Women's March On Melbourne

Today was the first day of The Resistance with the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States (you cannot know how much it pains me to type that). This afternoon nearly 6,000 people gathered at the State Library for the Women's March on Melbourne, one of many sister marches around the world in solidarity with tomorrow's massive Women's March on Washington. It was a pretty big turn out to not only oppose the Trump presidency, but also fight against misogyny, bigotry and hatred.

There were a number of speakers, including a couple of representatives from Democrats Abroad. The highlight of the afternoon though was writer and Guardian Australia columnist Van Badham, who gave an impassioned speech that motivated everyone. I loved her line, "If you are a feminist and you are not a member of a union, you are not doing feminism properly."

Once the speeches concluded everyone hit the streets to march to Parliament House (not sure why we didn't head down St Kilda Road to the US Consulate). There were some great signs in the crowd and a few chants, but it was a bit subdued on the walk, which may have been because of the tragic events on Bourke Street yesterday. It was good to get some honks of support from cars driving by along the march route, but things kind of fizzled once we reached the steps of Parliament House as the sound system wasn't working. However, it was still a great event and I was glad I could participate and demonstrate my resistance to Trump while living outside of the US.

Of course, today is only the beginning, and it will be important to keep the momentum going. So what can you do?

1. Continue the protest of the Women's March by joining their campaign for 10 Actions for the first 100 Days.
2. Follow progressive voices in the media like Robert Reich, Van Jones, Shaun King, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Michael Moore, who will keep you up to date on the truth of what is happening and any calls to action to stop Trump and the Republican Congress.
3. Read Indivisible, which was written by former congressional staffers and is a how to guide on ways to engage and influence your representatives in Congress and resist the Trump agenda.
4. Get involved at the local, state and/or national level by contacting your local representatives to let them know what you think - both positive and negative.
5. Support organisations like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood that are fighting for people's rights.
6. Continue to protest, stay active and resist!

MWF- America In Decline

I always find it fascinating how much interest there is in Australia about what is happening in America, particularly in a presidential election year. As part of this year's Melbourne Writers Festival author and staff writer for The New Yorker, George Packer, did an hour long session at Deakin Edge in Fed Square with Australian author Don Watson on the topic America in Decline.

It was a bit of a meandering discussion that touched on George Orwell, the Iraq War, where Packer was a reporter and wrote book The Assassins' Gate: America In Iraq, and eventually got on to the main topic of America in decline, as Packer retold some stories about the lives of people featured in his 2013 book The Unwinding: Thirty Years of American Decline. It is this decline that explains some of what is happening with the presidential campaign this year and rise of anti-establishment candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

The most interesting parts of the discussion for me were when Packer talked about President Jimmy Carter and how he was the last person to tell the truth to the American people through his presidential addresses. When he lost after one term to Ronald Reagan, no President has been brave enough to be that honest since. Packer also touched on Trump voters and how their issues and concerns shouldn't be dismissed outright and need to be considered by Democrats if they get into office. Afterwards I was able to buy a copy of The Unwinding and get it signed by Packer. As I briefly discussed having to deal with the Trump voters in my family his advice was to continue to engage them using facts and kindness.

Expat Observations: Terrorism

Peace for Paris by Jean Jullien

I was very sad to wake up to the news this morning of the terror attacks in Paris, which have killed over 120 people and injured hundreds of others, the majority of whom were attending an Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan. This attack is in addition to the suicide bombings in Beirut a day earlier that killed 43 people and injured hundreds more.

The world's leaders have condemned the Paris attacks, and people around the globe are standing in solidarity with the people of France. Many historic buildings are being lit up in the blue, white and red colors of the French flag to honor the victims. It was lovely to see the true humanity of people in the way they helped their fellow citizens and offered people shelter in their homes using the #PorteOuverte hashtag. It reminded me of the aftermath of the Martin Place siege in Sydney and the #illridewithyou hashtag where people offered to ride public transport with Muslims who may have been fearful to ride alone due to anti-Islamic sentiment.

