In the conurbation that is South East Queensland, most of the towns that have been consumed by population growth still have their agricultural show. The Ipswich Show was held last weekend. Apart from all the ‘fun of the fair’ that you would expect most local politicians were represented by stalls in the exhibitions area, where they or their willing helpers were handing out brightly coloured bags to all comers with the usual pens, notepads and publicity brochures that is customary. The Federal Member for Blair Shayne Neumann was no different – although he was seen on national television coverage performing the ‘obligatory nodding head’ role to the best of his ability behind Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles’ Ipswich media scrum last Friday.
The contents of Neumann’s ‘showbag’ were pretty typical apart from one item. In a very ‘unALP’ green and teal themed brochure adorned with Neumann’s face there are contact details, his life story (both before and during politics) and a description of the electorate. So far that’s all pretty unsurprising, but that’s not all. Unfold the brochure and it describes our Federal Parliamentary System and Neumann’s work within the system on an A3 page. The sections on the page are “How I became a Member of Parliament”, “What I do in Parliament”, What I do in my electorate” and “My working hours”.
The Parliamentary Education Office is credited with assisting Neumann is production of this brochure and while Neumann is a Government MP, it’s highly likely that other Federal MP’s and Senators from across the Parliament have similar brochures in their ‘showbags’. And why not, the brochure very clearly and simply describes in a general way why we have politicians going to the respective Parliament Houses, how they help the community and the hours they work (which would be considered to be excessive in most other industries). While the idea is clearly a response to the ‘lazy politicians’ themes thrown around by some who should know better, the real issue here is that the brochure is necessary in the first place.
For better or worse we have a democratic system of government where, in theory at least, anyone can aspire to represent their fellow citizens in one of the three levels of government that Australia (and a number of other countries) maintains. There are distinctions around what each level of government manages and it’s doubtful if anyone in Australia could rattle off the lines of responsibility between the levels of government without reference. It’s not realistic to suggest that the contents of Neumann’s brochure and a overview of what each level of government does should be taught in schools as that doesn’t work when students aren’t interested, away that day or a multitude of other reasons including working out what to drop from all the other ‘essential’ material that schools are supposed to teach – as schools can’t teach everything.
You would hope that most Australians of voting age take some interest in the process, maybe not to the stage of regular reading of blogs like this, but they at least know who the Prime Minister, Premier and Mayor of their area are. Obviously there are many that don’t, as demonstrated by Neumann’s brochure. Being a democratic system, there is an expectation that people over a certain age have a vote. In some ways, Australia’s compulsory voting system is clearly superior to the optional voting systems used elsewhere.
For a start, it is extremely difficult the make claims similar to those made by the Trump re-election campaign in 2020 that “truck loads’ of votes were substituted. We know that roughly 95% of eligible voters will vote – if for no other reason than avoiding the fine – it would be very odd for more votes to be counted that could be theoretically cast. If ‘truck loads’ of votes were also removed to make way for the ‘truck loads’ that were brought in, the candidate that organises the fraud risks losing a significant number of ‘legally cast’ votes in the process.
Also in the last week, it was reported that Nigel Farage, one of the leading lights of the UK’s “Brexit’ process finally admitted that it didn’t work, and the promised land of milk and honey was unlikely to occur. Of course, he had pre-prepared reasons (or excuses depending on your point of view) that cast the blame to a multitude of sources that were not his ‘fault’. In Farage’s view, Brexit had nothing to do with a campaign by self-appointed conservatives that claimed they would make Britain great again (sound familiar) if it isolated from the rest of Europe. While there was a vote, a lot of disinterested or those that believed their vote wouldn’t count stayed away. As a result, Brexit occurred.
The problem the UK has now is that the regulation and subsides that have been shown to be essential to the economy have now ceased and trucks are queued up on each side of the British border waiting for customs clearance to proceed. Large global manufacturers are planning on leaving the UK in droves as it is too hard to get materials into the country and the manufactured goods out. Migration is higher than prior to Brexit as no one in Britain wanted to do the dirty and unskilled work that was previously done predominately by eastern Europeans who could enter and leave the country as they chose.
