently it might be imagined it is that such a pleasant State pertains. Even in history, where a claim has been made to a truly equitable and perfectly balanced political system, close investigation reveals this coincidence mythical rather than actual more often than not, and this myth the product of political spin or the invention of a later generation that romanticised the history of the era in question.
Nobody could have foreseen that against all the odds, the temptations to corruption - against all statistical likelihood - that here in Australia, though, a State born not in a war of liberation but with the quiet accord of powerful men, that two particular parties might dominate Australia's political so completely, through a wonderful and intuitive grasp of the public mood, a keen understanding between the citizens' and their leaders, and simply by producing, year after year, the finest possible people to precisely represent and realise the aspirations and will of all Australians in Government.
Those that sneer at the delicate, incredible equilibrium that determines the precise correspondence that exists in Australia as in so few other places between State policy and public will, between seem oblivious to all that they risk. The defenders of Australia's democracy well advised to watch diligently for the dubious type of anti-citizen who might themselves upset the tenuous political balance that has for so long stood our lucky country in such good stead.
Vigilance is demanded, and discipline, lest the difficult rhetoric from anarchists and terrorists prove a portent of Australia's undoing. Our democratic tradition has already suffered of late, as a result of a careless spate of indistinguishability between the major political party LibLab that has significantly affected the credibility of the only two political institutions electable under Australia's Westminster system. The slight but significant variations between the venerable Coalition and the ALP are framed firmly within the dominant Capitalist/Marxist paradigm that have become invisible to younger generations for whom that austere and ossified Umwelt is obsolete.
However, it is to be remembered that only the perception of good representation is threatened for the moment, while the system itself remains stable as long as elections continue, such is the power of democracy in Australia. Only the demise of the Parliament itself can ever break the powerful social contract between LibLab and the commons. In practise, when next at the ballot, responsible Australians will undoubtedly - inexorably - preserve the elusive thread of identical common purpose between citizen and statesman that defines our extraordinary, implausible and democratic fortune. Once again the people will indicate their alignment with either Labor or the Coalition, reaffirming the happy marriage of the public will and that of our representative leaders in all the Australians Parliament and Government of the eight States and Territories and of the Federation.
