View from the base of Barrenjoey

IMG_7065
Originally uploaded by MargaretsFamily

View across the sand dune regeneration area looking across the Pittwater towards Kuringai Chase. Barrenjoey, Palm Beach, NSW.

The dark areas are poisoned boneseed, the grey - dead branches of living teatree. The bright green is the bright new growth of acacia sophorae, some norfolk pines to the left, and coastal banksias at the back.

I like the patterns of colours of the vegetation.

http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Chrysanthemoides~monilifera

http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Araucaria~heterophylla

http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=in&name=Acacia~longifolia+subsp.~sophorae

http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=in&name=Banksia~integrifolia+subsp.~integrifolia

Flickr

Petrophile linearis (Kensington bushland, suburban Perth, October)

I have discovered the joys of the internet with Flickr. In particular, all the myriad ways one finds photos one likes. The finding of people whose responses and photos you like...

When someone finds and comments on a photo of mine, I probably look at the profile first and then the photos. However, this morning I found a photo and wanted to comment and then decided to pull my head in. Too political. In checking out whether I did want to comment I explored Awcmon's photos, and found this, which I thought was worth noting.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/awcmon/1537021723/in/set-72157600656315664/
(I can't send you easily to the image, but from the text below, you can see that it's the picture of a marine.)

I AM A LEAN, MEAN, GREEN, AMPHIBIOUS MONSTER MADE OF BLOOD AND GUTS WHO AROSE FROM THE FIERY DEPTHS OF HELL, WHOSE SOLE PURPOSE IN LIFE IS TO PERPETUATE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION UPON THE FESTERING OF ANTI-AMERICANS THROUGHOUT THE GLOBE, WHENEVER, WHEREVER IT MAY ARISE. AND, WHEN MY TIME COMES I'LL DIE A GLORIOUS DEATH ON THE BATTLEFIELD, GIVING MY LIFE FOR MOM, APPLE PIE AND THE AMERICAN FLAG. WE STOLE THE EAGLE FROM THE AIR FORCE, THE ANCHOR FROM THE NAVY AND THE ROPE FROM THE ARMY. AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY WHILE GOD RESTED, WE OVERRAN HIS PERIMETER, STOLE THE GLOBE AND WE'VE BEEN RUNNING THE WHOLE SHOW EVER SINCE. WE LIVE LIKE SOLDIERS, TALK LIKE SAILORS, AND SLAP THE HELL OUT OF BOTH OF THEM. WARRIORS BY DAY, LOVERS BY NIGHT, PROFESSIONALS BY CHOICE, AND MARINES BY THE GRACE OF GOD

And this is the one which sent me on a search through his photos, to see if I wanted to comment.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/awcmon/2068454686/
I was startled by the (necessarily) huge size of the military hospital and wanted to post a comment on America’s policy of waging war on any country she decides to take a stick to.

Optional preferential voting .....

Haemodorum corymbosum (I had to go out in the rain today to identify this to genus: the difference was in the basal leaves.)

Looking at the differences in informal voting rates yesterday, one presumes that the poorer rate for NSW is a function of our 'optional' preferential system for both houses in NSW, introduced by Wran, and modified with no fanfare at the last State election, where unsuspecting voters, casting the legislative council ballot failed to realise that a 1 above the line did not preference the whole ticket, only the column below. Thus, many voters exhausted their ballot after choosing a single party, but cast an entirely valid vote. Many, including my daughter, expected their choice of the Greens above the line, to continue with choices to the end of the ballot paper. Not so. But not informal.

Of course, this was the usual stealth legislation. And as usual the newspapers, most of whose reporters are apparently innumerate failed to notice it, nor to notice its purpose.

And it looked like, that at the same time as our politicians introduced this change, they reverted to 3 terms for an elected councillor, turning over 1/3 of the council at each election. (I infer this, from the fact that both above and below the line we were exhorted to put 16 preferences, not the 22 or 23 if half the council was being elected) In any case, the aim of the exercise was to increase the rate of ballots exhausted before being able to be allocated to a preference. Thus, attempting to put an end to the random election of persons at the tail end of a ticket with less than 1% of the primary vote, which has often occurred as a result of the preferencing choices of the major parties.

