Salon des Refusés part 1 ...

 .... in, no doubt, a never ending series. 

Some new things I shall be trying as I branch out and away from academic writing, there will be much rejection I expect. Here is the first, on the theme of 'home'.

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A grain of sand will lead me home

The alarm at 2:35am awoke me at the point at which I was about to eat fish and chips at a Kyoto restaurant (for which I paid ¥2100, a curious detail), after walking with a friend through an underground passage in Hiroshima, bearing the scars of the bomb some 79 years ago... 

The alarm was set for a weekly reading group I participate in in New York, from my ‘home’ in Brisbane. I rarely remember dreams, much less seek to interpret them, and yet—having recently returned to Brisbane after a prolonged sojourn in Japan (my third extended residency), and being inspired to think about what ‘home’ might mean, somehow my subconscious had settled on this complex, and complicated, offering. 

There was a moment on a return trip from Tokyo this year that it struck me, it was just over 40 years since I first flew this route, Brisbane to Tokyo, Tokyo to Brisbane. How many times? Well, I’ve lost count of that. There were many familiar faces among the flight attendants and whereas the flights used to have a few spare seats, in more recent times that has not been the case. Japan is once again a most-favoured travel destination, and suddenly ‘everyone is visiting Japan’. Curiously, I find myself being a little protective about what some of those visitors get up to in what I consider my ‘other’ home.

A mildly peripatetic life does encourage you to think about what home might mean, when it becomes necessary to do so. In social settings in Japan, there is a set piece introductory round where we all introduce ourselves, usually by way of where we were born, where we grew up, where we live now and how we got to be here in the company of esteemed friends and colleagues. There is an expression to facilitate this exchange, ~umare, ~sodachi, (I was) born in ~ and raised in ~. For some, it is a simple Tokyo-umare, Tokyo-sodachi, I was born and raised in Tokyo; others might be born in say, Hokkaido, raised in Osaka, but now call Tokyo home. These opening statements often lubricate subsequent conversations as we dig down into specifics, ‘oh, where in Tokyo’, or ‘I’ve been to Hokkaido too’, it is rather convenient form of social discourse. 

For me, it is always a little more complex. I have to start by saying, well, ‘I’m from Brisbane but I was born in Sydney and grew up on the Gold Coast before heading to Brisbane to study at university—from whence I left to study in Tokyo...’ But not only did I go to study in Tokyo, but each time have I have returned to live there, I keep returning to the same local municipality, Itabashi-ku, the local government district that is ‘home’, that has an enduring familiarity. It is where I return to register my residency status, as required. 

In all that time, I have lived within walking distance of the same train line; I surprise the locals when I say I used to go to the Ohgon sento, the classically-rendered public bath before it burnt down and was refashioned as a smaller public bath with apartments built above it; I recall when the AEON shopping centre (now ubiquitous around Japan), was Saty, and before that an expanse of mixed-use land; remember Kuma Kitchen on the high street? I used to eat lunch there; and that Mister Donut shop on the corner, I may have ducked in once or twice a week back in the mid-1980s, on the way home from work...

The conversations happen as a matter of course, quite naturally. I am not trying to make any particular point but it does give a sense of belonging, and at times, longing. Is ‘home’ where you have ‘history’? 

For me, this is not such a departure from my Brisbane life, if I think about it. In all the years since moving here to study, initially residing in the student village, I really have not moved far from that student accommodation precinct. I tend to shop, even now, at that big shopping centre in Mt Gravatt, and remember when it was half its present size.

‘Are you north or south of the river?’

‘South, always south’. 

I travel a fair bit, but I don’t think I would qualify as a traveller. There is nearly always a work commitment at the end of a plane trip, and besides Tokyo, return trips have included Chicago and Helsinki. Even these cities of temporary transit have their places where I seek the refuge of familiarity. In Chicago it is the bookshops and the music, in Helsinki, the cafes, the coffee and korvapuusti, the famous cinnamon buns. It really had not occurred to me that I had these habits, until someone asked how many places had I been. Plenty of frequent flyer points but not many places really. 

Similarly, in Japan, where people like to tally their visits to all 47 prefectures like a competition, I look back on my regular visits to the same places, time and again, gaining insight, understanding, experience, of a different kind. It might be Ishinomaki, a coastal town in the Tohoku region, devastated by the tsunami in 2011; it might be Chigasaki, on the Shonan coast, just around the corner from the more famous Kamakura, and a lot less self-conscious; at other times, I might return to Hiroshima and surrounds, to remind me why I do what I do. I have not been everywhere, but I am everywhere I have been.

