A Letter to a Senator

Dear Senator Muir, 

I write to you as a concerned university educator from Western Sydney. I have followed recent events in federal politics in relation to this government's education policies closely, and have decided for the first time in my life to write to a federal politician to express my concerns. I will write to others as well, because I believe this government has got its priorities wrong on education, especially those policies regarding the university sector. I teach at the University of Western Sydney, and I see firsthand the benefits of a tertiary education, teaching students who are the first in their families ever to go to university, teaching students from low socio-economic or non-English speaking backgrounds, and teaching mature age students who come to us to get a new start or new direction in life. 

UWS already does a fantastic job with students from backgrounds that, historically, have missed out on the university experience, and it concerns me gravely that the proposed reforms will further hamstring institutions like UWS to the benefit of those universities who already benefit greatly from their history and their financial and social reserves. Being only 25 years old, the intangible value of "prestige" is not something we have accumulated; what we do have is a dedicated workforce of highly trained and well-educated academics and teachers. I grew up in Western Sydney; I was educated here from primary school to my PhD; and I teach here. And I wish to go on teaching here, knowing the benefits that higher education can provide. I want to continue that tradition of making a difference through education for people who, for so long, were overlooked. 

I benefited from the current funding regime, and I still have my debt and am paying that off like millions of other graduates. The previous generation of graduates, the current generation of leaders, benefited from an even more generous system, and the hypocrisy of some statements I have seen has been unbearable. It is my firm belief that the reforms this government proposes will not only limit the capacity of UWS and similar institutions to change lives through education, but undo much of what has been gained for the people of Western Sydney since this university burst into life 25 years ago. You hold an important and powerful position in our parliament, one that many would be envious of, with a chance to make a difference in the lives of other Victorians, and indeed many other Australians. 

I am a member of no political party, and I never have been. I am a member of a union--the NTEU--because I believe in the power of collective action. We are strongest when we stand together against those forces that seek to divide us. And I believe the actions of this government seek to entrench division through reforms such as the deregulation of university fees, which can only result in the raising of fees or the reduction of resources for those who rely on education as a social investment in their future, not merely as an exclusive engine of privilege for social or political advancement. 

As a citizen who believes in the fair go, and who believes that the chief means of achieving the fair go is open and unfettered access to education, I urge you to reject these reforms, and to hold this government to account for the lack of transparency about their agenda in this regard before the previous election. If this government really believed it has a mandate for such drastic change, then it should take these policies to the next election, and let the people decide. 

Sincerely yours, 

Gavin William Smith

Dogmatism and Democracy

I haven't blogged in a while--I've been rather busy with other things, like earning money to live. It's hard out there in the real world! But I thought I would return to my blog just to articulate a few ideas, in part for myself, but also to share with others who might be struggling to articulate their own ideas at this moment in time. Right now, we are essentially at war with Islamic State (IS), or ISIS, or ISIL, or whatever they're called--"essentially," but not declared as such. There are real horrors being perpetrated by terrorists half a world away, and those horrors are being visited upon us here in Australia by proxy through the news and various propaganda exercises from our government and law enforcement agencies. I say "propaganda" because I am not entirely convinced that there isn't just a little manipulation going on behind the scenes to make political hay while the sun shines. But that's my conspiratorial cross to bear; others may bear it too, but in the absence of proof we cannot make definitive claims. Suspicions are one thing, but evidence is always required. Moving on.

What is most immediately troubling in the wake of recent events here at home is the rising tide of anger and xenophobia directed toward Australians of the Islamic faith. There are those that will seize upon any opportunity to tear at the wounds of division, especially if there are political gains to be made. Some people just want to watch the world burn, but there are others who want to set parts of it alight, preferring to rule in ashes than coexist in sunshine. The issue is not Islam, or any other religion. Truth be told, I am an atheist and would rather no religion exist; of course, we can imagine the world would turn out no different to the one we have now. For the issue that plagues us, and has always plagued us, and will always plague us, is dogmatism. But not simply dogmatism in the form of trenchant belief; I mean the mean the kind of dogmatism that helps us to rationalise an even more fundamental urge, what Nietzsche calls "the will to power."