The informal vote & compulsory voting

Actinotus helianthi at the bottom of the street.

The Liberal party has been touting an end to compulsory voting for some years now. And no doubt will resurrect the idea when next in power. Compulsory voting (as far as I know) is enshrined only in law and not in the constitution.

The Liberals rightly see it as having party political advantage to them and there is no doubt about that. But why we should wish to embrace an American style democracy in which only 25% of potential voters vote? What sort of democracy is that? When you demolish compulsory voting you lose the votes of those who see themselves as powerless in this world. So it is an automatic handing of power to the richer and more powerful.

Today, I used Antony Green's figures published in the SMH to do an analysis of the informal vote as a proportion of votes cast. In the House of Representatives count, 3.89% of the votes counted were informal, with NSW having a higher informal rate (by 1.6%) and the ACT a lower rate (by 1.8%) than the other states. And overall there was a higher rate of informal voting in Labor electorates (by about 1%, whether based on the new member or the old member). These differences showed at significance levels of <.0001 (NSW vs the rest), .02 (ACT vs the rest) and <.0001 (Coalition vs Labor ).

In the Senate, the informal voting rate was 3.36% over the votes counted.

Australians may vote compulsorily, but when we get to the booth, as I think these numbers indicate, we like to cast a valid vote.

It is unclear from the figures published so far, just how many Australians fail to get their name ticked off on the Electoral Roll, but to have been voted into power as a result of the vote 80-90% of all eligible voters, is a far healthier thing than for democracy to be a privilege of the elites as the Liberals would like.

In any case, we are only obliged to have our names ticked off. If we really wish to vote informally as opposed to doing it accidentally, we need only vote 1 twice on the ballot paper. (And I have just broken the law in telling you how to vote informally. However, I believe that if you wish to vote informally, you should be careful to vote so that someone cannot complete the ballot for you and render the vote formal.)

And with compulsory voting, there is the convenience of adequate resourcing for casting a vote: we do not have to drive for 3 hours to find a polling booth and then stand for another 3 waiting to cast our vote, only to find that the time for voting has run out, as voters did in Florida at the last presidential election.

The Morning After

The murraya (Murraya paniculata) is starting to perfume the road.

It's interesting how Howard's fear campaign against unionists has taken ground, in my head. Howard's government, an incredibly ideologically led government, did everything to destroy the unions: even going so far as to destroy the basis of university student welfare ('student unions'), because of the name, and presumably because they were the basis for students to try their prentice hands in politics (both right and left). It certainly wasn't because of what they did.

Anyway, I hate the corrupt misuse of the methods of preselection in the Labor Party. The NSW branch always finds some way to subvert the rules and preselect the favourite sons of the right for safe seats. So I do hope that Bill Shorten has gone into Parliament from ambition and not, as seems to be the case for Jenny George, for a nice retirement package. Bob Debus did well in our state parliament and government so he should be one of the many new able people.

One of the nice things about being able to form a government is that there is so much new blood, hopefully much of it good, which is available to make a contribution.

My hope is that Rudd can manage to usher in a new era of state/commonwealth cooperation, without managing to let inflation run away. (With the billions of slush funds available to Howard in his policy of contempt, starvation and hatred of the state governments, there should be some possibility of this being so. .. Provided Rudd does not seek to emulate Howard's policy of diverting taxpayers' money to party political advertising.)

Election Day

Election Day. In the only vote (the Senate) which counts in my electorate I managed to screw up: I voted below the line and thus, probably contributed to the fragmentation of the Senate.

I had planned not to watch the election coverage, but my West Australian daughter was already celebrating the defeat of the Howard government, so I tuned in. I only hope he is also defeated in Bennelong.

When Howard won the Senate, he sowed the seeds of his defeat. His hubris, in pushing through the IR laws, with no mandate, has brought him down. Sadly, Kevin Rudd will be enormously constricted in trying to govern as he will not have a Senate majority. One great plus, for the Commonwealth of Australia, is that with all states also being Labor, Rudd has an enormous opportunity to redress the starving of the states by the previous Coalition government and destruction of our public schools and public hospitals.





It feels like Christmas already with the Agapanthus (Agapanthus praecox) now flowering all along Whale Beach Road.