I carry mementoes from many visits around Japan’s regions. Some I bought, some I received. One of particular significance is small, handmade, precious in its simplicity. Given to me by a person displaced by the tsunami in 2011, they had just recently been rehoused in new apartments built over land cleared of tsunami detritus, seven years on. In the interim, they lived in ‘temporary’ housing, small demountables in rows, a bureaucratic and perfunctory response to ‘community-building’. Some added pot-plants at the door, others a wind chime, or garden ornaments, all trying to find a way to express this was ‘home’ in a temporary facility, for how long? Unknown.

The community, smashed by the tsunami, came together in ‘housing’, the barest minimum, for seven years. And then, separated again, they were randomly shuffled into the new accommodation, their new ‘homes’. Some adapted, others just exhausted of the various iterations of ‘home’ they had to contend with over several years. 

That memento holds her story. ‘At 83 now, I can’t make a new home, yet again. I am tired. I can’t make friends again.’ Her neighbour, I had also just spoken too, was on her way to her weekly karaoke session. She apologised and gave me some canned coffee. She was 89. 

I listened transfixed, honouring this woman’s story. ‘I go down to the sand each morning and collect the asari shells and clean them. Then I wrap these kimono remnants around them and stitch them up.’ 

The stitching actually is a beautiful delicate embroidery. 

‘I then attach this little strap, and a bell, for the ancestors. Here, take them, it is all I have now, this is all I can do. I can’t make friends, again’, she repeated, the exhaustion of transitory housing so clear in her voice. Her home was demolished by a freak act of nature, her temporary home, she tried to make, now dismantled across a disused lot several kilometres away. And here, in new, modern sturdy apartments, the will to be homely, yet again, gone. It will simply be a shelter until... she can no longer wander the sand, collecting shells and repurposing them, perhaps with the remnants of what was once her home. A salutary lesson in home and shelter.

After a couple of visits, I ended up with four or five of these precious mementoes, now attached variously to bags or keyrings, even my music stand. Part of what is my home, my memory. I see them, I hear the little bell, I am immediately transported back to Ishinomaki, and wonder how those women are faring, all these years later. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By virtue of my birth and upbringing, the beach, the waves, the ocean, form an integral part of my home imaginary. When in Japan, that place is Chigasaki, south of Tokyo, shadowed by the magnificent Fuji-san. Drawn to its understated body-board culture (the surfboarders congregate a little further along), it is a fishing port mostly, with small huts attached to the boats that ply the waters offshore, returning with their catch of the day, offering surplus to the beachgoers, along with drinks, and surfboards to rent. Coffee culture is encroaching on the fishing village, Tokyo day-trippers encounter an unvarnished juxtaposition of their daily lives, and a desire that things could perhaps be otherwise.

I sit on the steps to the beach, happy to observe, happy to take in the magnificence of the mountain, watching the wind shape the water into crescents and hopeful riders. Later, I will walk across the coarse black sand, a contrast to the finer white sand of southeast Queensland, camera in hand, beachcomber of the digital age, photographing the shells and driftwood in another time, another place, I might have collected and placed on a shelf, at ‘home’. 

By happenstance, I was delighted to uncover during research for another project, the subject of that work, the essayist and novelist Kunikida Doppo (1871-1908) chose Chigasaki as his place of convalescence from serious illness. I have regaled the story of finding the monument to his life and work, tucked away near a car park behind the Chigasaki baseball stadium, to the disbelief of Tokyo friends, incredulous that these are the details I have come to know. (Ishinomaki also has a park dedicated to literary greats, including the poet Basho, whose ‘Narrow Road to a Far Country’ is renowned. I ponder that this literary linking in the ‘home’ of my mind, is less than coincidental.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back in Tokyo, back home, for now. The pandemic forced an unexpected rethink of the idea of home, as an Australian living overseas. One imagines that the passport, tucked away in a safe place, would mean that one always has a ‘home’ to go home to—until it is not. The Morrison government’s edict that no-one shall enter Australia, including citizens, was a reality check for many of us resident in Japan (and other countries of course). The circumstances under which one might return were onerous, airfares inflated to mortgage repayment levels—if you could even get a seat. The internet rage that coalesced around the social media memes of #strandedAustralians sparked some unexpected anger from some ‘fellow citizens’ who were less than sympathetic to the circumstances of those living and working overseas; the ‘fair go’ and laidback reputation of Australians is diminished by the petulance of rage-bait. Where, then, was one to call home?

