Australia-Japan 2+2: opportunity lost?

Australia and Japan and what might have been

The photos from Tokyo that streamed through my twitter feed yesterday have inspired this brief preliminary response to the Australia-Japan 2+2 meeting between the foreign and defence ministers of both countries. As a long-time observer, an active one at that, of the Australia-Japan relationship, yesterday's meeting and subsequent press conference marks a shift in the relationship and the Asia-Pacific security environment. In short, did it have to be so?

The full set of photos can be found here on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website. But two that struck me as interesting for their symbolism included these:

Source: DFAT

Source: DFAT

Now, a disclaimer is required before we proceed. I am not a part of the Australia-Japan establishment, I have missed that boat and work somewhat independently of the groupthink in operation there. I have looked on with concern as the security relationship has developed in this way. And, it should be noted, I am currently completing a manuscript on the East Asia security community...a concept premised on the ending of war, not the enabling of it.  I am a supporter of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution and the groups which aim to maintain its integrity.

These developments in the Australia-Japan relationship come at a time when a robust nationalist agenda is being pressed on both sides. In a way, it is an agreement for the times and the Australian government's actions will go a long way towards legitimising Japan's strengthening of its 'collective self-defence' aspirations in the region. It is the (almost) culmination of developments building since the 1990s when I recall the then Foreign Minister declaring that Australia supports Japan's incremental shift to a stronger defence posture.

Much commentary will pass on the 'positives' of this development. There will be a lot said about Japan emerging finally as a 'normal nation'. I discuss this in more depth in my forthcoming book. But as one whose work has been driven to find ways to strengthen cooperation and end war, I am concerned that, having reached the aphoristic fork in the road, we may have chosen the wrong path. 

Since 1946, or more properly 1947 with the promulgation of the new Constitution, Japan has been a nation which might have pursued a truly peaceful path. Article 9 in its original intention, might have held to that. I have suggested elsewhere that we might imagine a world where all constitutions included the equivalent of Article 9. But as students of Japan, we are aware that the interpretation of that Article has been stretched and stretched until breaking point. Each year I teach Japanese politics and each year I tell the students I don't think it can be stretched any further...each and every year. I think I need to change my description. 'It's broke, we need to fix it'.

In Japan, the present prime minister is seeking support to virtually dismiss the legitimacy of Article 9. Although Japan's Constitution, like Australia's, includes an article that does require a national referendum to seek amendment, there are moves afoot to circumvent this process. That is not surprising since any number of opinion polls do not support wholesale change to the intent of Article 9. The declaration of support from the Australian government in the last day or so will help Prime Minister Abe's cause.

I sometimes worry that history seems to be the preserve of academics and interested observers these days. The shift in the development of this element of the Australia-Japan relationship has been incremental and, for the most part, has been cheered on as a positive development. It is also done, it should be remembered, in the shadow of the overarching US security network. It might be different, under other circumstances. 

I am presently immersed in researching the development of the Australia-Japan relationship dating back to the 1890s, as Japan was an emerging nation, Australia a collection of colonies. I'm viewing the 'softly, softly' steps of the 1890s and drawing some interesting parallels in the 2010s. If we are to learn from history, we can seriously reflect on our past, in order to determine the steps we want to take for the future. 

International cooperation is necessary. It is where and how you choose to direct that cooperation that matters. Japan and Australia in their joint cooperation in the 1980s and 1990s in aid and development assistance, the precursors to a model of 'human security', for example, proffered 'another way' for international roles and actions. We've stepped back from innovation  and originality in international cooperation and fallen for realpolitik orthodoxy. A shame, it was promising while it lasted. 

One more photo doing the rounds in my Japanese twitter timeline really summed up what might be possible, if leaders were courageous: 

Tokyo Shimbun 'Desk Memo'

Essentially, it says that people, win or lose war, will bear grudges; whether through invasion or self-defence. Any country that has the time to argue for constitutional interpretation to allow war, could also have the diplomatic strength to be a country that can avoid war. Of course, these are sentiments that can be interpreted several ways, but let's face it, it takes more courage to stand up and prevent war, rather than ease its passage. 

I continue to write, in hope. And there will be further posts.