A dogmatic belief of any religious or political persuasion merely provides a veneer of consistency for the raw and brutal urge to control others. In Western democracies we seek to mitigate this urge, this will, through the checks and balances of the democratic process; it can be ugly, but the alternative is infinitely worse. Even in a democracy there are those who hold dogmatic views, whether of a progressive or conservative incline. There is a little bit of fascism in all our natures, whether we care to admit it or not--we think we know better than others, and some of us are more willing to say so than most. In a democracy, we talk about political vision, a vision or a plan for the future; but this is just a watering down of the fascist impulse. Any politician with a vision must convince enough people, first people in his party then the general population, that his or her vision is the right one for the nation--at least until the next election. It doesn't always work out well, but that's why we have the next election. Democracy provides us with a non-violent corrective mechanism to counterbalance the naked ambition of those struck by the will to power, the urge to dominate others.

Dogmatists don't like democracy, but where it is widely supported by the public and adequate public institutions they will merely, silently begrudge its existence. Democracy requires us to forgive others the failings they may or may not have, to be permissive, and ultimately to leave others alone. You may disapprove of someone's lifestyle choices, but if those lifestyle choices are non-violent and non-restrictive (that is, not restricting of others in their lifestyle choices as a result of your lifestyle choices), then, in the words of a recently famous song, you need to "let it go." To be sure, in a democracy everyone is entitled to their opinion, to speak it freely and to be judged on it in turn. Most people will be quite happy to share their thoughts with you, even if you didn't ask for it; but then most people move on with their lives. Not so with dogmatists and enthusiastic fascists.

Let's be blunt: IS are enthusiastic fascists who justify their actions through dogma. In basic propositional terms: If the belief (the dogma) is correct, then any action in furtherance of that belief is also right. What is hidden, however, is the more fundamental premise: If I hold this belief, then it is right; and if it is right, then I am justified in taking any action in furtherance of the belief that I hold. What is at issue is not so much the belief but the believer and the way they use their beliefs to cover up their true intentions. A religious or political belief is merely a form of capital the possessor uses to both justify and further their position of power. That capital can be shared, which increases the durability of that capital. In democratic politics, that capital is consolidated in the form of political parties; in religion, it is used to consolidate a religious organisation, the Catholic church being the most obvious example. Such organisations equip their members with resources and moral and intellectual support. They also present their members with mechanisms for acquiring positions of power. Consider this: could any political leader rise to the position of Prime Minister or President without the support of party mechanisms? Consider also what a Prime Minister or President most do in order to gain the support of that party. We often talk of our political leaders in terms of their "ambition." Consider what this actually means! The ambition for what? Quite simply, it is the ambition to make decisions, ostensibly on behalf of others, but in reality to make decisions that affect, and in many cases control, the behaviour (the choices, decisions) of others.

Things are a little different with religious organisations--there is no democracy in a church or a mosque or a synagogue. Behaviour is controlled by religious edicts. The rise to power is also a little different, but the mechanisms are not too dissimilar to political parties. To rise to power in any religious organisation one must not simply reflect the beliefs of other members, but act as a cipher or spruiker of the faith. Like any leader, a religious leader must adopt the mantle of the "I" in the hidden premise. This, to my mind, is the Hobbesian truth underpinning the power structures that form in relation to human activities. Any power structure ultimately lends itself to the formation of a cult of personality, and this is as true in politics as it is in religion. Power flows from the top down, presenting a structure for vassals (those delegated power by the leader, the Leviathan), and a path for those vassals toward greater power.

In a democracy, such a power structure is supposed to be independent of the political parties vying for power; that power structure, perhaps most idealistically embodied by a constitution, is meant to at least protect the public against the excesses of Hobbesian-Nietzschean personal cultists. It can, of course, all go wrong. IS simply presents a new power structure, quite different from those established over the last 100 years, for personal cultists to carve out their own domain. The dogmatism of IS is merely a veneer, a shiny new thing to attract the young and impressionable who do not yet understand the urges that drive them to act in the ways they do. The young believe, not understanding that they privilege their beliefs above all others, not because their beliefs are right, but because they believe them; they are the "I" that believes and justifies the belief on behalf of their own will to power, their own ambitions.