Thankfully Malcolm Turnbull is Australia's Prime Minister, so we didn't have to hear the phrase "death cult" today and witness a bunch of fearmongering and posturing by our conservative government. As we continue to experience terrorism it does make me wonder what kind of world would we all be living in if Al Gore had won the presidential election in 2000 instead of George W. Bush? My thoughts go out to all those affected by these terror attacks.

Expat Observations: Monarchy vs Republic

Photo by AAP: Mick Tsikas

The future King of England is visiting some of his countries in the South Pacific at the moment. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were in Canberra yesterday for a Remembrance Day service as part of their visit to Australia. Prince Charles also met with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at Government House, which was probably a bit awkward as Turnbull was chairman of the Australian Republican Movement from 1993-2000.

Currently Australia is a constitutional monarchy, with the Queen of England as its head of state. The Queen is represented here by the Governor-General. In 1999 a republican referendum was held but neither of the amendments passed. While there does seem to be support for Australia to become a republic, the form it will take seems to be a stumbling block. Most leaders have also stated they won't pursue the issue until Queen Elizabeth's reign ends.

I am sure that Australians will ditch the monarchy at some point, but the question is when? Tony Abbott probably did the most to help the republican cause when he awarded a knighthood to Prince Philip on Australia Day (thankfully Turnbull got rid of knights and dames from the Order of Australia honours soon after he became Prime Minister). However, if it is Prince William who becomes King instead of his father, the monarchy may be safe for quite some time.

Who Wants To Be A Prime Minister?

Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

If you ever hear the phrase "It's on" in Australia it can mean only one thing - a leadership spill. When I was studying here in 1996 John Howard became Prime Minister, and was still in power when I migrated back nearly 10 years ago. However, since 2007 there have been 5 leadership changes, including last night when Malcolm Turnbull challenged Tony Abbott for the leadership of the Liberal Party and won 54-44.

Leadership spills are becoming a national pastime, and considering Abbott's unpopularity it wasn't that big of a surprise. Social media kicked in to mark Abbott's demise even before the party room vote with the inspired #PutYourOnionsOut (in honor of him inexplicably eating a raw onion at a farm visit in Tasmania).

Turnbull is more libertarian and socially progressive than Abbott, being for marriage equality, believing in climate change, and having previously led the Australian Republican Movement. There is a lot he could do to restore Australia's reputation internationally, but it remains to be seen how he will deal with the more conservative elements of his party.

Huw Parkinson Lampoons Australian Politics

Huw Parkinson is doing some of the best political commentary going with his mash-ups of Australian politicians with popular films and tv shows. His latest video is a take on Christopher Pyne's Sky News Interview last week where Pyne claimed to be a fixer.

Star Wars: Fixed (with Christopher Pyne)


Here are some other great creations by Huw from the past few months:

Four Weddings and a Funeral with Tony Abbott


Consider Yourself Part Of The Furniture


Seinfeld In Parliament


The Darjeeling Abbotted
The Darjeeling Abbotted from Huw Parkinson on Vimeo.

Victorian State Election 2014

Photo by Scott Barbour

There has been a change of government in Victoria as the Labor Party swept into power in yesterday's state election.  Daniel Andrews is now the Premier-elect of Victoria, but we will need to wait a few days for the final results as over 30% of people voted early and those votes won't start to be counted by the Victorian Electoral Commission until tomorrow. 

There are quite a few seats that are too close to call, many of them in the inner city where the Greens could pick up more seats beyond its historic win in Melbourne.  It will also be interesting to see how preferences flow in the Upper House as it's expected that a number of micro parties will control the Legislative Council.