The joint media release can be found here in English (DFAT, Australia) and the Japanese one will be posted here shortly when available (MoFA, Japan).

Thinking, thinking 1.1

Future Tension in Past/present tense: Thoughts on the way to a posthumous memoir

In May 2014, I put pen to paper finally after mulling for some months, some years. For most of this year I have been out of the classroom. I was ‘owed’ some non-teaching time. I have three months to produce research outputs in order to maintain my position. In the second half of 2014, I will be taking long service leave, the first such time I’ve been in a job long enough to earn long service stripes. I will probably continue to write (I may visit Finland briefly).

I am a retiring academic. Or I am being retired. Basically, having reached fifty at the end of 2013, my race is run, I am no longer a bright young thing; I shall not qualify for ‘early-career research’ advantages. Indeed, given my research, I am no longer considered a research prospect. What I do is not worth supporting according to the researcher zeitgeist which determines these things.

What do I do? I teach, think and research in the area of northeast Asian security but not in ways that generate dollars, or yen. I think and I write about why it is human beings continue to make decisions about going to war. Those who fight—who do the actual combat— and return, it seems are overwhelmed by war’s futility. I’m trying to nut out that problem.

As these posts unfold, I shall discuss the ways and means I arrived at these questions. For many years now, my work has been about politics in all its dimensions. I find it a compelling and intriguing way to ask ourselves the big questions about life, the human condition and the universe. I’ve decided to put it all down now because I have reached a point I feel I must.

My thinking is influenced by many. In recent times, I’ve reached settlement on four key people: Immanuel Kant, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag and Hannah Arendt. These four are at the centre of a complex web of contributors however and over time, many other will appear in this two-dimensional stage play. My key themes are politics and education, thinking and political philosophy. The boundaries are very porous though and aspects of my other lives will weave their respective ways in and out of the main road. These might include, but not be limited to, music, art, photography, sport, politics (oops, mentioned that already), friends, life and death.

But to order the work in some way, I have opted to mimic the collection of essays by Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future. The essays in the volume she wrote are exercises in thinking and ‘their only aim is to gain experience in how to think’ (BPF, 14).

Arendt’s eight essays by and large resonate today and I have decided to follow most of these, but with perhaps a modern refurbishment. Most of these essays, as I read them, could have been written today. For me, this is one of the questions I keep returning to as I take a more philosophical route in my research…why do we continue to ask the same questions and seek the same answers…years, decades, centuries later? From the table of contents, her titles are:

Preface: The Gap Between Past and Future

1.     Tradition and the Modern Age

2.     The Concept of History: Ancient and Modern

3.     What is Authority?

4.     What is Freedom?

5.     The Crisis in Education

6.     The Crisis in Culture: Its Social and Political Significance

7.     Truth and Politics

8.     The Conquest of Space and the Stature of Man

Arendt was a German/Jewish émigré in the United States having left European world war two began to emerge. My circumstances couldn’t be more different. I am Australian, I sit here in a Brisbane suburb having lived a reasonably fortunate life. And yet, I have been most affected by the very questions Arendt asked in her later years…these posts will be my responses.

From the point of view of 21^st century Australia and the so-called Asian Century, I think I can address these broad topics as well. What follows will certainly be prognostications on History, Authority, Freedom, Education, Culture, Truth and Politics. Rather than Space, however, I think I need to think about War/Peace…I’m not sure if I will have a Modern Age to describe by the end…we shall see.

This is a slight change of direction for this blog, or perhaps this is where this blog was always going to go. Perhaps, in 2015, it will be a book. It will not rate at all next to the magnitude of Arendt’s works but it will nonetheless, be an exercise in practicing thinking, and I hope she might appreciate that.

It is the reason why I have sought to tentatively call this set of writings:

Future Tension in Past/present tense: Thoughts on the way to a posthumous memoir

Posthumous only in the sense that having been an ‘academic’, a professional thinker, for some years now, I ought to leave something behind, eventually. I’m not going anywhere just yet, nor will I die with a clean sheet of paper in my typewriter as Arendt allegedly did. One of my favourite little aphorisms in Japanese is the expression

言いたいことありすぎて

‘There are too many things I want to say’

I shall explain this over the next few posts as well. I am at heart, a teacher and writer, challenging the present norm that your value can only be measured by the size of your grant…it’s time I wrote some more.