During this time, ‘home’ was a small apartment in Tokyo, on a work visa though not permanent. The simple arbitrariness with which one could have notions of ‘home’ denied, amplified. While not in the quite in the same circumstances of many who made up the cohort of ‘stranded Australians’ at the time, a failure to extend or renew my visa might have seen me thus. Suddenly, ‘home’ was not the imaginary of literary figures and sea breezes, but a stark and forced choice of understanding one’s place. I recognise my good fortune that in the event of Brisbane no longer counting as ‘home to return to’, I had a place to be. A home. 

My most recent Tokyo residency was something of a curtain call on a long teaching career that has included teaching courses in International Relations, traversing all manner of subjects that ultimately lead to defining ‘home’—borders and boundaries, citizenship and asylum, wars, devastation, reconstruction. Military actions that deny ‘home’ to some in order to protect the ‘home’ of others. Humanity’s insecurities wrought on others, there to talk about with some scholarly distance, until it is not; to engage with students assured of their ‘home’, along with those whose visa status might also carry with it the underlying ambiguity of belonging. 

A lesson in the classroom but also its significance, salutary, beyond the campus. I was lucky, my university supportive, my neighbours welcoming, my extension granted. That arbitrariness of status worked in my favour, this time. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part of being ‘home’ for me, involves community. In Brisbane, that has long meant community music groups. In Tokyo, part of making ‘home’, was joining community groups—music groups, peace groups, volunteering. Whether in concerts or organised gatherings, a common refrain was to sing, or play (in the case of my clarinet ensemble) the song ‘Furusato’ (1914, Okano & Takano), defined as hometown, but also a place of belonging. It took on a renewed meaning following the Tohoku 3-11 triple disaster of 2011. Playing or singing it, everyone knew the words, the hum of the vocals over the instruments, blurred by emotion. 

‘Where is your furusato?’ I would be asked at the end of the concert.

‘Right here, of course’, the only possible answer at that time.

And so it is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Furusato 1

I finish this essay on my back deck, kookaburras laughing in the distance (as well they might), koalas taking up their daytime perching spot in the gum tree down the back (their night-time growls signalling their presence), the butcher birds lyrically coaxing me to the last words. Yes, this is a home, an environment enriched by the furusato imaginary, and reality. 

Furusato 2

As I finish this essay on the back deck, a knock at the front door delivers a small parcel from Tokyo, coincidentally. Coincidentally? Immediately I am back in my little apartment in the northwestern suburbs of Tokyo. Imagining. I am here, I could be there.  

It seems some fish and chips are in order.

What will happen to Article 9?

Observations at this year's Constitutional Day demonstration.

I've been attending these gatherings (other than the Covid years) since I returned to Japan in 2016. Indeed, I could say, one of the reasons I returned to spend an extended time in Japan this time was to observe what was happening politically and socially as the debate over Article 9 of the Constitution grew more intense during the Abe years.

Fortunately, I was able to post a commentary on the Lowy Institute's Interpreter (here) and I thought I would add a few additional photos from the day.

'In the Shadow of Abe'

 The death of former Prime Minster Abe, while on the hustings for the Upper House elections, on a street corner in Nara, came as a shock to many, for many reasons. The second-last day of the campaign, I was considering a trip to Omiya to see him later that day, Friday evening, on the way home. Although this post comes in the middle of posts I have drafted on this election prior to the shooting, as pics from the hustings over on the other blog, I put here for the record, a piece I wrote within a few days, for the Lowy Institute Interpreter column. 

On the opening day of the campaign, at Tachikawa Station, western Tokyo, 22 June 2022

There is another election...

 ...this will keep me busy over the next few weeks

The Upper House election Japan is due in early July and parties and candidates are starting to make their moves, although the official campaigning period doesn't start for another couple of weeks. I'll be here to do some regular updates (no-one is expecting a change in government, or even much of a change in the composition of seats) as I attend the various rallies that are held around town (and perhaps beyond Tokyo if the opportunity arises...).

Last week, long-term lower house rep who lost her seat in Osaka last year, Tsukimoto Kiyomi, turned up at a local town hall meeting here in my local area. I have been following Tsujimoto for several years, as one of the women in my research on women in politics here in Japan so I was keen to catch up with her. Unlike previous years where she has campaigned in her home town mostly, this time she is challenging for a national seat so is in the process of traveling all over. It is a tough call to be elected but, given her profile and record, she is someone I would like to see back in parliament.  