We project the believing "I" on to a leader, because under that leader we might exercise our own rights to power. We see this in democracy, most vociferously after an election, when the victors crow over the carcass of their defeated enemies. The cult of personality is strongest then; the world is suddenly a better place, the future brighter--at least for the believers. For the others, those who believe differently, the nation is ruined and we must stop at nothing to rectify the obvious mistake. "Nothing," that is, except violence or anything undemocratic, or anything likely to cause lasting damage to the country. That's the important difference between a democratic and a dogmatic power structure. Life will never be perfect, no matter who's in charge; but at least we don't go to war every time we disagree about something. And we sure as hell don't decapitate fellow human beings for disagreeing with us.

An Educated Democracy

Education in Australia, and around the world more broadly, has been under political attack for some time. Education has been under attack from both the Left and Right in different ways, but both Progressives and Conservatives have seen education as either a tool or a threat and seek to use it or subvert it to their ideological ends. That's a much broader issues than I want to touch on here; there is a more immediate threat to education in Australia, specifically higher education. I did not support the purported "Gonski" reforms to primary and secondary education at the expense of tertiary or higher education. I won't go into much detail here; briefly put, Gonski, while providing for a national primary and secondary curriculum, was to be funded by cuts to the tertiary industry. This ignores the fact that the teachers of tomorrow are educated at university today; put simply, you can't improve education at one level by undermining it at another. I considered this change, under a left-leaning Labor government, a squib, a dud. 

The cuts to universities that were supposed to fund Gonski would be continued under the recently elected right-leaning Coalition government - but without the reforms. After much protest, however, the new conservative government backed down and agreed to implement the full reforms - for four years. This same government has also proposed reforms of its own: deregulation of the university sector, as well as increasing HECS, or student loan, repayments. The end result will be higher upfront costs for degrees, and higher backended costs (HECS repayments) for students. Such reforms are symptomatic of the Americanisation of the Australian economy and its culture. Such reforms will entrench class divisions, and lead to a society of endebted workers and citizens. That, of course, is the point. It's a part of the conservative grind. Entrench divisions and debt and it becomes harder to change society. In the same way that conservative governments always seek to undermine unionism and its membership, and thereby reducing the support base of its progressive opponents, conservative decision-making, such as curtailing the economic and intellectual mobility of the lower classes, is predicated on, well, preventing change! It's disappointing that the erstwhile defenders of education, the progresive Labor party, would play into the hands of its ostensible enemies. 

I must confess: I depend for my livelihood on university students. I teach. The deregulation of fees and the introduction of interest rates on HECS debt may impact on student enrolments, and thereby on my livelihood. But I work in this industry because I believe it has the greatest potential for social and economic change; no other industry, no other institutional service, can empower people to understand and change their world quite like higher education. The university trains the nation's best and brightest to be even better and brighter, to transform their lives and the life of the nation. I shudder at the further diminution of the national intellect by this government's cuts to peak research and science bodies (the CSIRO invented wifi, for goodness sake!); we don't even have a science minister! 

Perhaps the most egregious injury, but one most overlooked, is the loss of a critically literate electorate. Education isn't just about training workers, but educating citizens and voters to hold their government - and each other - to account. A educated electorate is a robust one, one that can change the political discourse. An honest politician is one forced consistently to answer intelligent and probing questions. The decisions politicians make on our behalf matter. We don't live in a pure economy; we live in a political economy. We have never lived, and will never live in a situation where the pure mechanism of the free market operates with impunity. Our economic success depends on our democratic diligence, and our diligence depends on our critical, higher, education. 

