Voting Day
Last weekend, Sydneysiders in the Eastern suburbs headed to the polls to elect a new Member of Parliament to represent the district of Wentworth, which encompasses the suburbs around Bondi and Rose Bay. The by-election was necessitated by the resignation of Malcolm Turnbull, who you may remember as the Prime Minster back in August. I don't blame him for jumping ship, and he clearly felt no qualms about walking away from the chaos: he spent the last six weeks out of the country, only returning following the election.
The implications for the election were pretty big. In the 117 years since Federation of Australia (when it became a country independent of the UK), the seat of Wentworth has been held by the conservative party. But considering the sacked PM was the MP from the district, and given the simmering resentment many Australians felt following the leadership spill, the (very crowded) election field of 16 candidates was seen as a referendum on the future of the conservative government.
Now, before I delve into the results, it is worth noting that Australia uses a preferential instant-runoff voting system, which means that voters rank their candidates of choice so that there is no need for an actual runoff if no candidate gets a majority. The lowest ranked candidate after each round is removed and the second choice on those ballots receives the votes until someone amasses a majority. This is not uncommon elsewhere, including plenty of places in the US.
As you might imagine from how I caged that, things didn't go as the government would have wanted. Independent Dr. Kerryn Phelps won in a not-so-shocking shock-loss for the Liberal Party (that is, the conservative party), representing a roughly 19-percent swing away from the Liberal candidate.
More importantly, the result tips the the sitting government into a minority situation. Now, the government doesn't have a majority and could theoretically be voted out in a no-confidence motion if even one member of the coalition holding things together were to defect, though that is unlikely (though given the instability in politics lately, not entirely off the table). Politics here promise to be interesting, whether the government survives until next year when they are required to hold a new election, or not.
But I'm not really here to talk Australian politics. But I am here to tell you a bit about voting here, as I happened to be in Wentworth on Saturday, the day Australians go to the polls!
On voting day, I happened to be in Bondi (with my friend Ashley, who was down from Brisbane for an architecture conference) to check out more than 100 sculptures arranged on the walk to Tamarama Beach as part of the annual Sculptures by the Sea event. After stopping in to see friends for a bit, Ashley suggested I walk through the Bondi Beach Public School schoolyard to take in the carnival atmosphere of the Australian election process.
Sure enough, once we were able to make it past the represenatives encouraging a vote for their candidate (of which there were 16, seriously), we encountered a scene out of a small-town carnival. There were food vendors, musicians, and even merchants selling clothes. It is so common to have sausage sizzles (that is, a barbeque) at the voting location that the term "democracy sausage" is a real thing here.
With voting in Australia compulsary, it shouldn't be a huge surprise that the neighbourhood shows up in force to not just vote, but to have a community celebration on election day. It's pretty cool.
From the school, we headed over to join the masses traversing the path between Bondi and Tamarama beaches to check out all of the sculptures. The beautiful weather meant that people were out in full force to check out the art, and it was slow going as we meandered south along the coast. All in, the less-than mile-long walk to well over an hour, but the experience was worth it.
After our fill of art (and crowds), we found a place to grab lunch inland from Tamarama, before making our way back to the train into the city.
But before I get into the rest of the weekend, let me fill you in on the few days leading up to our excursion out to Bondi with a very quick overview of the week...
I arrived back in Sydney on Tuesday evening from Melbourne. Wednesday and Thursday were work as usual, and I joined Ashley Thursday evening in Paddington for a lecture on mid-century Sydney residential architecture as part of the conference he was attending. All in, an interesting evening, and we got to enjoy dinner afterward at a restaurant I had been wanting to get to, Madame Nhu, so that was good.
On Friday, Candice and I caught up after work and treked from the city back toward Central for dinner at Goros, a Japanese place we enjoy visiting from time to time. Later in the evening, we regrouped with Ashley after his conference events and all headed over to catch a comedy show at Giant Dwarf.
Saturday morning was occupied in Bondi; later in the evening we regrouped with Candice and sought refuge at the Redfern Surf Club as a massive deluge, accompanied by intense thunder and lighting (think Orlando at 3:30pm every day during the summer), passed through. Once the rain eased a bit, we headed over to the heart of Redfern, arriving relatively dry for a spectacular dinner at Redfern Continental.
Sunday the weather was back to being sunny, and Ashley and I headed up to Manly for the morning for a bit of a wander and some fish and chips before he had to head to the airport. The ride across the harbour was gorgeous (as usual), and we ended up chatting to a couple from Kentucky who had just arrived in town.