The rest of the morning was a bit of a report on local politics, interesting to sit in and listen. (Not something a lot of people would be thrilled about I know...)

On Saturday (4 June '22) it was off to Ikebukuro Station where the leader of the small (but popular among students) party, Reiwa Shinsengumi was set to introduce the party's candidates for the summer election. The leader, Yamamoto Taro is a somewhat charismatic younger generation politician who in a previous life was a popular actor. I first encountered his political ambitions at this same station back in 2013, when he was running as an independent candidate for the Upper House. His only prop then was an upturned milk crate, because, he said, 'it is important be here on the ground, on the same level as the voters'. He has come a long way...now with all the trimmings included a live band as a warm-up feature today.

As the election campaigning progresses, I'll discuss the various party platforms, the key candidates and what we might expect come election day.*

More to come, as they say...

*This might turn out to be my last Japanese election too. More to come as they...oops, I see I've already said that.

A comment on the Quad

 Another grouping for the region

This week which saw the election of a new government in Australia, was also the stage for several major diplomatic plays in the region. 

US President Biden visited South Korea before landing in Tokyo for a key bilateral dialogues with PM Kishida on Monday. By Tuesday the two were joined by Indian PM Modi and new Australian PM Albanese. 

I was able to submit a commentary piece to the Interpreter via the Lowy Institute.

I'm posting the link here, for the record. 

Albanese steps cautiously through the Quad wrangle, 27 May 2022

The Interpreter

Feeling disenfranchised...

...  like our vote means less than an Olympian's medal

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to students, at the beginning of the new academic year, about how exciting it will be that we have two elections to observe as we study politics here in Japan and at home in Australia. We can follow the different aspects of campaigning, media coverage, candidates and their promises as it unfolds in real time while we study our textbooks. 

Japan's Upper House election will be in summer (here), due in July, while Australia's election campaign is in full swing, with election day on 21 May. Voting is a point of interest for my seminar students--we debate the pros and cons of compulsory voting in Australia and the fact that Japanese electors, even registered ones, are not so compelled. We compare the voter turnout figures--90ish percent in Australia compared with 53-55ish percent for Japan. And then conversation turns to 'the democracy sausage', the rather unassuming sausage with onions and sauce on a slice of bread which has in the last decade or so taken on a meaning likely unintended by the first local school P&C that came up with the idea. 

Indeed, I introduce the concept of the democracy sausage to students as a way to get conversation going, showing them a photo of my Tokyo democracy sausage from 2019, outside the Embassy after I had cast my vote in person. The democracy sausage has received coverage here in the media via NHK the national broadcaster (in Japanese here) and on popular news programs. 'I'll be off to do it again on 21 May' I said to them in that first week of classes, not for one minute imagining this democratic function we have taken for granted for years here in Tokyo was about to taken away from us...

Tokyo, 2019

The sausage was a new addition to the Embassy polling booth in 2019, after a few of us had jokingly said in 2016 that 'gee, it would be nice to have a sausage sizzle to complete the atmosphere'...the Greens volunteers were handing out watermelon in 2016 which was nice but...have you really voted if you haven't been able to buy your democracy sausage (and the now vegan, vegetarian and halal options). My students like the idea and a couple of years ago they proposed a similar 'festival' atmosphere at the polling booth with yakitori and grilled squid might encourage participation. 

Sadly, last week, I had to tell the students I wouldn't be going after all. Last weekend we learned that in-person voting in Tokyo wouldn't be happening but we could register for a postal vote (what the decisionmakers failed to realise was that the 'postal service' between Japan and Australia in a time of Covid has been pretty dodgy, to say the least). What started off as a couple of tweets of surprise by a few of us, has turned into quite the twitterstorm with the AEC getting involved as well, basically to tell us that postal votes are available just not in person and stop being so negative about it all. OK AEC, I'm sorry, but there is a lot more at stake here really. As we held our line, we learnt that several overseas posts will be open to in-person voting. Covid, we were told. But wait, we said, Tokyo continues to have rather strict Covid protocols, we wear masks, we sanitise our hands at every point...what is with the Covid excuse then? 

What is a psephologist to do then but to dig a little deeper into the figures. And so I have. And my conclusions? Well, let's have a look. 

