SEEING RED - THE KATTER AMONGST THE PIGEONS

FERNVALE STATE SCHOOL
 24/3/2012 Val and I labouring on the right for
Wayne Wendt MP/ ALP/  Ipswich West/9.5% margin.

I don't want to talk about it, but it may be therapeutic...


I'm in Mourning; wearing black the day after the metaphorical massacre of all Labor's best and brightest. 
The LNP have reduced Queensland Labor to a rump in Parliament, and executed the potential future leaders like the talented Deputy Premier/Treasurer, Andrew Fraser and Education Minister, Cameron Dick.  
 7 seats max. LNP Conservative CHOAT has taken Ipswich West from Wayne! 
Katter's mob have had their bubble burst but they've got 2 seats in Parliament with 18.86% of the State wide vote. Our 7 opposing 78...
This is Democracy in action Queenslanders style. I have no doubt  Parliament will be a source of  myopic utterances in the years ahead which will be a sensation for the other States like it was for us living in Victoria during the Joh Bjelke Petersen era.


As Paul Keating said at a recent Labor event: the Hayseeds will be in control. 


Our local Member of Parliament Wayne Wendt has been caught in the anti-Labor landslide. 

The new force of puritanical parliamentarians - put together by divinely induced LNP President Bruce McIvor  has finally defeated and decapitated their sworn enemy - the Party who had brought Queensland into the 21st Century over the last 20 years to become a vibrant, better educated, diversified economy with a thriving arts and science culture, preparing the population for adaptation to climate change.

The Conservative team colour is blue in Australia. On Election Day of the 24th March 2012, I wear my bold Red cred so people know I'm Australian Labor Party. I pull up alongside the Fernvale School polling booth ready for my shift.

I am made a fool.

Wayne Wendt's  face is beaming from the sandwich board, so I assume the big fella sat next to it  wearing a red T.Shirt with creased white letters is who I am relieving. I leaned down and  introduced myself, said I was doing the 1pm to 6 shift. He seemed slightly puzzled like he didn't know somebody else was coming in to share the labour. Now closer I read the How To Vote sheets he was holding, then glanced at his chest: He's from Katter's mob!

There are a couple of older women under the shade of a gazebo, one with the clear words of the latest addition to Australia's democracy,  Katter's Australia Party.

"Oh My God!" I turned, horrified, "I've got the wrong side here!" and it finally came clear, "You've got the same outfit as Labor you tricky buggers!"


I laughed it off, but I felt a twit, and was not amused when I had a chance to think about it. Further, Katter's 6ft 10 bulky volunteer had moved to block me from the voters approaching. He pushed  his card first, but didn't name the party he was from!

It was a typical male bullying tactic to use their physical stature against  a woman so it is hard for anybody to see her. Wizened to that bullshit I kept away from him, making sure the people who took our election material knew what they were taking.
Could it have really been a strategy by Bob Katter's team to make  electors confused by making us indistinguishable?

Commentary had been written of the Katter Australian Party platform being reminiscent of the old socialist ALP of the 1950's for it's economic protectionism and anti-environment stances over lobs. The right for dominant males to use the environment to hunt and be superior  on land, sea or sky is God-given.

Proud to bring back that old time religion(as though it had ever gone away), small right-wing parties such as One Nation(Hanson), Family First, DLP and now Katters -  use God and Nationalism to define an identity that most Australians have thankfully liberated themselves from.

As a man in a big cowboy hat the maverick ex-National Party and Independent Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter, dispenses blessings but is clearly homophobic and sexist. The LNP have obviously been unified in keeping quieter on their social prejudices and how that will translate into legislation.

On the whole, our local polling booths are friendly and respectful affairs - being careful not to get into political debates knowing people with political passions are bound to get upset!

For some in the ALP the GREENS provoke a spike of agression, but I'm one of many members who fit comfortably with their environmental and social policies.

I discovered the Greens worker, JOHN was a neighbour and like my husband and I had found a couple of acres and a house in Fernvale around 15 years ago. 

Thrilled to hear he had also improved his 2 acre patch of ex-agricultural land with Australian native shrubs and bushes and rainforest timbers like Red and White Cedars, Blue Quandong and Bunya, Hoop Pines and Black bean. 
We shared our love of being fortunate to live here enjoying the bounty of our orchards and stories of cockatoos pinching our pecans!

SCRUTINEERS

Dave arrived to pack up and take the paraphanalia off the fences and I walked up to the hall with John and witnessed the cutting of the voting boxes so they could be emptied onto the tables to start the sorting.

Scrutineers are nominated by the Candidates to observe the vote count especially if there is an 'informal' vote which might take away a vote from the others! This might mean a ballot paper has been filled in a way that is not clear of the voters intention such as marking a candidate with a cross and another a tick instead of numbering.

