"I was born in a lucky country"
- Paul Kelly, Little Kings, 1998
"Finally the tables are starting to turn"
- Tracy Chapman, Talkin' Bout a Revolution, 1988
Spoke too soon about the dental work. Dentist is now in hospital. Hopefully for him, and for me, he gets well soon.
On Saturday I was bolt upright quite early, and tripped off to vote well before the clock reached double figures.
This is the first time I've voted in Tasnarnia, and I had to choose a booth. Luckily on Friday Breakfast listeners called in to compare what optional extras their respective booths had to offer, so I chose a local school which spruiked a fundraising cake and plant stall.
Voting! How exciting! My heart swelled as I stood in the cardboard cubicle and filled in all the numbers, including below the line (a much shorter affair here than in NSW).
What a privilege we have to actually make a choice. We whinge for a whole three years, and at the end of it we get to have our say. In fact, we can head out to vote thinking of candidates and cake stalls rather than whether we'll be threatened at the polling booths or dodging bullets on the way home; we can whinge year after year out loud on the street or on talkback radio, and not worry about jail or whether a member of our family won't come home tonight. As my Mum used to lecture me, for all the faults Australians have (and there are many) we do truly have political freedom. It may sound pretty weird, but I was overflowing with love for that political freedom on that fine sunny Slobart Saturday morning. I haven't been so excited in ages.
And on Saturday night as a few of us gathered in the shoebox on the hill and fired up multitudinous media for a little 'political party' (dress code: op shop tie) and we watched seats from Bass to Bennelong come down to the wire, I thought all over again about how much every person's vote counts.
Every person's vote counts: I thought it as we tried to figure out why the numbers on the ABC TV graphic didn't match those on the ABC website. I thought it as they cheered in the tally room, as Kerry O'Brien snapped he wished they'd shut UP!, and we cheered in the loungeroom of my shoebox. I thought it as we cheered on the phone to various long-distance friends at their various parties (on the menu at Grandmaster B's: porkbarrel ribs...). I thought it as one talented guest at the shoebox grabbed the guitar and began playing a Tracy Chapman anthem. I thought it as we opened our ??th bottle of wine at approximately 2am (though things were getting a bit fuzzy by then).Oh the humanity, with first the concession and then the victory speech. (Oh the humanity when I surveyed the dishes the next morning. Why didn't I just order pizza?)
But sore heads, housework and all, it was an honour and a privilege to wield a pencil for democracy. And for once, I got my way.
"I'm still wasting my time
Trying to give it to you
Still I try, to hold on for better days"
- Farryl Purkiss, Better Days, 2007
4 comments:
I like the changing banner pix!
You like? I am pleased. There's more to come. You'll never believe it, I've actually sold 2 photos in the past few weeks...
My favourite quote about the difference between 1996 and 2007 was this...
In 1996 people were waiting with baseball bats to bash keating.
In 2007 people were just sharpening their pencils for howard.
Yeah, I was refreshing the ABC website every five minutes to see the votes come in, and it was definitely half an hour ahead of the tv coverage. Perhaps there are more computers in the way before the numbers get on tv?
But anyhow, it was a good day. It restored my confidence in the masses. No, wait - it tempered my loathing for the masses. That's the way to put it.
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