Turns out, 'due to Covid restrictions', just 19 posts will have in-person voting. These include Brunei, Cambodia, China (two places), Cook Islands, France, Germany, Ghana, Indonesia, Nauru, New Zealand, PNG, Philippines, Taiwan, UK, US (two places), Vanuatu and Vietnam. Postal voting is also available at these places. 

Now a Tokyo resident, say, an Australian with a psephological bent, might look at those places and wonder about the 'Covid' reasoning. Is it Covid? Is it just that the AEC and DFAT (the Embassy) have decided that the numbers don't warrant the bother. This was the city that hosted the Olympics remember? Thousands of people--athletes, team officials, media--came into the city, in a peak Covid time, (I know, I saw a lot of them in and around my work precinct) it was all managed over a few weeks but our Embassy, in Minato-ku, can't handle a few hundred citizens expecting to exercise our voting right on the day? 

There are a couple of issues here. One is that 'long-term' residents lose their right to vote after five years. Now this seems a little arbitrary, especially in this era of globalization. And these are not residents who surrender their Australian citizenship either, but they lose the right to vote nonetheless. Australians living in Japan number around 10,000. Tourism numbers (visas) were estimated at around 500,000 in 2018. Now perhaps an in-person poll at the Embassy might be set up with the number of tourists in mind, rather than the fraction of the 10,000 residents who qualify under there five year rule. And of course, in 2019, tourists and visitors were still here in great numbers, pre-Covid. At the 2022 election, there will be no tourists or visitors because the Japanese government is still not issuing visas. That leaves the residents, some of whom were due to go home but fall into that group that have been 'locked out' of Australia while it closed down for Covid. 

(Disclosure: I fall into this latter group, due to return home in March 2021, I had to arrange to extend work, accommodation and renew my visa given the uncertainty about when I might return. March 2021 was also the end of my five-year period of voting rights under normal circumstances. I remain affronted by the idea, like a lot of friends and colleagues here that five years is the limit.)

A recently acquired T-shirt, made by a Japanese artist, who cares about voting

But back to the post, and the voting at overseas posts...let's have a look at the figures from the AEC website...

Total of overseas votes by division

There were approximately 61,000 postal (85) and Pre-poll votes (60710) recorded at overseas posts. There is a breakdown of the number of votes by electorate and it demonstrates, that while some numbers are low, nearly all electorates attracted overseas voters. These are votes that should be counted wherever they are lodged. For those candidates in seats with a small margin, I'm sure they would want to see 'every vote count'. 

There were 13 divisions where over 1000 votes were cast, the greatest number, 2226 in Sydney. Among the divisions however, are a couple of seats with strong Independent challenges and seats where the number of overseas voters represented the difference between a win and a loss (Wentworth, for example, 1552 o/s votes in 2019, lost by Independent Dr Phelps and won 'back' by the Liberal Party, on a difference apparently of around 1200 votes.) Interesting to note that Kooyong, longtime Liberal Party 'heritage' seat, seat of PMs and PMs in waiting, a strong Independent campaign and in 2019, 1194 o/s pre-polls. 

The division in which I'm registered, held by a sitting Labor MP, won on Green preferences in 2019, is similarly in a race where every vote will matter. In 2019, 754 pre-poll votes were included for that seat. Lilley, also in Queensland, which has a 0.6 (1229 votes) margin, had 365 votes from overseas. 

We will come back to these figures after the election, especially the 'close' ones.

Now perhaps in the scheme of things, 61,000 or so o/s votes, setting up booths, having staff on hand etc, might be all too 'mendokusai' as we say here, not really worth the bother. 

Votes at overseas posts

Recall that 19 posts have been selected for in-person voting. 

in 2019, London 'dispatched' (*term used by the AEC) the highest number of votes to Australia, 13,428 votes. Accra (Ghana), dispatched 64. Paris dispatched 1176. Nauru dispatched 137. One could spend a lot of time looking at and comparing the numbers of the 85 or so posts from the last election. Tokyo, our point of contention, dispatched 1078 votes, neither London large, nor Nauru small, but 1000 or so voters who no doubt appreciated the opportunity to do so, and had assumed this to be part of the mission of the Australian Mission in Tokyo, as it were. As a student here in the 1980s, going to the Embassy to vote was a huge thing, a wonderful sense of 'still counting for something' despite the distance (in a pre-internet world, Australia was a long long way away). I remember the 1988 referendum where, as a member of the Society for Australian Students in Japan, preparing material for many of us here who wanted to know the details (in a pre-internet world where getting information was not a couple of mouse clicks away).