The implications for the election were pretty big. In the 117 years since Federation of Australia (when it became a country independent of the UK), the seat of Wentworth has been held by the conservative party. But considering the sacked PM was the MP from the district, and given the simmering resentment many Australians felt following the leadership spill, the (very crowded) election field of 16 candidates was seen as a referendum on the future of the conservative government.
Now, before I delve into the results, it is worth noting that Australia uses a preferential instant-runoff voting system, which means that voters rank their candidates of choice so that there is no need for an actual runoff if no candidate gets a majority. The lowest ranked candidate after each round is removed and the second choice on those ballots receives the votes until someone amasses a majority. This is not uncommon elsewhere, including plenty of places in the US.
As you might imagine from how I caged that, things didn't go as the government would have wanted. Independent Dr. Kerryn Phelps won in a not-so-shocking shock-loss for the Liberal Party (that is, the conservative party), representing a roughly 19-percent swing away from the Liberal candidate.
More importantly, the result tips the the sitting government into a minority situation. Now, the government doesn't have a majority and could theoretically be voted out in a no-confidence motion if even one member of the coalition holding things together were to defect, though that is unlikely (though given the instability in politics lately, not entirely off the table). Politics here promise to be interesting, whether the government survives until next year when they are required to hold a new election, or not.
But I'm not really here to talk Australian politics. But I am here to tell you a bit about voting here, as I happened to be in Wentworth on Saturday, the day Australians go to the polls!
On voting day, I happened to be in Bondi (with my friend Ashley, who was down from Brisbane for an architecture conference) to check out more than 100 sculptures arranged on the walk to Tamarama Beach as part of the annual Sculptures by the Sea event. After stopping in to see friends for a bit, Ashley suggested I walk through the Bondi Beach Public School schoolyard to take in the carnival atmosphere of the Australian election process.
Sure enough, once we were able to make it past the represenatives encouraging a vote for their candidate (of which there were 16, seriously), we encountered a scene out of a small-town carnival. There were food vendors, musicians, and even merchants selling clothes. It is so common to have sausage sizzles (that is, a barbeque) at the voting location that the term "democracy sausage" is a real thing here.
With voting in Australia compulsary, it shouldn't be a huge surprise that the neighbourhood shows up in force to not just vote, but to have a community celebration on election day. It's pretty cool.
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| The scene in front of the Bondi Beach Public School. |
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| Campaign signs hanging on the fence outside of the school offer a hint at the bitter fight for the Wentworth electorate. |
From the school, we headed over to join the masses traversing the path between Bondi and Tamarama beaches to check out all of the sculptures. The beautiful weather meant that people were out in full force to check out the art, and it was slow going as we meandered south along the coast. All in, the less-than mile-long walk to well over an hour, but the experience was worth it.
 |
| People enjoying Bondi Beach, seen from the cliff above. |
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| People crowd around one of the sculptures. |
After our fill of art (and crowds), we found a place to grab lunch inland from Tamarama, before making our way back to the train into the city.
But before I get into the rest of the weekend, let me fill you in on the few days leading up to our excursion out to Bondi with a very quick overview of the week...
I arrived back in Sydney on Tuesday evening from Melbourne. Wednesday and Thursday were work as usual, and I joined Ashley Thursday evening in Paddington for a lecture on mid-century Sydney residential architecture as part of the conference he was attending. All in, an interesting evening, and we got to enjoy dinner afterward at a restaurant I had been wanting to get to, Madame Nhu, so that was good.
Saturday morning was occupied in Bondi; later in the evening we regrouped with Candice and sought refuge at the Redfern Surf Club as a massive deluge, accompanied by intense thunder and lighting (think Orlando at 3:30pm every day during the summer), passed through. Once the rain eased a bit, we headed over to the heart of Redfern, arriving relatively dry for a spectacular dinner at Redfern Continental.
Sunday the weather was back to being sunny, and Ashley and I headed up to Manly for the morning for a bit of a wander and some fish and chips before he had to head to the airport. The ride across the harbour was gorgeous (as usual), and we ended up chatting to a couple from Kentucky who had just arrived in town.
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| The photo from the ferry ride out of Circular Quay never gets old. |
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While on the way out to Manly, we passed a sailing event for the Invictus Games on the Harbour.
Before calling it a night on the south shore, I grabbed dumplings in Chatswood with my north shore friend Nate to round out a busy, very enjoyable weekend.
I know that I am still way behind on things, but I promise that I will get another post out tomorrow to bring everyone up to speed before the week really takes off! |
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