I am inspired by these writers and thinkers. I do not pretend to be like them. I do not pretend I will have their levels of philosophical sophistication. I just want to say some of the many things I need to say…

Cheers.

...the other 364 days of the year...

Anzac Day, 2014. 

For the Fallen

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Lest We Forget

--from a poem by Laurence Binyon, 

first published in 1914, in The Times

Anzac Day, 2014. And so it is with today, a day where we commemorate the ill-fated landing at Gallipoli in 1915. It involved Australian and New Zealand soldiers. It has come to stand for all Australian (and New Zealand) deployments to theatres of combat, war and peacekeeping operations. Next year will be the centenary. The country is gearing up for a big event next year, here and at Gallipoli. 

Readers of the #project365 blog will know I attended a special live broadcast at the 612 ABC studio yesterday, where Rebecca Levingston co-hosted a special program with Matt Wordsworth. An edited version of the show will go to air on the Queensland 7.30 program this evening (25 April). It was a thought-provoking evening and I've been giving it some thought for most of the day. 

I always have mixed feelings about Anzac Day. I'm in the business of ending war. I teach an area of international relations, security studies, which is underpinned by political philosophy and thinking which questions the validity and necessity of war; even more difficult: it constantly questions the notion that war is inevitable, 'it is human nature'. It is the subject of philosophical questioning since Aristotle was lad. In 'modern' times, it manifests itself in the debate between Thomas Hobbes who wrote Leviathan (1651; and who is characterised as saying war is inevitable) and Immanuel Kant, author of Perpetual Peace (1795). It is where I am engrossed in my research at present...I don't believe it is necessarily 'human nature' that states must go to war. It is a tough argument to make, the alternative is so much easier. Nonetheless...

When I set out on my academic career, I never envisaged working in this area. Japanese politics was my interest and while I had come close to the sensitivities around Japanese and Australian engagement in the Pacific War in the first half of the 1940s, it was not something I felt I could add to with my work.

In the 1980s, during one of my early sojourns in Japan, I had the opportunity to visit Hiroshima Peace Park: the museum as monument to the destruction of the atomic bomb and the iconic dome, the remnants of one of the buildings left behind. I think it has had a major impact on the direction of my work.

Gallipoli veteran from the 75th commemoration

It brings me to the mixed feelings about Anzac Day. Sitting in the studio last night we saw serving defence personnel stating their positions. We saw retired and discharged personnel, stating their contrary and sometimes painfully articulated positions. We saw, overwhelmingly I think, exactly what the 'other 364 days', as the show was subtitled, mean when we take away the hero status, the nationalism, the pride of Anzac Day. This is not a criticism. Although I have my views about the futility of war, I nonetheless respect those who seek to commemorate it in important ways, in ways that matter to them. Indeed, as a community band member, I have played in bands on Anzac Day, whether part of the dawn service, part of the march or the dance band in the sub-branch later in the day...(provided I kept my Japanese-speaking, republican feminist ant-war views to myself (^_^*)...)

Nurses marching, Canberra, 1990

Anzac Day has evolved to become a much bigger commemoration than I remember it growing up. This is a discussion being had in fora across the country at the moment. At school in the 1970s, the senior group each year led a commemoration at the school assembly closest to Anzac Day proper (when the public holiday was always the nearest Monday). I remember watching Vietnam Veterans finally taking their place in Anzac Day marches following their very belated 'welcome home' march in 1987. In 1990, living in Canberra at the time, I went along to the 75th Anniversary service at the Australian War Memorial, the Vietnam Vets there were still feeling awkward, the remaining few Gallipoli vets transported in jeeps. Women too, were finally marching, having their service acknowledged. 

In my years of teaching, I had encountered some returned and retired service personnel who had returned to university to study, many of them veterans of Vietnam, or 'nashos', national service personnel, and occasionally someone who had been on a humanitarian peacekeeping mission. Increasingly, I see in my classes, our new generation of veterans, people in their twenties, returning from service in a futile 'War on Terror', in Afghanistan or Iraq. I hope we we've learnt our Vietnam lessons well and these young men and women do not have ahead of them the experience so many Vietnam vets had. 