As I write I have applied for a postal vote as advised. But we have just had a week of public holidays and no mail deliveries (Golden Week) and we are getting inside the last two weeks and still no sign of the package. How much easier it would have been knowing my date on 21 May was at the Embassy gate...

Many of the concerns raised by friends and colleagues currently overseas were, as it turns out, raised in an Inquiry held by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs back in 2005 (yes, that rolls of the tongue easily, you are visiting the blog of a psephologist after all...😊), They Still Call Australia Home : inquiry into Australian expatriates (8 March 2005) 

Chapter five, in particular, addresses the concerns around voting overseas. Statistically, numbers haven't moved a lot. In the 2001 election for example, 63,036 sets of ballot papers were issued. Some of the submissions cited 'the disenfranchised status of those removed from the Australian electoral role is felt acutely, especially by the politically active and informed'; 'I am well informed on Australian politics, I have enormous interest in, pride in and love for the country of my birth, and I just want to vote'... and similar comments, recorded in 2005, echoed in 2022. The report makes for interesting reading almost twenty years later. 

Reading the report reminded me of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters which will no doubt convene for a report on the conduct of the 2022 election...tomodachi, we need to get writing, make submissions. 

Another small point not to be overlooked too is the levels of 'soft diplomacy' carried out by Australians in Japan on a daily basis. We are not Ambassadors, we are not First Secretaries, but we are here doing our jobs, daily, living our lives, daily, on the ground here and there. I know in my circles that how where and when we vote actually inspires Japanese people to think about their own voting circumstances (ok, I might be talking about a niche audience, but I'm just one person doing my job.😄) We kind of expect a little more from the Embassy in return.

Australian citizens overseas for these last two years have felt they have been abandoned or discounted by the government. The Covid lockout and now this relegation to postal status for our vote...this very important election for so many people, has left us feeling, shall we say, disappointed. On the numbers, the Covid reasoning doesn't stack up and the costs will be beyond financial. Come on Australia, be better. There has been no comment (at this point) from the Embassy in Minato-ku.

More to come...as they say.

The first of two elections...

 Another Sunday in April, part 2

This time last week, I was planning to write a little about being a Chair of a Department in a Japanese university...but the election was finally called in Australia today and so that has taken up some of my time. The election will be held on 21 May. That's six weeks of 'official' campaigning, and quite a long time to wait and see what happens. 

The Japanese Upper House election will be held sometime during summer, likely July. As someone whose day job is lecturing about politics, especially elections, it is a very newsworthy time and plenty of material to work with, digest and present to the students. 

In recent years, as I have observed contemporary politics, I note I have changed my 'public voice' in the case of the Australian situation in particular. In line with my role as academic, I have been invited by the media to offer comments on various aspects of the campaigns. Obviously, my own voting intentions are personal and I don't reveal them, the so-called 'neutral observer' status. I do think that is important. But it has also tended towards a non-critical or both sides approach, by many of us in commentary positions, that has partly led to our current political malaise. I think of the Trump years, or aspects of the Abe years, and of course, the situation in Australia where it appears the system is falling apart, rorted beyond repair. I say this about the current Government, not because it is a Liberal (National Coalition) government as such, but the abuses of the system are on a scale I have not seen previously. I would be critical if the Labor Party were doing these things as well. I have tweeted along the way that as undergraduate students when we studied governments in various Asian countries, they were held up as examples of cronyism and levels of corruption 'that we would never see in Australia, but...', indeed, but we have. That is my concern. We, the academic and media commentators, really do need to bring a greater nuance to our critique. 

When I taught Australian politics at uni in Australia, I used to tell the students that no matter how much you might despise the person in the office, we need to respect the office of Prime Minister, quite separate things in some ways. But I have rescinded this advice for the present. The incumbent has diminished the Office considerably, but hopefully not beyond repair. There are very few people on the current government benches who demonstrate the ideal of 'parliamentarian', as one who works for the betterment of all in society. It is ugly and partisan at present. Some say people will do 'whatever it takes' in politics; our politics is now well beyond that. It is dangerous. Others say that politics is a rough game, dirty business, but no, it doesn't have to be like this. 

One of the books I have in mind to write will reflect at length on these problems in our politics. I will watch with interest the progress of the several independents, the 'teal' independents running in this election, appealing to a better state. The votes they can garner, and perhaps even some seats, will give us some indication of how the electorate views our politics. 

These are the things I can think about now I am no longer Chair of a Department. 

More to come.