I am, perhaps, getting too vague and abstract. There is a specific point worth discussing here, and it's the role of money in education. The usual data rolled out in the debate around HECS debt is that up to six billion dollars will never be recovered. To focus on gross expenditure is problematic; it does not address the creation or increase of value as a legitimate outcome of such expenditure. To justify increasing or decreasing funding (for anything) requires addressing the effect on value such an increase or decrease would have. Value, at its most basic, means that an investment of funds produces a return of funds greater than the initial outlay; however, this implies that value is static: X amount invested returns X(x2), thus ends the transaction. Value can be enduring or ongoing. "Institutional value," value that is created by government investment, must necessarily be enduring because a government is not like a business, nor is it like a household for that matter. The government does not seek to make profit, but to produce the conditions whereby others can profit and pursue their own interests. 

Government expediture should seek, then, to create value, to produce an income capacity in relation to a specific program or object of investment, in excess of the initial outlay of money for that program. That is, ideally, the program will yield an economic benefit of greater comparable value than the raw dollars spent on it. This creation of value can be measured year by year, or in initial expense against the lifetime of value created. The six billion dollars of unrecoverable HECS debt is usually paired with the 24 billion dollars of total HECS debt, which means 25% of the debt is estimated not to be recovered. The calculation that concludes that this is somehow "lost debt" is fallacious because it ignores the broader calculation whereby the value created through the 24 billion dollars, in the form of highly trained teachers, doctors, engineers, administrators, business people, among many other disciplines, PLUS the 18 billion dollars that IS expected to be paid back is compared to the 6 billion dollars of unrecoverable debt. 

Put another way, we can ask the question: How much value is created in society and the in the economy by the activities of the aforementioned professionals? Then, to that value we can add the amount of money that will be paid back (approximately 18 billion dollars). Then, we can compare that combined number of institutional value + repaid debt - unrecoverable debt to determine the total amount of money, or rather value, that the HECS debt mechanism helps to put into society. The ratio of created value to lost debt, I am willing to bet, will be orders of magnitude in favour of the former. We can assume this on the basis that education is inherently value-adding. One of the central motivations for higher education is to "up-skill" to pursue a better, higher paying, job. If value is not created in this way, then we would need to rethink our entire educational philosopher. HECS is an investment, one that yields indirect value. But that's the thing: the government's success should mostly be measured indirectly. A government doesn't make a profit - it's not a business. Indirect value, institutional value, the regulatory and legislative mechanisms the government creates and oversees that produce value for its citizens to pursue fulfilling lives, personally, economically, and socially, is the true measure of any government. 

The Physiology of Poetry

The first thing you must know about reading poetry is that it is unlike reading any other kind of text; not an essay; not a novel; not a newspaper article. Poetry is read as if it were read aloud. When it is read aloud - recited - it is, in essence, performed. The sound of the spoken word is as important as the content. Poetry resides at the primitive intersection of expression and meaning, vocalisation and intention. Language emerges from the body's capacity to produce sounds and to gesticulate (with hand gestures, body language, and facial expressions). When language takes the written form, we often neglect this essential embodied foundation. When reading poetry it is important to remember that it is grounded in the body: the lungs; the heart; the throat; the tongue; the lips; even the neck and back muscles. Posture matters in the recital of poetry - both real and silent - and the understanding that follows from this embodying of the poem.

The act of reciting silently to oneself I call "self-recital." The name, however, implies more than just reciting to oneself; it entails a recital of oneself. In reciting a poem, the reader is imitating or mimicking the poem and the creative processes that constitutes the making of the poem. Following this line of thinking, one might more appropriately say the reader recites the "self" of the poem through this imitation. I must stop here on this point, however, before it gets too abstract. Two things have been asserted thus far that need reiterating: first, reading poetry entails an act of recital; second, and related to the first, reading a poem entails imitation, or mimesis. When we read or recite the poem, out loud or to ourselves, we mimic it. 

So far, this won't help your understanding of poetry; what I have said is very abstract. Persevere: it will make sense shortly. What i have posited doesn't answer the most common complaints about poetry from novices. "I don't get it!" "I don't understand poetic metre." "Why does poetry rhyme?" "Why doesn't this poem rhyme!?" There are different issues at play here, but all these issues revolve around how poetry makes the meaning that it expresses. As I said above, poetry derives from a primal site of human meaning-making: the body. This is why poetry is performed, or acted out, even in self-recital. 

