On Friday our Prime Minister called an election for Saturday 3rd May. The Age (a Melbourne paper) is tracking our seat as one to watch on their hot seats blog. They described the demographic as wealthy post-capitalist and less likely to be as concerned about personal hip pocket issues. This is probably an accurate description and why our seat changed in the last Federal election from a safe blue-ribbon Liberal (our conservative party) seat to an Independent candidate campaigning on the issues of climate change, integrity and equality. Unfortunately we will be away on the day of the election and leave before pre-polling starts and postal voting slips get sent out. When they called the election I assumed I’d be able to get a postal vote before we left but when I logged into the AEC I found out that you can’t receive them until the day after we leave. This means that my only opportunity to vote will be if I can vote at the Australian High Commission while I’m in London.

On Sunday I went to a “Politics at the Pub” event hosted by Zoe Daniels at the Black Rock Yacht Club. Zoe interviewed two economic experts on the issues of tax reform, environmental laws, resource rent taxes, childcare and “fiscal drag.” It was mainly billed as a discussion of tax reform and the housing crisis which is why I chose to go because I wanted to hear a bit more about Zoe’s thinking in these areas. I feel like it was helpful. I’ve been pretty happy with her performance—she’s pushed for a number of the things I care about—and if I can vote, I’ll probably vote for her again.

The interesting thing about this election is that there is a strong possibility of a hung parliament. This is when neither party gains a majority of seats and forming government requires one of the major parties to negotiate with independent and minor parties to ensure confidence and supply. This is driving my dad nuts as he tends to concur with The Australian’s view that it would be a “parliamentary flea circus,” but the last two governments have been pretty uninspiring and useless, so the possibility of them having to engage in some big picture thinking pushed by independents is a positive for me. We will have to see.