Big Ted

Two days ago, Liberal leader Ted Ballieu had his official Victorian Election Campaign launch at the Melbourne Convention Centre.

Meanwhile, across town in Richmond, the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) were letterboxing the neighbourhoood my girlfriend lives in with an information pamphlet highlighting the shortcomings in Victoria's public transport system.

And, at the same time, Felix Lerbier learns there are more links in his brain than atoms in the universe.



What do these seemingly unrelated events have in common? Well, if you exclude the last one, plenty.

We'll start with Big Ted.

Ted 'Law and Order' Baillieu made a lengthy speech at his launch in which he sought to highlight what he saw as the Labor Governments failings. These are familiar to most people who have paid any attention to the recent campaign (or, more accurately, anyone who's been anywhere near Victoria in the past decade). Victoria's problems then, through the eyes of Big Ted:

- Failings in the public transport system.
- Failings and associated scandals in the health system.
- Out of control street violence and rising crime rates.

Big Ted made it clear that these would be the things he’d be banging on about from now until polling day and, from his demeanour, it also appeared that he may think these three issues are enough for voters to tip the Government out.

But this is only one part of the equation for an Opposition leader at election time. Having identified what he felt was wrong with things, it was then up to Big Ted to outline how he’d go about tackling these problems if he were in charge. We return to his speach then, with actions and policies added to the previously outlined problems:

- Failings in the Public Transport System: Nothing
- Failings and associated scandals in the health system: Nothing
- Out of control street violence and rising crime rates: MORE POLICE, MORE JAILS AND LONGER SENTENCES!!!

That last bit said as loudly as possible to try and distract people from the whole lotta nothing in the top half.

So having droned on for some time about the woes of Victoria’s public transport system, and so having got most of his listeners on side, Big Ted then proposed to do sweet fuck all to address the problem. By which I mean, he proposed buying seven new trains in his first term as Premier (and about 14 million more if he’s then re-elected at some distant future time) and building two new train stations. And by doing so he performed the previously unthinkable trick of making the Government’s ludicrously inadequate and much derided transport plan look meaty and visionary.

I mean, seven trains? Sweet Jesus, what on earth was he thinking? A statement from the transport department the following day said that this was about the number of trains that they'd retire in the next Government's four year term, so we’d probably end up with exactly the same number of trains rolling around, if not less.

And this, tragically, is what brings us full circle and back to the PTUA and their well meaning flyers.

The flyers themselves were admirably non partisan in that, after highlighting some of the public transport system’s shortcomings, it went on to ask people to consider public transport as an issue when they were deciding who to vote for. Not to support Labor over Liberal or Liberal over Labor, but to look at each parties policies and work out who would do the most on this neglected issue, Make your vote count! That type of thing.

But admirable though this is, the reality for the people of Victoria is that they’re not being offered much of a choice by any of the prinicpal contenders in this election. Labor are offering up the same expensively advertised but woefully inadequate Transport Plan that they’ve been hawking to no enthusiasm for several years and the Liberal Opposition are offering us 7 fucking trains. And this is not even mentioning the Greens, who have come up with a well meaning but unafforable fantasy land uptopia of undergound light rail and new train stations on every corner.

Is there no way to make any progress on this issue? Other, much larger, cities than Melbourne have much better services and have had them for a long time. Yet here, the Government still seems stunned every summer that their trains and trams don't run so well when it’s hot.

Can we not get some experts in? People that have run successful public transport networks in New York or London or Paris? What about the academics at RMIT who study this stuff for a living and relentlessly criticise the current Government’s lack of foresight? Isn't it time we tried something a little different?

Fresh thinking please.

It's Not Easy Being Green

The Australian Greens leader, Bob Brown, can probably relate.

After all, leading a minor party in a Western country that has a two party system (i.e. all of them) can be a tough gig. The major party's suck up all the media time, energy and oxygen, leaving precious few column inches or airtime minutes for you and your party to try and get your pitch to the electorate out. What media attention you do get is often unwanted, as it's along the 'These nutty freaks want to give ecstasy to our school children' type of slanderish media beat up.

Which is a shame. Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott having both decided to campaign with empty slogans and trivial promises, a la Kang and Kodos in the 'Treehouse of Horror VII' ep of the Simpsons:

kang and kodos
Uploaded by Paul Kelly Academy

there ought to be plenty of space available for other ideas.

So into this policy free zone come the Greens, who had their campaign launch last weekend. A brief smaple of their announced policies to date:

DENTICARE: Modelled on Medicare, the idea is to provide a cheap, universal dental care system across the whole country. Most people with any experience of trying to get dental work done know that it is either ridiculously expensive (private care) or subject to ridiculously long waiting lists (public). The effect of which is that a fair proportion of Australians just learn to put up with wonky teeth or toothache.

EAST COAST RAIL LINK: The proposal is to build a super fast, hi tech railway link between the major East Coast capital cities; Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Most people with any experience of driving along Deathn Route 1 (AKA the Pacific Highway) or Death Route 2 (AKA the Hume Highway) thant currently link these three cities would agree there’s some merit to this plan. Better for the environment than air travel and thats before we even consider how many people would be employed to build it.

CARBON PRICE: The Greens want a 40% reductionm in Australia’s carbon output below 1990 levels by 2020. Recognising that they have no chance whatsoever in getting this done, they have proposed a more modest alternative, to be negotiated with the enext government; a simple tax on carbon of approximately $20 per tonne, to be kept in place until a more comprehensive cap and trade system can be put in place.

This last one to pay for the first two, among a host of other progressive initiatives (which, if you think the above is a bit too radical for your taste, you’re probably better off not finding out about. Euthenasia anyone?).

Now regardless of whether you agree with these proposals or not, it has to be admitted that they are bold, constrcutive ideas with a bit of vision attached to them. Compare these ideas to what the major parties have come up with, policy wise, so far in this election. Summarised here:

COALITION: A solemn, weighty, heartfelt promise to ease the tax burden on Australia’s business sector by reducing the corporate tax rate by 1.5%. And a solemn, weighty, heartfelt promise to produce a paid parental leave scheme by inccreasing the corporate tax rate by 1.5%. And, oh yes, turning around the few hundred hapless refugees who wash up here each year and leaving them to drown at sea.

LABOR: An absolute rock solid committment to prevaricate and obfuscate and procrastinate and do as little as possible in any sector, other than copy the policies of the Rudd government. A Government so bad that Rudd himself was replaced before he could even afce the electorate. And, oh yes, copying the Liberals on refugees, population, environment and any other major issue that frightens people in outer metropolitan areas.

Even giving a short paragraph each is probably overstating the amount of content in the major party's policy positions. What they've announced to date has been little more than fiddling at the margins, subtle tweakings to to a society that they've obviously both decided is already A-Ok.

But despite being almost devoid of content, these Labor and Liberal policies will be subject to thousands of words of analysis in the printed media and thousands of hours of discussion on radio and television, as earnest talking heads sift through the details and try and work out if there are any actual differences between them. In the meantime, better, more foward thinking, more interesting policies from the minor parties, the Greens being just one among many, will whither and die on the floor of the rainforest, starved of sunlight and rain by the tall trees around them.

To quote 'Citizen Kang' again:

Kang: It's a two party system! You have to vote for one of us!
Man: He's right, this is a two-party system.
Man 2: Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.
Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away.

Which us back to the beginning; whether you’re a small plant in the Amazon, or a muppet frog in the swamp or a geeky looking guy in the Asustralian Senate, it ain’t easy being green.