Rhyme and metre are merely devices that help the poet to shape and contort the language (meaning and expression) he or she uses. To the reader, these devices, if and when they are used, are like stage directions; the reader shapes and contorts himself as he or she tries to mimic the poem. By contortion, I am making a physiognomic connection: the mouth, the face, the tongue, the lungs, the eyes, even the neck and back muscles of the reader take a different shape to mirror or mimic the poem in order to reproduce the meaning-making process of the poem. These contortions in the act of self-recital are not obvious, of course. Nobody twists their features so dramatically in a way we would recognise as physical "contortions." The contortions I mean are neurophysiological. The imitation of poetry is subtle and internal. 

The devices that are used to contort and compress the words and sounds of the poem are often misunderstood, and because they are misunderstood the reader's mimetic relationship with poetry is greatly diminished. Here, I will address rhyme and metre, arguably the two most commonly misunderstood elements of poetry. Rhyme, in particular, has an insidious effect on our experience and understanding of poetry. Rhyme is often seen as a basic poetic device, when nothing is further from the truth. Rhyme misused destroys poetry and our understanding of it. 

End-rhyme, for instance, can give the impression that poetry must be read "to the end of the line"; that is, poetry should be read to "hit" the rhyme so that the rhyme is emphasised. This is not the case, certainly not with blank verse or free verse, not even with all rhyming poems. Poems do not have to rhyme, but plenty of good poems do. "Reading to the end of the line" is entirely the wrong message to take from the effect of end-rhyme. Metre, for example blank verse, is used, in part, to subvert acquired reading habits. More specifically, however, metre is used to compress the speech pattern of the poem in order to achieve rhythm. Importantly, rhythm is established so that it, too, can be subverted, changed, altered. A rhythm that does not change is monotonous, and poetry written as such doggerel.

Rhythm from line to line tends to remain consistent, albeit with variations, called hypermetric features. Simply because the rhythm is largely consistent doesn't mean you stop at the end of the line and start again at the beginning of the next. The rhythm wraps around from one line to the next based on the sentence structure. As such, you don't read to the end of the line, you read to the end of the sentence. The compression caused by the metre emphasises the rhythm of reading, but you still read for the logical unit of thought: the sentence. This raises the further question of grammar - while we have considerable flexibility with grammar in poetry, we cannot wholly ignore it (although some have tried). Punctuation, for example, plays an important role in signifying rhythm. In primary school, we are often taught that the comma signifies a "short" pause or breath, while a full stop signifies a "long" breath. This description, while questionable in the teaching of technical grammar, is useful for reading poetry. 

Where the metre provides the tension and compression required to produce a consistent rhythm, and rhyme can help to enforce that rhythm, punctuation and grammar help to structure and signify, or flag, the rhythm to the reader. When reading a poem, imitating it in the act of self-recital, we read in "parcels" of two to three words. The metre, specifically the basic unit of metre the foot (2-3 syllables), at a fundamental level, and punctuation and grammar at a level higher (and rhyme at a level higher still) all contribute to the way we perceive and subsequently comprehend the poem. The poem is a dynamic of these (and other) elements. Reducing the poetic experience to any one element is counterproductive. 

There are a few points to take out of this discussion:

1) Reading poetry is a form of performance, a recital or self-recital, which is predicated on an act of imitation. 

2) This act of imitation is an embodied act. Poetry acts upon the body in subtle but significant ways. 

3) Poetry employs a number of devices, including metre, rhyme, and grammar and punctuation, to compress and contort language for effect.

4) The reader mimics these contortions in order reproduce the meaning-making process of the poem. 

5) In imitating the poem, the reader must take a couple of things into account:

5i) Not all poems will feature all the possible elements of poetry. Not all poems rhyme for example.

5ii) In order to experience the rhythm of the poem, we don't read to the end of the line, but to the end of the sentence.

