The Socialist Alliance national office has produced its analysis of the August 21 federal election. It traces the precise mix by electorate of the increased Green, Coalition, independent and informal vote, produced as voters deserted Labor.
The differences among the seat-by-seat contests in an Australian federal election have never been so great. The general disillusionment with the two major parties expressed itself in quite different ways in different electorates and areas.
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With the symptoms of social and environmental crisis all around us 鈥 runaway climate change, Third World poverty, seemingly endless wars 鈥 it is sometimes easy to feel discouraged about our ability to change 鈥渢he way things are鈥. We can forget that millions of ordinary people have many times over said 鈥渆nough is enough鈥 and come together to take action to change history.
In scenes reminiscent of the Nazi German occupation, French police rounded up almost 1000 Romani people (sometimes called Gypsies) in August and deported them to Romania and Bulgaria.
The mass deportations were foreshadowed by President Nicolas Sarkozy in July in a series of inflammatory speeches in which he accused Romani people of being in an 鈥渦nacceptable situation of lawlessness鈥 linked to 鈥渋llicit trafficking, deeply unworthy living conditions and exploitation of children for begging, prostitution or crime鈥.
Undoubtedly the best thing about the election result was that people 鈥 everywhere 鈥 were talking about politics. Some of the discussion was about the hung parliament where neither major party won majority support. Because the result wasn鈥檛 clear, it gave everybody an opening to form and express an opinion about what should happen next. Other parts of the discussion surrounded the sudden emergence of political issues that had been completely ignored in the 鈥渂oring鈥 election campaign. The war in Afghanistan is the best example.
Local residents in Marrickville are opposing the proposed expansion of Marrickville Metro Shopping Centre. The Metro Watch group has developed a website, held information stalls, collected signatures on petitions, door-knocked the local area, and held protests.
The effectiveness of this local campaign was demonstrated by the fact that a full-page ad promoting the expansion appeared on the second page of the September 2 Inner West Courier.
Adam Bandt, the MP elect for the seat of Melbourne (long considered a 鈥渟afe Labor seat鈥), and the Greens' first House of Representatives member to be elected in a general election has been very busy since August 21. He says he left the triumphant Greens' election night party at 11pm thinking that he would have to do some media the next day so should get a good night's sleep. He woke up the next morning and after a couple of hours having coffee and reading the paper, the situation sunk in.
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