Here is some analysis about the election result:
"How things went so wrong for the Napthine and the Liberal Party" by Josh Gordon
"Tony Abbott sweats as Victorian voters cast harsh judgement" by Mark Kenny

Songs Of Protest

I thought I had escaped right-wing, conservative governments when I migrated to Australia and left the Bush/Cheney regime behind, but Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party are proving to be just as bad as those two were.  During the 2013 Federal election Abbott promised there would be "no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST, and no cuts to the ABC or SBS."  One by one these promises are being broken, and when you add in this Government's denial of climate change and deplorable treatment of refugees, I feel like I'm back in the Bush/Cheney years.

Of course, extreme governments can lead to great art- especially music and songs of protest.  Two recent examples are as follows:



Joelistics' "Say I'm Good" off his second album Blue Volume is a fantastic take down of the current state of Australia, with a great video done by Oh Yeah Wow.  I love the lyric: "I don't buy the bullshit dreams of an aspirationalist modern Australia."



The Basics' "The Lucky Country" is a play off of Donald Horne's 1964 book of the same name.  It's a blistering attack on the age of entitlement in modern day Australia, with an animated video created by Andrew Mortlock (who also did the clip for "So Hard For You").  "Someone called this the lucky country, where our leadership is second rate" couldn't be a more apt lyric if you tried.

G20 2014 Brisbane

Photo by Reuters

The annual Group of Twenty (G20) Summit is happening this weekend in Brisbane.  Made up of 19 countries and the European Union (all the world's major economies), the G20 is the premier forum for international economic cooperation and decision-making.  This afternoon US President Barack Obama gave a wide-ranging speech at the University of Queensland to 1,000 people.  He touched on the United States' commitment to the Asia-Pacific, human rights and climate change, where he pledged US$3 billion to the United Nations Green Climate Fund to help support developing nations dealing with the impacts of climate change.  Needless to say this is a much more proactive agenda than is currently being offered by the Commonwealth Government here.

APEC Summit 2014

It's one of my favorite times of year- the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit where heads of government from the 21 Pacific Rim member economies come together to meet over two days.  This year's summit took place in Beijing, China.  Of course, the best thing about these meetings is not the announcements of trade agreements and other economic reforms, but the annual APEC Leaders' Family Photo.  The tradition involves leaders donning clothing that reflects the culture of the host member.  This year they wore traditional Chinese silk tunics in dark purple and aqua, which immediately reminded people of Star Trek and sent social media into overdrive.

Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

For Australians, this was our first opportunity to see if Prime Minister Tony Abbott would follow through on his threat to "shirtfront" Russian President Vladimir Putin over the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which killed 38 Australians.  While there didn't appear to be any physical confrontation between the two leaders, they did meet briefly and Abbott reportedly requested for Russia to apologise and consider paying restitution.

Party Tricks

We're entering the second week of the Victorian State Election campaign but the tv version portrayed in Party Tricks has just finished.  Victorian Premier Kate Ballard (Asher Keddie) is in her first election campaign as Premier and heading to certain victory when the Coalition announces a shock new candidate- former tv reporter and popular media personality David McLeod (Rodger Corser).  The six part series, produced by John Edwards and Imogen Banks, follows the ups and downs of the election campaign as the candidates try to keep one part of their shared history private- a secret affair from years ago.

Party Tricks was great fun to watch as they did a wonderful job of capturing the realities of politics in Victoria.  The campaign slogans, posters and ads were spot on.  The show even created campaign sites for Ballard and McLeod as well as social media accounts for the candidates that mirrored what was happening in the episodes and on the campaign trail each week.  The outcome of the election was close, but we'll just have to wait and see if fantasy mirrors reality at the end of the month.

US Midterm Elections

As expected, the US midterm elections on Tuesday were a bloodbath for the Democrats.  The Republicans now have control of both the House and the Senate, which will make the last two years of Obama's presidency interesting so far as getting any policy or reforms passed.  It's disappointing that so many people chose not to vote.  I live half way around the world and I managed to vote and get my ballot mailed back in time.  Although I don't think compulsory voting like here in Australia is the answer, it would be a very different ballgame if politicians had to appeal to all voters instead of just the narrow band that are likely to vote.  In any case, this landslide could be a good thing going into the 2016 Presidential election, as the Republicans will have to be seen doing something over the next two years in Congress or they might experience a swing going the other way.