5iii) Punctuation and grammar helps to provide "stage directions": a comma indicates a short breath, a full stop a long breath, semicolons and colons somewhere in between. When they are used, question and exclamation marks indicate the appropriate inflection. 

One last point is worth reiterating, and it relates to the process of reading itself. There is a disparity between the way we perceive words on the page and the way we speak them. When we read, our eyes dart rapidly from side to side, movements called saccades. Because of this, we don't actually read word by word, we read in parcels of words, two or three at a time. When we speak, however, we speak in syllabic progression; to be understood, we have to enunciate our words clearly (speed of enunciation differs with familiar, mature native speakers). 

Poetry, as an act of imitation and recital, requires that we read at a pace that allows us to enunciate the words in syllabic progression; but because of our faster reading habit (saccadic rhythms are the reason we can skim read) we have to resist the urge to skim or scan quickly. If this happens, the effect of the poem is lost. This is one aspect of poetry's subversion of acquired language habits. Importantly, the saccadic rhythm of eye movements helps us find the beat of the poem. A metrical foot is 2-3 syllables long. We can, in fact, perceive the metre of half a line quite easily, with a little practice. The punctuation on the page helps to slow us down even further, because a foot usually does not cross punctuation marks. 

Hopefully, I have conveyed the complexity of the poetic experience, but I have not overwhelmed you with it. There are simple things to keep in mind in order to come to grips with poetry. It is only through accumulating an admittedly imperfect arsenal of hints, tips, and rules of thumb over time, as well as plenty of practice, that you will reconstruct the poetic experience for yourself and come to understand poetry at its most fundamental level. 

Critical Literacy and "Merit"

Recently, there has been much consternation about the make up of the Australian Federal Cabinet and its lack of female representation. Many words have already been spilled over this issue; my concern here is the appeal to the concept of "merit" as the primary defence of this inequity. There is a lesson to be learned here in terms of understanding arguments, or in this case a counter-argument, that are predicated on a single, crucial term. That is, it provides us with a lesson in critical literacy. 

Any argument that is predicated on a central term can always be subverted. It is the person, or group, who use the term that must define it, and it is your right to challenge that definition. In fact, if you don't challenge their definition, you are giving up half the intellectual battle. The argument in the case of the Federal Cabinet is simple: people are appointed on merit; therefore, those who have missed out were judged not to be meritorious enough. There is only one woman in the Cabinet, therefore she was the only woman deemed meritorious. The whole argument is predicated on the notion of "merit." 

But what does merit mean? If we take the basic dictionary definition - "something that deserves or justifies reward or commendation" - who could possibly object? The problem, however, is not definitional. Definitions are useful, but they are the base level of saliency for any word or term. What is important is its application, and the understanding of those who apply the concept of merit in any given situation. The question is "who decides what is meritorious?" If the ones making the decision are all, say, middle-aged white men, do they really have an understanding of merit beyond their own background? 

One could retort that there is an objective measure, somewhat tautologically: merit is what merit does. But if there be such an objective measure, then it would be easy to articulate. If it is, indeed, objective, then everyone should be able to read it and understand. Unless, of course, only the meritorious can perceive merit, but then we end up begging the question. The fact is, the definition of a term, and the power and right to define it, cannot rest upon a tautology, let alone a blatant fallacy.

The question remains: who decides what is meritorious? The entire argument is specious because it is predicated on a single concept, buttressed by supporting arguments or evidence. This is the common defence of the status quo. The only way for the concept of merit to achieve any level of validity is for it to be tested, abstractly and concretely. We test to notion of "justice" in the courts everyday. We make mistakes even there; we learn, and we make appropriate changes. The hope is that we improve our understanding, and ultimately our application of justice. There is an entire industry built around testing the notion of justice: lawyers. Justice is a much more fundamental concept than merit; why should we not apply the same scrutiny to the notion of merit, which can be seen as related to justice?

