A Nation Dodges a Bullet
Waking up after the election on Saturday I felt a mixture of relief and ecstasy. A terrible black cloud that was threatening the country had been turned back and the sun was shining brightly.
There are elections and elections but this one was particularly significant given our recent history. The prospect of the same meanness that propelled us to reject the Voice becoming the new “Australian Way” was too terrible to contemplate. Could we really be that ungenerous as a people? Could our treasured ethos of “mateship” become the exclusive preserve of only privileged, old, white men and their squawking cheer squad? Could the Australia that overwhelmingly supported Marriage Equality embrace bigotry in all its terrible forms?
It wasn’t just about Labor being returned to office. It wasn’t just about my side winning. The Australia that we love, a wonderful mix of cultures, embracing diversity and inclusivity, had spoken loudly and clearly. It had looked at future possibilities and decided it wasn’t going backwards.
The most telling aspect about this election result is that the tropes spruiked by a vociferous minority who wielded way too much influence
have been torn up and tossed in the bin, once and for all. The sheer scale of Labor’s victory across the country points to a nation that has decided that it is going to continue to re-define itself.
Pointedly, it signalled to First Nations Australians that not only do we recognise you but embrace you and your culture. Your flag will be flown proudly as acknowledgment that we are on your Land and we will do what we can to improve the dreadful conditions that many of you find yourselves living in. This was an election won by Gen Z and the Millennials, Australians who have grown up with the First Nations flag flying proudly in their playgrounds. They have been taught about the fact that they share this Land with people who have a continuous living history of occupation of it for over 65,000 years. They are proud to learn of First Nations history and to embrace it. They don’t see themselves as beholden to the colonisers. Or anyone else.
Roughly a third of these generations have parents who were born in a wide range of non-English speaking cultures. They are at the forefront of forging a new Australia, one that is decidedly non-Anglo Saxon in terms of cultural history. The fact they have come out in such extraordinary numbers and voted for a government that promises to include and respect them points to a bright future for this country. It is exciting.
For once and for all, it has been made abundantly clear to our rulers that the vast majority of Australians recognize the challenges of Climate Change and are demanding we do something about it. Relegated to the dustbin of history are the ludicrous and hysterical claims that, for instance, offshore wind farms will threaten the existence of whales and all sorts of birdlife. (There is a delicious irony in the fact that those who mocked the Save the Whales movement attempted to mount an argument that wind farms are threatening the very whales they once wanted to catch and kill). The idea that solar panels will somehow affect wool production has been given the short shrift it deserved. There is ludicrous and there is ludicrous and the thought that we might embrace these absurdities has happily been flushed down the dunny once and for all.
Never again will this country be exclusively run by men. Women of all ages have made that abundantly clear, and it is a wonderful prospect. What these generations take for granted in the playground will be taken for granted in the wider community. This is well and truly the end of the Old Boys Club and that’s a bloody good thing.
There are obviously challenges, many of them involve re-thinking some of the policies that have unfairly favoured my generation and made life a lot harder for youngers ones That’s not impossible to achieve. We have demonstrated that we can throw off the shackles of the past and forge a more equitable, independently minded society.
That’s exactly the challenge we have embraced as a community with this election and it’s wonderful.