Get off the floor Ozzers, it's time to vote
2:36pm Tuesday, 30th October 2007
So after a month of working and travelling in Australia, I finally find myself back in London. For those of you who don't pay attention to the international pages, Oz is currently in the grip of an election campaign. Kevin Rudd's lacklustre Labour Party is expected to thoroughly trounce John Howard's knackered Liberal/National coalition.
But what struck me most about the campaign was the things that weren't being talked about. Australia's a beautiful country with some excellent state governments, but there's something precarious about the way people live there. Crowded into a few green corners of a desert continent, they build endless sprawling bungalows that eat up more and more of the scarce water supply, burn filthy brown coal for power, and live off an unsustainable mining boom.
It's an approach that secures many working people a quality of life that is unimaginable in the UK, but I was left wondering how long the Australian dream can really last. Of course, Kevin Rudd isn't exactly pushing this as an election issue. He's in a position of strength right now and knows that he'll win if he just plays it safe. But doesn't someone have to ask how Australia can pay its way in the future?
One person you might expect to have answers is the fascinating Peter Garrett, Labour's environment shadow. Garrett used to be the extraordinarily radical lead singer of the band Midnight Oil - the shaven headed guy who performed in front of John Howard wearing a track suit emblazoned with an apology to the aborigines. These days he's a Labour team player, apparently a lot keener on pulp mills and uranium mining than anyone might have guessed.
The question, I suppose, is whether people like Rudd and Garrett are really the mild mannered moderates they're playing as. Is it too much to hope that they're just biding their time before unleashing some quietly radical approaches to climate change and economic growth? At the moment, Rudd's big pitch is a tax cut almost as big as Howard's, but with a couple of billion put aside for a slightly unconvincing 'education revolution'.
Garrett's been pretty silent during the campaign - some would say muzzled. The only way I've managed to hear his voice is by going back to songs like The Power and the Passion. Let's hope things get a little more exciting down under before too long. As Garrett almost put it back in the 80s: 'get off the floor Ozzers, it's time to vote'.
But what struck me most about the campaign was the things that weren't being talked about. Australia's a beautiful country with some excellent state governments, but there's something precarious about the way people live there. Crowded into a few green corners of a desert continent, they build endless sprawling bungalows that eat up more and more of the scarce water supply, burn filthy brown coal for power, and live off an unsustainable mining boom.
It's an approach that secures many working people a quality of life that is unimaginable in the UK, but I was left wondering how long the Australian dream can really last. Of course, Kevin Rudd isn't exactly pushing this as an election issue. He's in a position of strength right now and knows that he'll win if he just plays it safe. But doesn't someone have to ask how Australia can pay its way in the future?
One person you might expect to have answers is the fascinating Peter Garrett, Labour's environment shadow. Garrett used to be the extraordinarily radical lead singer of the band Midnight Oil - the shaven headed guy who performed in front of John Howard wearing a track suit emblazoned with an apology to the aborigines. These days he's a Labour team player, apparently a lot keener on pulp mills and uranium mining than anyone might have guessed.
The question, I suppose, is whether people like Rudd and Garrett are really the mild mannered moderates they're playing as. Is it too much to hope that they're just biding their time before unleashing some quietly radical approaches to climate change and economic growth? At the moment, Rudd's big pitch is a tax cut almost as big as Howard's, but with a couple of billion put aside for a slightly unconvincing 'education revolution'.
Garrett's been pretty silent during the campaign - some would say muzzled. The only way I've managed to hear his voice is by going back to songs like The Power and the Passion. Let's hope things get a little more exciting down under before too long. As Garrett almost put it back in the 80s: 'get off the floor Ozzers, it's time to vote'.
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