It is important not to let any significant term go unchallenged, especially if an argument is so reliant on just one. Those who seek to use that term as a premise for their argument must defend it; consensus is an illusion in these moments, and you should never grant consent to the use of a term or concept without proper scrutiny. These battles, which can seem pedantic, lie at the heart of our social and political life; it is only with critical literacy, the ability to break down an argument or an idea, that we can hope to wrest the debate away from charlatans and sophists. 

Preferences and Electoral Strangeness

One of the more peculiar aspects of the Australian electoral system is the "preference swap" arrangements that, like under the table deals, have an insidious influence on the outcome. I will explain this electoral quirk briefly. At Federal elections, voters have two options on the Senate ballot: vote one candidate "group" above the line, or vote all candidates, from one to whatever, below the line. In New South Wales, there are over 100 candidates, and to vote below the line, you must number every single candidate (although, there is an exception, where you need only number 90% of candidates below the line to cast a valid ballot). Needless to say, most voters vote 1 above the line. This has the consequence of, effectively, giving your vote to the party you voted for to distribute as they see fit. The caveat being they have to tell us, the voting public, just how that distribution will take place. That is, they must provide "preference flows" in advance of the election.

This past weekend, the Senate preference flows were released; and there were some very unusual preference swaps. Minor parties routinely "swap" preferences so as to maximise their chances of election. Normally, you would assume parties would swap preferences with ideologically sympathetic parties; there are some notable cases where this is, indeed, the case. There are, however, other cases where bizarre preferencing has taken place. Two are worth noting: The Australian Sex and the WikiLeaks Party.

The Sex Party has preferenced the racist One Nation party against the more ideologically sympathetic Greens Party, while the WikiLeaks Party that has preferenced the Shooters Party and the racist Australia First Party ahead of the Greens Party. WikiLeaks and the Sex Party have more in common with the Greens than the other parties mentioned, which makes it bizarre that two ostensibly "libertarian" parties (that is to say, "social" libertarian) have preferenced right-wing parties ahead of their left-wing cohorts. This may be evidence of cynical preference swapping, or spite towards a more prominent left-wing party.

The "defence" provided by the WikiLeaks and Sex Party was galling. The former attributed an "administrative error" to the absurd choice, while the Sex Party offered meekly that they "had to put One Nation somewhere!" Which is true; all parties must allocate full preferences, all 110 of them. The question remains unanswered, however, as to why they put them ahead of a more sympathetic party, like the Greens. It is possibly just cynical preferencing, which is entirely acceptable: we have a system that allows parties to swap preferences, or make preference deals, and all parties are free to do so. If that is the case, however, then they could at least be honest about it. Attempting to obfuscate their true intentions is electoral cowardice.

One could argue, and it has been argued, that these other parties are unlikely to inherit the Sex Party's or WikiLeaks' votes. If that is the case, then it makes it even more ridiculous to preference them ahead of the Greens; it has caused needless consternation among likely voters for those parties. What is really taking place is a gamble. The two parties in question are gambling on the order of elimination, hoping to pick up votes from right-wing minor parties ahead of the Greens. It is, of course, acceptable to want to beat other parties, even parties that are broadly sympathetic. The problem is, however, that sometimes electoral gambles backfire. 2004 in Victoria is a case in point. Family First candidate Steve Fielding was elected to the Senate on Labor and Democrat preferences. The latter two parties had preferenced against the Greens in that state; as a result, an adversarial party was elected as opposed to a sympathetic one.

Other parties have been more principled in the preferencing. The Secular Party has stuck to a sympathetic flow (on a personal note, their preference flow in New South Wales is closest to my below the line vote); while the Pirate Party took a more democratic line, allowing their members to vote on the preference order. Perhaps the strangest preference flow comes from the Shooters Party, which is, quite simply, all over the place and is, at present, unfathomable (at least to this observer).

There are two points I will make in conclusion. First, these kinds of shenanigans have only strengthened my support for Optional Preferential Voting (which would eliminate these very shenanigans!); second, it is ridiculous for minor political parties to preference against their sympathies. The Senate is so finely balanced that counter-intuitive preferencing can throw the Senate out of kilter for up to six years. If the gamble some of these parties have taken backfires, it could lead to antithetical policy directions that undermine their own agenda, and the agenda of progressive politics more broadly.

