SYDNEY — Australia’s minister of finance, Mathius Cormann, recently provided a reminder into how grueling federal elections can be on this island continent. Speaking at a media doorstop last month, he dumfounded the journalists assembled after accidentally naming the leader of the opposition — Bill Shorten — where Cormann was seeking to heap praise on his leader and prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull.
It was a spectacular faux pas, with Shorten and the media having a field day.
Such is life on the campaign trail in this country, where wide-open spaces are occasionally interrupted by the nation’s 23 million people. As one of Australia’s longest-ever federal election campaigns — eight weeks — winds down to the July 2 national election, the politicians traveling over the country’s vast expanses may be forgiven for looking a little worn and making the occasional verbal misstep.
Compared to this year’s U.S. presidential campaign, the election rhetoric heard here can seem restrained. But Australia’s politics can still be lively affairs. Last year, for example, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce made international headlines by threatening to have Johnny Depp’s two dogs — Pistol and Boo — put down after the actor and his actress wife Amber Heard smuggled the canines past Australian quarantine officials. The threat spurred apologies from the two U.S. actors.
Like many countries, Australia’s election season is being driven by domestic concerns. The incumbent coalition Liberal government is emphasizing the economy with its “plan for jobs and growth.” Meanwhile, the opposition Labor party is appealing to the public with its message for improving education as well as its claim that it is the only party committed to subsidized health care, which the government has dubbed “Medi-scare.” Earlier this year, the two major parties united in support of landmark changes to senate voting in a bid to curb the ability of minor parties with low primary votes to be elected. Prior to the changes, the long-running system allowed for obstructions to the government passing important bills.
This election season also finds Australia balancing relations with its longtime ally, the United States, and its growing economic partner, China. The country also is working hard to maintain its relations with countries across the Asia-Pacific, as well as confronting issues global issues such as global warming and refugees.
Prime Minister Turnbull of the Liberal Party is seeking a decisive victory from the elections, as is his opponent, Shorten. Such a mandate is crucial, given that both men were instrumental in bringing down their respective former leaders — Shorten accomplishing the feat twice. The country has had six prime ministers since 2007.
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Australian national politics has more closely resembled many European countries, according to Paul Strangio, associate professor of politics at Monash University in Melbourne. The turnovers may contribute to a perception internationally that Australia is less stable than it once was.
“If the coalition were defeated it might raise eyebrows in terms of the number of leaders Australia has had in recent years,” says Strangio, referring to a recent BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) broadcast in which a journalist quipped that Australia was the “coup capital” of the democratic world. Strangio also recalls a recent conversation with a U.S. observer of Australian politics who described the last eight years as being like a “Quentin Tarantino movie.”
Both parties are jostling to win the public’s trust on management of the economy, health, education science and innovation, border protection, and the environment. And while Labor’s polling has greatly improved in the past two months, it faces an uphill battle to win the majority of seats needed to form a government. Observers say Turnbull’s government will likely be returned, albeit with a smaller majority.
One area that won’t change is Australia’s commitment to its international agreements. In contrast to the United States, where Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee, talks about walling off countries and questions the value of major international alliances, both Turnbull and Shorten remain steadfast allies with the U.S. and its other international partners. Shorten, in fact, recently described Trump as “barking mad.”
However, political analysts point to Australia’s economic dependence on China, especially as its biggest buyer of iron ore and coal, as changing the dynamic of this alliance, and therefore the way Australia manages diplomacy right across Asia. China is Australia’s biggest export market. In 2013-14, China bought $A107.5 billion (Australian dollars, or $79.5 billion U.S. dollars) worth of goods and services, roughly one in every three export dollars earned over the financial year.
Ongoing plans to boost the U.S. military presence in Australia’s far north coastal city of Darwin has drawn a cold response from Beijing, just as tensions increase over China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.
“Going forward this will be one of the biggest challenges for Australian foreign policy,” says Strangio.
Australia’s recent handling of a major submarine building contract ruffled diplomatic feathers elsewhere in the world, says John Uhr, professor of politics at the Australian National University. The $A50 billion deal to build 12 submarines in South Australia was initially promised to Japan under former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, only for Turnbull to award it to a French company. A German company was also under consideration.
“This created a lot of confusion,” says Uhr, adding that Japan was especially miffed at missing out.
Nevertheless, trade relations between Australia and Japan, as well as with China and South Korea have been bolstered by the current government’s negotiation of free trade deals with each of the three countries. The deal with China was seen as especially important for Australia, symbolizing a cooling of tensions that hit a peak under former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
And while not the leader when the three trade agreements were signed, political analysts rate Turnbull’s grasp of the Chinese economy and culture higher than any of his recent predecessors. Rudd, a former diplomat who is fluent in Mandarin, is currently vying to be UN Secretary-General.
Closer to home, Australia’s relationship with its northern neighbor, Indonesia, has been shaken by asylum-seekers from that country boarding dangerously overcrowded boats arranged by smugglers in Indonesia. Currently, there are more than 1,800 men, women and children awaiting their fate in three immigration detention facilities on Christmas Island, the island nation of Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. PNG’s Supreme Court recently ruled the country’s holding of asylum seekers was illegal, ordering that PNG and Australia must find somewhere else for almost 1,000 people.
A two-year old offer from New Zealand to take around 150 refugees a year has been repeatedly rejected by the current government, with Turnbull arguing it would send the wrong message to people smugglers.
The cases of the asylum-seekers and detention centers underscores how debate here is — as in the U.S. and Europe — focusing on how accepting the country should be to refugees and immigrants. It’s a sensitive topic in Australia, with very little separating the two major parties: both see talking tough about refugees as the safest political stance.
Many Australian voters, especially in small liberal, progressive electorates , have serious concerns about the treatment of people seeking asylum in Australia. Reports of unrest, physical abuse by officials and self-harming in each of the three offshore processing stations are turning the tide of public opinion.
At the vanguard there’s the pro-environment, left-leaning Greens Party. While sitting in a very distant third place in popular support, the Greens remain a real political force, especially in the senate. This year the party looks likely to retain its first ever seat in the House of Representatives, won in 2010.
The Greens strongly oppose the so-called offshore processing of asylum seekers, supported by Labor and the government. They also campaign strongly in support of Australia becoming a republic, legalizing gay marriage and radical action to address climate change, all issues dear to voters on the left.
Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef has become a potent global symbol of the dangers of rising ocean temperatures, while irregular weather patterns in the form of severe flooding, demoralizing droughts and bushfires, has turned global warming into an economic problem for rural and regional Australia. During the campaign both the government and Labor have promised to spend big on saving the reef.
Heading inland and spanning thousands of miles south are some of Australia’s richest agricultural regions, where the Greens, as well as the farmer-friendly Nationals , have become strange bedfellows in their opposition to fracking, known in Australia as coal seam gas. This is not an issue likely to go away any time soon amid increased reports from farmers of water pollution and gas appearing where it shouldn’t.
And there’s one other political brand exerting a strong gravitational force on the campaign, despite the best efforts of the major parties’ senate reforms.
First emerging as a campaigner against gambling machines, senator Nick Xenophon and his eponymous Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) party has seen its popularity surge as voters become disenchanted with the major parties and warm to his grassroots message including more attention for senior citizens.
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Unlike the U.S., Australia’s Election Season Isn’t a Screaming Affair originally appeared on usnews.com