Gough Whitlam Memorial Service

Photo: National Archives of Australia

Former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was remembered at a state memorial service today at the Sydney Town Hall after passing away on 21 October at the age of 98.  Whitlam was one of the great leaders of the Australian Labor Party, serving as Prime Minister from 1972 - 1975.  Although his term was cut short due to the 1975 constitutional crisis, he is widely remembered for his amazing social policy agenda which included universal health care, free tertiary education, legal aid and the termination of military conscription.

Today's memorial was the closest thing Australia would have to a US Presidential funeral.  All seven living Prime Ministers were in attendance and large crowds gathered outside of the Town Hall to pay their respects.  Two of the most celebrated eulogies were by actress Cate Blanchett, who spoke of how she has benefited from his policies, and Cape York Indigenous leader Noel Pearson, who spoke of Whitlam's vision for universal opportunity.





In addition, Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody sang "From Little Things, Big Things Grow" as a tribute.

With Friends Like Abbott...

We are just a few days away from the official start of the Victorian state election campaign on Tuesday, but that hasn't stopped both Labor and the Coalition from making some early policy announcements.  It will likely be a close result, although Labor is currently leading in the polls 56 per cent to 44 per cent on the two-party preferred vote.  In order to avoid getting thrown out of office after only one term, I get the feeling the state Coalition would prefer not to be associated with the Commonwealth Government.  I mean, look at the two pictures below of Premier Denis Napthine and Prime Minister Tony Abbott, which appeared in articles in The Age this week.

Photo from The Age

Photo from The Age by Angela Wylie

The Prime Minister says he wants to "do everything I can to help my friend Denis Napthine."  I wonder if that includes being too busy to visit Victoria in November.

The New Premier

Yesterday afternoon John Brumby conceded the election to the Coalition, which means Ted Baillieu is now the 46th Premier of Victoria.  It will be interesting to see how much things change in government, especially since Labor has been in power for the past 11 years.  We are still awaiting confirmation on who the Ministers will be, as well as the appointment of a new Secretary for our Department.  I do hope though that we don't have to endure daily photos of Baillieu out for his morning swim.

Victorian State Election

Today was the Victorian State Election, and as expected it was a very tight race.  There has been a huge swing against Labor and it looks like the Coalition will take control of the government, since they are only one seat away from the magic number of 45 in the Lower House.  However, nearly 30% of people voted either by postal vote or at an early voting centre, and those votes won't be counted until Monday.  As a result, it looks like we will wait and see how a few of these marginal seats fall. 

Unfortunately the Greens did not do as well as expected, and Labor retained all of the four Melbourne inner city seats (partially a result of the Greens not getting Liberal preferences).  One of the two Ministers for my Department lost her seat, and if the Coalition wins, we will have two new Education Ministers and some brand new policies to implement.

Early Voting

The Victorian state election is on Saturday.  Since voting is compulsory in Australia they offer early voting options such as postal votes or going to an early voting centre, which I did today at lunch time.  This is actually the first time I have ever voted in person at a polling booth as I always do absentee ballots in the US.

The voting process is different than I am used to because there are two different ballots- a small ballot paper for the Lower House, and a large one for the Upper House.  Also, since it is preferential voting, instead of filling in a bubble next to a name you actually number the candidates in order of preference.  For the Lower House this is easy because of the small number of candidates, but for the Upper House there are numerous people running for office.  This is why there are two ways to vote on that ballot- above the line, where you vote for a party (and then get their set preferences) or below the line, where you can number each candidate in the order you choose.  To make my life easier, I voted above the line.  The whole process was pretty painless, and now that I have voted, I can relax on Saturday and not have to wait in line in what is forecast to be rainy weather.

