Editorial opinion

On Saturday we go to the polls to cast a vote in the federal election. A new government will come into being or the old one stay. This is supposed to be the centre of political life in Australia. It isn’t. The centre is our everyday lives and our interactions with family and friends, out time and work and out of it. Here is where, especially when many of us act together, where we have a real voice and change the world about us.

The political system is Australia is seriously flawed. Its democratic nature is limited because it isn’t the seat of political power. This is shared with other institutions of the state, big business, and the monopolised media. The normal is that a lot of money and patronage are the keys to any electoral outcome, and that this is a source of widespread hard and soft corruption.

Image by Ben Sanders/The Guardian

Despite all of this, this election is more important than most.

By understanding this we can better deal with the context of this election. It takes place in circumstances where the gulf between the capacity of the political system to meet the needs of society has been so marked for a very long time. This is a failure that is feeding widespread disillusion with the electoral process, the parliamentary system, and those who operate in government and related institutions.

The worst outcome would be a Coalition win. But a Labor victory will do little to change anything on its own. Who should people vote for? It depends on the electorate. Overall, the need is to deliver a clear message to the major parties, while putting the Liberals last. A Coalition government will be the worst outcome.

A Labor victory will deliver little. This is a time for strategic voting, and the best way to achieve this is to favour the rising third force of the Greens and independents.

Consider the current election campaigns, where the major parties have shown few significant differences when it comes to matters like economic policy, health, education, protection of our rights, the environment. There is our problematic relationship with the United States, and support of its drive to war, facilitating Israel’s holocaust brought on the people of Gaza, the escalating tariff war, ultimately targeted against China. And what about the nuclear submarines, where Australia pays $368 billion, even though they probably even be delivered. There is a broad consensus on these issues. None of them are in the interest of Australia.

Besides this consensus, there is agreement to blot out and not talk about certain key subjects, such as climate policy, the ongoing cost of living crisis, income support for those in need, a fairer distribution of the nation’s wealth, or dealing with the reality of the decline of the west and the rise of the rest of the world in foreign affairs.

Where are there genuine policies for government intervention to rebuild the economy on a fairer and sustainable foundation? They don’t exist.

The truth is that the major parties continue to stick to neoliberalism, the ideology that everything depends on making the big investors happy, handing them over billions of taxpayers’ money, redistributing income upwards, and diminishing the government’s role. Thid approach ha failed in practice, and almost everyone realises this, because they live in the real world and not the make belief one peddled by the few.

Illusion is starting because we are living in a time of rapid change, characterised by a slow economic and political decline. A succession of governments, of either persuasion, have been a big part of the problem.

The outcome is the growing vote against Labour and the Coalition, especially the Liberal Party. Last time, the winner at the polls was that party threat experienced the smaller fall in their vote. This coming Saturday will be the same. Votes going to the Greens, minor parties, and independents, are expected to increase. The rigged distribution system will continue to ensure the number of seats gained won’t tally with the percentage of the vote cast for political parties, and the final count will not the will of the electorate.

These limitations will not cancel out the positive effect of neither major parties getting a majority primary vote and the forcing of a minority government or a new form of coalition. An outcome that will display the gulf between the business-as-usual form of politics and the rising aspirations of properly reflect Australia.

An outcome that will draw attention to the failure of the political system and those who operate in it, and heralding the stirrings of a political awakening, demanding a political system that meets the genuine needs of society, through the rise of a new form of politics. One based on people power, as the alternative to the failures of today.

This might sound far-fetched today. The conditions for change are maturing though, and every journey requires the nest step to move forward.