Molly and Sam (draft)

Sam came home late, the lamplight on his dressing table was still on, just as he left it that morning before heading off to work, just as he had the night before that. He’d worked late every night that week; it seemed the lamplight had been on all that time, there to greet the streetlights when Sam got home, and there to wish them goodnight as he left for work. His bed was unmade; his dressing gown on the floor.

But something was amiss: the telephone at his bedside was also on the floor. He didn’t knock it off. In fact, he hadn’t used it in six months. A frosty breeze was in the process of cooling his whole apartment; his bedroom was just a few degrees shy of the outside cold. The sun had only set an hour before. He traced the cool wind to the kitchen. The sink was cold to the touch, as was the fridge door; his bare feet on the kitchen floor confirmed that a window must be open nearby. The kitchen/dining room window was open, a couple of inches. The smoke, he thought. The smoke in the morning, his head out the window to keep the smell out. It was a pointless ritual because the whole apartment stank.

He had left the window open while he was out, but he couldn’t be sure if it were just today, or the whole week. Moving through the house, he turned on every light: the kitchen/dining room, the lounge room, the bedroom, and the toilet lights. A cupboard was open in the kitchen; a wooden chair was overturned; six empty bottles were scattered about the floor, a speaker for his television set with them. This isn’t how he had left the apartment, he thought. He moved quickly back to his bedroom and, throwing away the blankets of his bed, he dropped to his knees, then bent under the bed. He emerged, with wriggles and groans, with a shoe box, the lid still intact. Dishevelled from the mild exertion he rolled to a seated position, his back against his bed. He furrowed his brow as he lifted the lid: all the letters were there. Every one of them; he counted. His heavy breath eased. He looked up; the clinking of two bottles from the lounge room had brought his heavy breathing back. Tucking the shoe box under his arm, he crawled awkwardly to the lamplight, turning it off, then crawled towards the door, lying prone on his belly. His breathed whistled through his nose; he was sure it was loud enough to hear from the other room. He couldn’t stop. He breathed in deep and coughed.

He held his breath for five seconds, trying to be silent, to hear what was happening. Another clink. Slowly, he rose to his knees; he planted his free hand to brace himself, then extended one leg. He paused, stopped breathing; he could hear nothing. He placed the shoe boxed on the floor, and slide it towards the bed; with sharp, deep breaths he stood up, fist clenched, his eyes adjusting to the light. He mouthed the words, “one” – “two” – “three.” He ran through his bedroom door down the short corridor to the lounge room/kitchen/dining room area, growling first, erupting into a deep-throated yell. He stood prepared to fight, prepared to be struck – nothing.

“Where are you – cunt.” he yelled. His fist still clenched, held up in a defensive pose. He paused, his nose whistling. He heard a squeak and a clatter. The kitchen! But he could see nothing; all the lights were on. Nothing. No shadow. “Who’s there?” he said, with a wrinkled nose, stepping slowly toward the kitchen. He heard another noise: plastic tapping against plastic. “Molly?” he whispered. Meow. “Mol-ly!” a little ginger cat slid bashfully from behind the kitchen counter. Meow. “Molly.” He cracked his fingers, walked over, and picked up the young ginger cat with both hands, placing her on the counter. Closing his eyes, he brought his face to hers; she head-butted him and he laughed. She purred. He stood there for some time has she head-butted him twice more.

Sam picked up Molly again and carried her to his bedroom, turning the light back on he walked in and sat on the bed. She walked all over his unmade bed, purring and sniffing furiously. He bent over and picked up the shoe box on the floor, sitting it next to him. Molly came over and sniffed inside; she sneezed. He laughed. He scratched her chin, her eyes closed as she tilted her head backward. With his free hand he took out a letter from the shoe box. He opened it, then paused, stopped scratching Molly’s head, at which she opened her eyes and questioned him brushing her head against the letter. “I wrote these ten years ago; she kept them all – then gave them back.” He smiled sadly. He took a breath and sighed. “Dear Molly,” he read out loud.