Scrutineers can challenge a ballot paper so the electoral officer can judge to accept it. As the papers were placed in a pile for each candidate the first signal of something different occuring was the observation that there was a low number of 'informals' compared to previous elections.

We pondered silently what this might mean. In Australia we have compulsory voting, so if somebody isn't marked off the electoral roll they get sent a fine. Those who don't care or are ignorant about the importance of voting may turn up and write 'Minne Mouse' 'Mickey Mouse' 'bunch of f...ing arse-holes etc etc etc

The LNP and KAP scrutineers knew each other. The big fella (I couldn't be bothered to know his name), seemed optimistic and excited by the process - better than going out to the movies!  Would he doubt his decision to join the man with the oversize hat when for the first time in a long time his side of politics had won?
The  LNP candidate Sean Choat who was on his third try had finally beaten the well-liked local, Wayne Wendt. In fact, the opposition used to taunt the Member for Ipswich West about being a member of the Labor party when he should be with them! The stereotype that because Wayne was an Accountant and employer before he entered Parliament meant his natural affiliation would be with them.

I think about the struggle of the Suffragettes, then I think about Syria suffering immense atrocities because they want to elect their government and hold them accountable. The struggle of Burma Democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the impoverished people; once the richest Asian country before the military dictatorship entrenched itself. 
Looking at the purposefully vandalised votes I was grateful it was only 25 in this election.

Missing from the numbers are also those who refuse to vote on religious grounds. During a local audit of the electoral roll for the Australian Electoral Commission 
 I learned there were some protestant groups like Jehovah's Witness and Seventh Day Adventists who don't vote because their duty to God is higher than their responsibilities to the State. 


Obviously the Australian Tax Office makes sure they get the money for the Government programs they use every day of their lives, but the individuals involved don't want to influence what priorities are decided upon which will have an effect on their lives.


I was thinking about the principle of informed and participatory democracy when I mentioned this at party office it was suggested the exemptions remain because their votes would probably be anti-Labor!


Since joining the ALP in Queensland I have been learning more about the nexus between religion and politics, and it never fails to astound me!

THE BALLOTS ARE COUNTED and unlike 2009 the Fernvale Booth has voted against the ALP.  We party devotees quickly dial our mobile numbers but are met with "No Services available for this number" so I try another number and same again.
Here I am doing a job where communication is vital, and there is a blackspot for Virgin mobile in this hall! I'm informed Vodaphone is the same, but the Booth captain, one of the teachers who always does this job, loans me his mobile so I can inform the collators in Ipswich.


The Scrutineers from the different parties hardly see each other as we pick up our bags and leave after a long day which for many has been since 5am having been setting up the polling booths in their area in the primest positions.


I had seen the previous election count at my local Fernvale booth as an achievement because Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party had got the primary vote there once upon a time!

Bob Katter MP might have bragged he was going to do better than One Nation in the Queensland Parliament, old National party members in the new coalition would be pleased his treachery had come undone that night with only two seats won.

Standing in the doorway of our home T.V. tally room, my husband looked up from Kerry O'Brien and said "It's a ROUT". A banner went across the screen showing Choat had beaten Wendt. 
"He's lost Ipswich West!

I sat down, my feet and legs ached - I felt 50 and wouldn't be able to get off the couch. So early in the night and the commentators were saying it looked like a 15percent swing against us. It wasn't so much about Wayne as a local member of parliament, it was Labor of 20 years - The voters were throwing us out and dumping us. The shock being so many who were prepared to risk the consequences.

There was no way I had the energy to shower and dress and mingle at Wayne's house. All I wanted was my slippers, a cup of tea and medications.

THE ONLY IPSWICH CITY PARLIAMENTARIAN TO RETAIN HER SEAT WAS JO-ANN MILLER in the seat of BUNDAMBA. Showing enormous stamina helping the citizens of Goodna clean up after the floods, Mrs. Miller defied Caucus by being the lone voice against the privatisation of Queensland Rail assets.

Public Transport links

Springfield developer Maha Sinnabathy with Minister for Transport, Annastacia Palaszcuk and Jo-Ann Miller MP - March 2012

THE LAST BIT OF NEWS I WATCH IS  ANNASTACIA PALASZCUK HAS RETAINED THE SEAT OF NEIGBOURING INALA.

 SHE IS THE MOST LIKELY TO BE LEADER OF THE ALP OPPOSITION, IN THE NEW PARLIAMENT.

We are left to seek signs of  direction in the entrails.

As I lay down my weary bones, the Best thing to do now is think of  tomorrow. Eighteenth century Voltaire's conclusion for Candide after the madness and atrocities of  wars and natural disasters was retire and 

CULTIVATE THE GARDEN 

Husband and entertainer, Roy - My Green Man and fellow

ALP member - we reckon our vision of the 

 Red and Green can compliment each other on the Road to re-energising the labour movement with new alliances/coalitions?