Last night, in the ABC studio, it was a mixture of these thoughts running through my mind. 'Why was I there?' as Rebecca asked the question...was some sort of voyeurism I wondered? I've not served. I don't like war. No member of my close family has been involved. I would temper, if I could, the growing nationalist sentiment I see in Anzac commemorations. In the end, it was many things. Yes, I want to continue my work on finding the causes of peace, I'd like to see a mass outbreak of it in fact. I'd like to make war redundant. 

But right now, listening to the stories last night of our returned service personnel, I want, more than most things, to do what I can to acknowledge their service and to value the experiences of those who have been, who subsequently find themselves in my classrooms--those who served, and their families who are also affected on so many levels. Their presence in the classroom changes the dynamic of the discussion when the words in the textbook are lifted off the page by one student who can say she or he was there in Timor, or Iraq or took two tours to Afghanistan. They have seen human nature at its worst, and sometimes, at its best...and in solving the Hobbesian/Kantian puzzle, that's got to count for something. 

As always, it was #ourABC at its very best. Thanks to Rebecca, Matt and everyone who was there. 

'The Life of the Mind'--Reflections on a conference

'The Life of the Mind' -- a book by Hannah Arendt, 

and an encapsulation of why conferences matter.

The expression "political philosophy", which I avoid, is extremely burdened by tradition. When I talk about these things, academically or nonacademically, I always mention that there is a vital tension between philosophy and politics. That is, between man as a thinking being and man as an acting being, there is a tension that does not exist in natural philosophy, for example. Like everyone else, the philosopher can be objective with regard to nature, and when he says what he thinks about it he speaks in the name of all mankind. But he cannot be objective or neutral with regard to politics...

...and...

There is a kind of enmity against all politics in most philosophers, with very few exceptions.

 Kant is an exception. 

Hannah Arendt in a conversation with Gunther Grass, 1964 

in The Last Interview and other Conversations, Melville House Publishing, 2013.

For the second year in a row, I have made the big trip across the seas to attend the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference in Chicago. It was, as you might expect, a bit overwhelming for an Australian used to smaller conferences here (500 participants, 300 papers sort of size) to a conference with approximately 6000 participants, that many papers and posters, spread across five sessions and three and a half days. 

I 'accidentally' ended up at my first MPSA Conference last year following an email invitation to consider presenting. As academics, these days we are inundated with rather spammy email encouragements to attend this or that conference somewhere but this was a little different. After researching a little more about the organisation I decided it was about time I explored these international opportunities. It was a good decision (supported by the fact it meant getting over to Chicago, probably my favourite US city). 

It is encouraging, in a way, to see that political scientists from around the world are dealing with similar challenges with their respective areas of research and indeed, the eternal question of how to engage the general population in what we do on a day-to-day basis. It is incredibly valuable to share our cares and concerns in an international setting. As is often the case, it is the chat over coffee in between sessions that can bear out just as much as the more formal dialogue that goes on in session. 

I teach and research across a range of areas, although I like to think there is a common thread through all. What it does mean is that I have very difficult decisions to make as far as choosing panels to attend. No matter, I think the conference could be held over seven days and you still wouldn't get to attend all you wanted to hear. 

Each evening, I spend an hour deliberating, deciding, wishing I could be in four places at once. I have to split my interests across international security, Northeast Asia, domestic politics and foreign policy of Japan, women in politics, politics and pedagogy, political philosophy, psephology, terrorism...not to mention all those other areas I know next to nothing about, but would like to hear and understand. Sometimes, it is a toss of the coin, knowing that choosing one means missing out on others...at least many of the papers end up on the website, eventually.

So many highlights this year but for me perhaps sitting in on two panels discussing Hannah Arendt, one after the other and across the hallway from each other, summed up for me the richness of this sort of engagement. To meet Arendtian scholars at this stage of my own research and thinking was great. I think one of the participants summed up our feelings best at the end of the second session when she said that perhaps one of the things Arendt wanted to come through in her work is that we would do exactly what we were doing...talking about ideas and politics, how we teach it, how we understand what others were thinking. There was a real sense of carrying on a legacy there in the heart of Palmer House in Chicago, I could almost sense Arendt's presence in the room. It was indeed, a 'life of the mind' moment for me. I came away from there already with encouragement and the germ of an idea for my paper proposal for the 73rd Conference; and it was still only day one. 