State Election Campaign

The Victorian state election is on Saturday, November 27th.  The caretaker period started on November 2nd, and unlike in the US, campaigns here only last about four weeks.  This week both major parties officially launched their campaigns (I don't quite understand why this happens two weeks into the process).  The Liberals, led by Ted Baillieu have the slogan "Fix the problems. Build the future." while the ALP, lead by John Brumby have the slogan "Strong leadership for the times ahead." 

The ALP have been in power for the last 11 years, so the question is can they win re-election again?  Things were looking quite shaky as there is a huge challenge for the Melbourne inner city seats by the Greens, and many people thought we would have another hung parliament, with a Labor/Greens coalition likely to form government.  However, on Monday the Liberals decided to put the Greens last in their preferences, which has seriously hurt the Greens chances of getting seats in the Lower House.  There is still a week and a half to go, so we will have to wait and see what happens.  At least I get to have a voice in this election.

Hillary Clinton's Australian Visit

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been in Melbourne for the past couple days holding meetings with various Australian politicians as well as Prime Minister Julia Gillard.  Her visit culminated today with the annual Australia-United States Ministerial (AUSMIN) meeting, the principal forum for bilateral consultations between US and Australian defense and foreign policy leaders.  They discussed a wide range of global, regional and bilateral issues.

Yesterday she held a town hall style meeting at the University of Melbourne with young Australians, which was broadcast on the ABC.  Titled Hillary Rodham Clinton: An Australian Conversation it was interesting to watch and hear her answers on a wide variety of topics.  You can watch the hour long program here (although I'm not sure if it will work outside Australia).

US Midterm Election

Today was the midterm election in the United States, where all of the House of Representatives and 1/3 of the Senate were up for election.  Considering the state of the economy, any party in power was going to get pounded, and that was the case for the Democrats.  There has been a huge swing of at least 60 seats to the Republicans in the House, but at least they did not gain control of the Senate, with the Democrats holding a very slim majority.  The Tea Party candidates also had mixed success, with both Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle not winning their races (thank God).  In California, Barbara Boxer retained her Senate seat and Jerry Brown is once again the Governor (he was first Governor when I was born!).

In The Age this weekend there was a great article by Simon Mann called "Divided states of America" which explained the current state of play in the US.  There is a shift underway that is especially squeezing the middle class.  According to CNN's Fareed Zakaria, ''[Americans] fear that we are in the midst not of a cyclical downturn but a structural shift, one that poses huge new challenges to the average American job, pressures the average American wage and endangers the average American Dream.'' 

This, along with a widening inequality in the US, is leading to a lot of the fear that is currently going on.  Robert Reich, a former member of President Clinton's cabinet views it this way:

"What we get from widening inequality is not only a more fragile economy but also an angrier politics... When virtually all the gains from growth go to a small minority at the top - and the broad middle class can no longer pretend it's richer than it is by using homes as collateral for deepening indebtedness - the result is deep-seated anxiety and frustration.  This is an open invitation to demagogues who misconnect the dots and direct the anger toward immigrants, the poor, foreign nations, big government, 'socialists', 'intellectual elites', or even big business and Wall Street.''

Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution sees the collapse of opportunity for the working and middle class as the core issue.  "Mass unemployment, underemployment, entire industries down-sizing with no particular hope of recovery … And so, the atmosphere of anxiety I think is rooted in the fact that people don't have a clear understanding of what the success story is for the next decade, either for the country or for themselves personally."

So what is the solution?  According to Galston, "Unless [people] have some increased confidence that somebody does understand the path to a better future and is prepared to put the country on course to move down that path, our political system is going to be very unstable and characterised by resentment, rejection and mistrust.''  With a gridlocked government, will anything get done over the next two years?  Only time will tell.