We too have our politicians that exist based on the votes of the ‘can’t be bothereds’. These people heed the advice of those in the media taking a swipe at the ‘gumment’ while knowing they will never be accountable for the ratbag promises they make. Neumann’s brochure is a positive step towards countering the disinformation but there needs to be more done to demonstrate to everyone that the system is important, how they can play a role and exert their influence. In Australia anyway, there is no such thing as a wasted vote.
The alternative is Trump’s America or Brexit – and we don’t want to go there.
[textblock style=”7″]
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
[/textblock]
Neumann has taken a stand against Australian apathy to politics, realising that the world is run by those who turn up and that if voters do not look after their own interests then some corporate executive will certainly claim a government subsidy to use the funds.
.
Thank you for the update identifying the final demise of England as a major trading country. Brexit has proved to be the economic disaster thinking persons predicted it would be.
All the information in Neumann’s brochure should be a standard and mandatory element of our education system, public, private, homeschool, whatever.
Would be great if it was worldwide, but there are too many places we know that would never happen; a lot of pollies like ’em as ignorant as possible.
They don’t teach young’ns to swim either, and yet it’s very easy for them to drown.
Politics and the system, and voting is fundamental to life in a democracy, yet so many attack it or at least are ambivalent. It’s called laziness and apathy. Perhaps they would like a totalitarian autocracy, or one of its many cousins.
One would think that teaching, at least the fundamentals, would be mandatory around years 6 to 7.
It would be a great alternative to embedding bling in the community.
In the 1950’s, we were taught how democracy works including the preferential voting system in year 9, the last year of Primary school.
In those days, before we understood the theory of education as practised by the Americans, everyone had nine primary school years of the three R’s, a sound grounding in the history of England, at least up until 1788 then a couple of years on the history of Australia and a couple of years on the geography of most countries of the world, particularly the Commonwealth countries.
All of this was examinable in a final exam, the Scholarship. Success in this exam could be used to get jobs & apprenticeships or receive a free education in State High Schools. (the rich kids, of course, went to private schools whether they’d passed Scholarship or not)
A high proportion of kids left after primary school at age 14 but they had received a good basic education. Of those that went on to high school (where private schools outnumbered State Schools probably better than 2;1 in those days, 80% left after Grade 10 ( average age 15 ) and only 4% of each year’s cohort went to university, in Queensland at least.
BUT, we learned the multiplication tables by rote and writing skills were developed using copy books and good spelling was encouraged and good discipline enforced with a cane if necessary. So shock/horror:boo/hiss to the fuddy duddys of old: I’m sure it was a couple of high school kids that landed men on the moon?
@Geoff Andrews – While your education seems to have served you well, however there are differences in the world that you (and I) grew up in and the world today. Some years ago when my daughter entered high school the (very well respected) Principal started his welcome to new parents speech with comments along the lines of Primary School is where they are supposed to teach your children to read and write, we teach your children to think. The reason we teach them to think is that in 30 years time most of them will be doing jobs that haven’t been invented yet.
And he’s right – when I left school, I had a ‘job for life’ according to my grandmother. When I was retrenched a decade and a half later, I started working in the area I work in now – which wasn’t considered a specialist area of employment when I left school. You can now get a degree in the field! While rote learning and copy books were a means to an end, today its far more important to be able to research and find the information you need to successfully complete the job that wasn’t invented when you left school.
@Clakka – most schools in Queensland DO teach kids to swim (as far back as when I was in Primary School) – if necessary by bussing them to the nearest school with a pool if they don’t have one themselves.
The show bag should be a gov release of all politititians activities each month.
With public access to all meetings where when how long and who with, the risk of corruption is greatly diminished.