With such a spread of papers and sessions, sometimes the audiences an be quite small but it allows for marvellous dialogue. It is an embodiment of quality over quantity I think. 

The other sessions which emboldened me to pursue further research were the panels and roundtables on women in politics. Some very interesting discussions on representation and empowerment which relate to my research on women's representation here in Australia and in Japan...there may be a second paper to contribute there next year too. 

There was a further discussion in which I participated, and that was the status of the blog in the academy. That discussion alone has encouraged me to return to this space, on a more regular basis, and keep on posting. There is a perfectly good opportunity here for political scientists to translate our findings and our understanding to these platforms... and I shall do it more regularly. (That is was in the famous Empire Room of Palmer House added a certain richness...)

I remain fascinated by the very quantitative nature of US political science; in other words, many of the panellists are graduate students presenting various stages of their dissertation work and it is nearly always data, dependent and independent variables, binomial regressions and other things of like type...I can see that it is a dissection of empirical evidence to support various hypotheses. As a qualitative theorist and analyst, I find it quite remarkable. I suspect there is definitely a panel on the differences in research traditions across the world too. 

A further aspect of the conference I really respect is the very sincere and thoughtful commentary that chairs and discussants take the time to convey...something I haven't myself quite caught up with...but I will for next year, I promise myself. Typically, the discussant(s) will have read the presenters' papers very closely and offer valuable critique (mostly) of the presentations. I'd like to see this instituted more systematically at our conferences here in Australia. It gives the audience a platform for discussion too.

For me, the conference is a form of professional development. It allows me to tap into research and issues for our discipline that reading journal articles doesn't quite capture. Many in Chicago were surprised I made the trip from Down Under for a 12 minute presentation and a three and a half day conference. I think, if we are to share and benefit from our work, then it is imperative. 

Last year, I was partially funded by my faculty to attend; this year I paid my own way. Universities demand tangible outcomes to all monies wasted spent on activities such as this. That should be in the form of published, refereed top tier journal articles, or enormous research grants, or similar. That might happen, but it might not. I didn't feel I could take the university's money, not knowing what the result might be. Well, not quite, the results of attending such conferences are indeed intangible too, but that doesn't pay in the short-termism of the present university environment. I know that my teaching is enriched by attendance at international conferences, and that ultimately students benefit from that. It is also valuable to see your own work scrutinised by peers on an international level. I also know that I have reached a point in my research that is going to require some time for the work I am doing now to percolate through the system in the form of articles and a book or two. It was an important point in time to attend, the discussion on Hannah Arendt alone was worth enduring 40 hours of flying in six days. Like so many other aspects of our academic life though, what we might see as professional development and what the corporate university is willing to support as such, is getting further and further apart. It is disappointing...this was so much more valuable than a day of workshopping butcher's paper which is increasingly becoming the PD standard...even for us. 

I hope to return again next year. The organisation, the venue, the city, all resound in a vitality and energy that will keep me engaged and encouraged in my work. 

Thanks to all at MPSA and Palmer House.

The view from here: the Griffith by-election (3.5 in a series, and a full-stop)

...or, what went on in the mind of one voter. 

I did

I'm often asked, in the course of my day job, to 'predict' election outcomes; to interpret the opinion polls ; to tell us what people are thinking. Well, here's a truth: I can't really give any better sense of what people are thinking than the next person. We can estimate, guesstimate, prognosticate and offer possibilities but, when all is said and done, I can't be inside the heads of 97,000 or so potential voters on the day. So really, what will be will be. I shy away from the 'science' part of my political science disciplinary spectrum which seem to find answers to voting behaviours via the sorts of mathematical equations that ought to stay in the pages of my senior high school algebra textbooks. Good luck to my colleagues who do that stuff, their conclusions are always interesting but I just disagree with the path that gets them there. 

