I am relaxing at the pool at the students' house in Port Hedland, after a long day doing OSCEs and talking with Stephanie, who asks, "What do you think of Hillary?"

It turns out her boyfriend is a law student and obsessed with U.S. politics. They both watch "The West Wing" but admit they understand as much about American politics as they do "gridiron". I tell her I feel out of the loop, living in Derby. We only see little snippets on World News Australia on SBS. We saw Hillary getting pounded at the debate by Obama and Edwards this week, but I have not had the opportunity to read much or understand any candidates’ positions. And since we are not returning to Iowa, I don't feel the need to make the effort just yet. I explain to Stephanie about the Iowa caucuses. And she answers my questions about the current Australian election. Or at least tries hard to. To me, it’s a bit like trying to understand the arcane rules of cricket.

John Howard, the current Prime Minister, dissolved his government 3 weeks ago, and has 3 more weeks of campaign before Election Day. Howard is a Liberal, which here, means really a conservative. He has been in power for 12 years. And I do mean in power. Under the Australian parliamentary system, the government with the majority (or a coalition with the majority) chooses a Prime Minister, who appoints members of the lower legislative house as Cabinet Ministers. So the legislative branch of the government also becomes its executive branch. This means they can run the country however they like, as their majority will pass any law or support any policy of the "executives". Imagine if the party controlling the U.S. House of Representatives automatically won the Presidency every time, and you will get the picture. No vetos. No fights between the Congress and President over legislation. (Oh, yes, I forget, we had that in the U.S. under Bush until the Democrats returned the country to a saner form of government last year!) So the genius of our Founders is revealed. They understood the need for checks and balances to keep the government from doing crazy things.

Australia has a different flavour to its democracy. The party in power gets things done alright. And after awhile, variable in time, the public gets sick of them and replaces them with the other party. This year, that looks to be Labour, who might be analogous to the U.S. Democrats, except that labour unions still play a role here, and Labour does not have the natural pull for the affluent and well-educated people that the Democrats traditionally held (but maybe not any more?). I am no political scientist, that is for sure, and I suspect that trying to draw analogies is like saying, "kangaroo hold the same place in the Australian ecosystem as deer in North America, except that they tolerate dry climates much better, oh and they have their babies without placentas, carry them in pouches, and don't have to worry about large predators once they grow to adult size". Things just don't cross-map well.

Add to that the smaller parties. The most important one seems to be the National Party, a rural issues group especially strong here in WA, which is in coalition with the Liberals. There are also the Greens, Family First, Australian Democrats and many others. The Greens hold 4 seats in the Australian Senate, and are contenders there for controlling the balance of power. (The Senate, as in the U.S. contains the same number of members from each Australian State, and is intended to balance the representation of the Lower House, which is proportional to population.)
I have to smile at the names of the many minor parties here, including the Australian Fishing & Lifestyle Party, the Four Wheel Drive Party , HEMP (Help End Marijuana Prohibition) , the Lower Excise Fuel and Beer Party , the unfortunately defunct Sun Ripened Warm Tomato Party, the Non-Custodial Parents Party, and the What Women Want (Australia) party.

Finally, add to this broth, the requirement that voting is MANDATORY for all Australians and that voting is preferential, and it makes for a confusing and fun time. All Australians face a fine if they don’t vote in the upcoming election. And this week, blinded judges picked numbered balls twice to assign positions on each ballot. The ballots themselves are paper and huge. And because they require each voter to number every single candidate in order of preference, I understand most Australians pick up a “cheat sheet” from their party of preference to copy in the voting booth. This means, that even if the Greens have no chance of taking a seat in a district, say, Bennelong where the Prime Minister is standing for re-election, their recommended preferences may make a huge difference in the ultimate winner. And there is a chance that Mr. Howard’s party might win the election while he loses his own seat in his Sydney suburb. This would catapult the unloved Peter Costello, his current Treasury Minister, into prematurely becoming the next Prime Minister. Counting the votes, all done on paper ballots, is very complex. Wikipedia has a good article on preferential voting in Australia if you are interested in the details. And, you can imagine that interpreting opinion polls and their possible significance takes an advanced degree in math and statistics.

The campaign so far has been blessedly free of the 24/7 attack dog TV ads we are accustomed to in the U.S. Instead, we have had one debate between Mr. Howard, and Mr. Kevin Rudd, who is the current Opposition leader. And there are a series of sound and video bites daily, as each leader visits the marginal seats and makes the usual promises to provide education, safety and a chicken in every pot.
Each party has made some funny gaffes, most notably Tony Abbott, the mafia look-alike Liberal Health Minister browbeating his female Opposition counterpart, being rude and labelling her statements as “bullshit”. And Labour’s Environmental Shadow Minister, former rocker Peter Garrett, was caught on camera joking that if his party won the election they “would just change everything [they’d promised] anyway”.

Both parties have promised to pursue some sort of rapprochement with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, although what, how and when remains well undefined. The Liberal PM clearly has no intention of saying “Sorry” to the Indigenous people, believing that would open a can of worms: i.e. the government might then have to actually do something to redress the situation. Mr. Rudd is more cagey, saying that his new government would take more responsibility, but not really spelling it out much either. And both Federal politicians have made moves and threats to take over the hospital systems currently run by the States, again with no firm long-term commitments spelled out.

It will be fun to see what happens. The election is 2 weeks before we leave the country, and currently it’s too close to call. My Australian co-workers are mostly very apathetic about it. There is a widespread belief that it doesn’t much matter which party wins as it will make little long-term difference. That sentiment is certainly a very familiar one that needs no cross-cultural explanation.