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March 20, 2010
After voting 1 Green this morning in the South Australian state election I bought the AFR and browsed it over morning coffee curious to see what the informed commentators from the Canberra Press Gallery were saying about the state elections in Tasmania and South Australia.
Commentary means some kind of analysis over and above the news style reportage from the last day on the hustings that could provide some insight for democratic citizens.
There was such an article. It was entitled "Tempting you to be independent" in the Perspective section of the AFR. It was written by Louse Dodson, Mathew Dunkley and Mark Sculley and they offer their informed insights about the role of independents in Australian politics.
In doing so they comment about the changes under way in Tasmania where the Greens have been the main beneficiary of Labor's dramatic fall in recent months:
In Tasmania, voters could elect Australia's first Greens government and if not, the Greens are likely to determine who leads a minority government, although there is a chance of a majority Liberal government. The result might not be known for some time.
In other words they haven't the slightest idea what will happen in Tasmania and they have little knowledge of what is likely to happen in Tasmania's 5 electorates-- Braddon, Lyons, Franklin, Bass, Dennison. Nor are they interested, as the next 12 paragraphs are about the outcomes in the Senate given the possibility of the Rudd Government calling a double dissolution this year.
They then turn their attention to the political changes happening South Australia and say:
With Labor struggling, independents in South Australia could determine which party runs the state if there is no late swing back to Rann in the election on Saturday. Rann is preparing to down to the wire --mainly because it is tough going for a third term...Negotiating with independents is certainly on the cards for Rann once again in South Australia.
That doesn't tell us what we already know--the swing to the rejuvenated Liberals is such that a demoralised Labor Party now hopes for little more than to hang on as a minority government. It may well just sneak back in depending on how evenly spread the swing to the Liberals is across the suburbs, and so it is the role of the independents in the Legislative Council. There is nothing about this.
Though Dodson, Dunkley and Sculley devote 19 paragraphs to the possible independents in the lower house in South Australia, we do not learn what the independent's policies are, what they want to negotiate about, or what they will stand firm on--ie.,what policy issues on which they cannot compromise without upsetting their base. Nothing. There is even no reference to the history of the various charters of agreement signed by Independents in with minority governments in Tasmania, Victoria, SA, Queensland and NSW.
The inference?There is little point in reading the mainstream press. It is better to go the blogs. They are more informed. In Tasmania they predict an end to 12 years of majority Labor Government and the Greens holding the balance of power.
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Well, they not atypical, the AFR journos.
Adelaide's own Advertiser has squandered several rainforests worth of paper space to discussing every thing to do with the SA election except what the real underlying issue is; the loss of individual and community sovereignty to vested, often absentee interests.
Hence the progressive indies real agendas are not examined, particularly involving a return to community sovereignty, since this would be a tacit acknowledgement that democracy no longer exists in SA, regardless of who wins.