The analysis from all quarters after a by-election makes interesting reading. Some muffled grunts in agreement, some eyebrow raising at the wild guessing in the guise of 'authoritative opinion'. The latter often being in inverse proportion to the kilometres away from the actual boundaries of the said electorate. I feel, then, it is my solemn duty as a political observer to try and for you dear reader, a sense of what goes on in the mind of a voter in this critical (not critical), highly (over) analysed by-election. I have lived in this electorate for over twenty years; I was here when Kevin Rudd failed in his first campaign (1996) and I'm here at the end of his era as the member for Griffith. [Whether I remain a 'good burgher' or not will depend on the moniker the new member decides to use.] What follows is not particularly scientific,  and it is rather uncensored. It is no doubt, a variation on one of 80,275* or voters' minds the commentariat were so interested in on the by-election weekend. 

[*in the end, an 82% voter turnout; it compares favourably with the 34% voter turnout for the Tokyo Governor, which also happened on the weekend... #justsayin']

Let's put down a few variables and parameters through which you may choose to refine your lens on my lens on the voting process.

1. I am a swinging voter in that I rarely give one of the two major parties my first preference. I generally opt for a minor party (or independent) first and over time have probably alternated ALP and LPA candidates down the list, fairly evenly. I really don't see a lot of difference between the two once they swap the treasury for the opposition benches, or vice versa.

2. I have, as often as is practicable, voted at the same polling booth at each election and usually at about the same time. This is about as scientific as my voting gets, seeking some order of consistency. (It has mostly been a largely ALP booth during Kevin Rudd's terms.)

3. Partly because it is my job, but mostly because I am interested, I do take note of the material distributed by candidates. 

4. I am a member of a non-aligned union, as part of my professional engagement, the tertiary education union, the NTEU. Views on union participation matter. Bill Glasson made his name as the head of his professional association, the Australian Medical Association; Terri Butler is an employment and industrial relations partner with noted law firm, Maurice Blackburn. Both candidates then, had 'union' credentials, in a way.

5. Regular readers of this blog will know I have followed Kevin Rudd's career quite closely and hold particular views about his skills, management abilities, rhetoric v reality and other matters. Given Mr Rudd triggered the by-election by resigning after he was elected back in September, and I hold strong views about the importance and privilege of being elected to parliament, my vote, in the end, might have been influenced by that.

Tipping point paraphernalia: LNP top, ALP below

Professionally, I was also interested in how voting a second time within a few months might change one's vote: do you vote the same way because it is in effect, a re-run ballot? Do you have a chance to 'change your mind' given the outcome was or wasn't the one you wanted before? (These are particularly interesting questions in the case of the upcoming Western Australian Senate re-run election...so much to think about there.)

The LNP candidate, Dr Bill Glasson, basically picked up from where he left off in his 2013 campaign. His supporters, nicknamed 'Glasson's Gladiators' continued their occupation of street corners each Saturday morning (and with increasing frequency and appearances as the Saturday approached). The Glasson campaign had elements of the 'grassroots' support about it (if local opinion was anything to go by) though with the obvious backing of the party organisation. 

The ALP candidate, lawyer Terri Butler, pitched her campaign as being part of a young working family who understood the situation of many working families in the electorate. I think she did a reasonably good job over the term of the campaign to separate herself to a point from being a 'replacement' Kevin Rudd. 

In total, we again faced 11 candidates to choose from. The Greens ran with Geoff Ebbs again (having, apparently, briefly flirted withe the idea of running Andrew Bartlett). We also had interstate comedian Anthony Ackroyd standing for the Bullet Train Party, I guess to get some publicity (for the party, and himself). People I spoke to, by the way, found this a little too trivialising for the by-election. Maybe the response would have been a little less hostile, in a general election. 

Some of the independents, during the campaign, received some particularly strong profile-rasing coverage, although as the figures show, after the Greens captured their usual third spot with about 10% of the vote, all others hovered above or below the one percent mark. Voters continue to be reluctant to cast their votes outside the major two-party system. 

FIRST PREFERENCES

Polling places Returned: 48 of 48   Enrolment: 97,857   Turnout: 82.03%

Candidate	Party	Votes	%	Swing (%)
LAWRENCE, Timothy	Stable Population Party	666	0.86	+0.67
EBBS, Geoff	The Greens	7,635	9.82	-0.36
WILLIAMS, Christopher	Family First Party	729	0.94	+0.20
BOELE, Karel	Independent	504	0.65	+0.65
ACKROYD, Anthony	Bullet Train For Australia	602	0.77	+0.77
REID, Anne	Secular Party of Australia	424	0.55	+0.04
BUTLER, Terri	Australian Labor Party (Qld)	30,023	38.63	-1.73
THOMAS, Melanie	Pirate Party Australia	1,172	1.51	+1.51
WINDSOR, Travis	Independent	656	0.84	+0.84
SAWYER, Ray	Katter's Australian Party	821	1.06	+0.37
GLASSON, Bill	Liberal National Party (Qld)	34,491	44.38	+2.16
......	Rise Up Australia Party	0	0.00	-0.48
......	Socialist Alliance	0	0.00	-0.44
......	Palmer United Party	0	0.00	-3.36
......	Other	0	0.00	-0.82
FORMAL		77,723	96.82	+1.58
INFORMAL		2,552	3.18	-1.58
TOTAL		80,275	82.03	-11.11

TWO CANDIDATE PREFERRED

Polling Places Returned: 48 of 48   Turnout: 82.03%

Candidate	Party	Votes	Margin	This Election (%)	Last Election (%)	Swing (%)
BUTLER, Terri	ALP	40,229	2,735	51.76	53.01	-1.25
GLASSON, Bill	LNP	37,494	-2,735	48.24	46.99	+1.25

Source: Australian Electoral Commission, 2014.

vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-17552-163.htm

We also note that for the second time, Bill Glasson received the most first preference votes and Terri Butler had to rely on the second preferences. This is a repeat of the September 2013 election where Kevin Rudd, despite a 5% swing against him, was elected on second preferences. 

So then, to the ballot box....

The first thing that struck me was that the rolls were on a laptop, all electronic, perhaps in the wake of higher security demanded after the WA Senate votes problem. We also received, for the first time I can remember, a sticker declaring we've voted (but with no 'ink-dipping' expectation to wear it--see above). The school P&C had their sausage sizzle up and running too, true Australian democratic practice.

It would be fair to say I go to the polling place with a range of things on my mind. Often, I have sorted my first preference but sometimes waver on which way to go with preferences. What struck me about this campaign was that as the campaign proceeded, Bill Glasson seemed to lose his naturalness and became very much a cog in the party machine. This was a change in his 2013 campaigning. It made it harder to be convinced that he could 'stand up' in Canberra as he insisted. Terri Butler seemed to get by with being Terri Butler and not Kevin Rudd. Given the distribution of preferences in the seat, it was probably always going to be hers to lose anyway. 

In the end, I preferenced both major parties down the list. I will tell you, dear reader, that there were changes in campaigning and yes, I did switch the order of preferences for the two main candidates, once I got there. 'Which way?', you ask. Well, I still value the anonymity of the 'secret ballot', so that's all you'll get from me. Ultimately, I was disappointed with the tone of the material which came our way, the photo above being but one example. Neither of the cards, posted to letterboxes, were obvious in their origins and only sad psephies like me looked for the 'authorised by' fine print to pick who was who. Memo to party headquarters: unnecessary tactic thanks. 

And yet, while I probably over-intellectualise the process, for every one of voters like me, I couldn't help but wonder about the other voters in my polling place at that time. The first time voters, people who have come from other countries, perhaps a little perplexed by the process. Or indeed, the woman next to me who struck up a conversation, utterly confused about how many times she had to fill in a paper, her insistence that there were only 10 candidates and why did all the how to vote cards tell her she must vote this way or that... (NB: No vote coaching happened during my polite exchange of explanation with this voter.)

I love my profession. I'm passionate about cultivating an understanding and engagement in our political processes with as many people as possible. I enjoy trying to work out people's motivations, interests, reasons for decisions. I think it is just a far more fuzzy 'science' than we are willing to sometimes admit (it's not the stuff of successful grant applications). It has me pursuing the spectrum of thought, ideas and philosophies down the ages as a means to understand our 'human condition'. And, I've found that unlike our present politicians and their campaign 'advisors' who seem to think the narrowcast bread-and-butter issues and a cultivation of envy and avarice are all that concern voters, digging a little deeper and exploring the ideas that make us who we are are the sorts of things that intrigue us, challenge us and re-engage us in our society.

It's a job, and someone has to do it. 
Cheers.