the Irish & the Miracle of Democracy

Comrades,

% of Yes vote by constituency, abortion referendum 24 May 2018. Source: Irish Referendum Commission.

Comrades,

The Irish seem to have a fairly laissez-faire attitude toward the Miracle of Democracy.
They have no independent Electoral Commission - they've even had a Constitutional Convention to try to set one up, with no result.
Elections are currently run by a higgeldy-piggeldy collection of Govt. Depts and agencies that think they have a finger in the democratic pie; even the Garda have the responsibility of policing the polling stations.
So, every time they want to get a referendum going, a brand new Referendum Commission has to be set up each time to run the show, charged with presenting both sides of the argument evenhandedly without fear or favour.
And they also have an odd history of referendum voting.
Everyone knows the Irish went rainbow and approved of same-sex marriage [which required constitutional change] long before Australia had the entirely unnecessary and stoopid "postal survey" just to change the Marriage Act, that could have been easily done by a simple majority vote in the Parliament.
And still we have this strange notion of the Irish as a backward conservative society - wrong! - they approved of all sexes shagging each other with gay abandon within the institution of marriage by 62.07% with not a single constituency voting NO, while Australia approved it by 61.6%, with a very substantial NO vote in New South Wales.
And then think again -- Ireland decriminalised homosexuality in 1993, a year before most of Australia, with Tassy holding out until man-on-man rum buggery and similar acts of depravity were finally made legal in 1997 - that's only twenty years ago.
And yet, before 2012, children in Ireland had no legal entity, let alone any status, and essentially had the same rights as cattle, before the 35th amendment to the Irish Constitution was voted in, to put the rug-rats under the umbrella of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. After a round of legal challenges, it didn't become law until 2015.
So, it strikes me as rather odd that, until a couple of years ago, the unborn in Ireland had more or less the same rights as adults, but as soon as they popped out of the womb, they had absolutely nothing until they turned 18, and were legally regarded as the chattels of their parents, with which the State had no right to interfere, except under "exceptional circumstances".
The old Irish Constitutional code even went so far as to define children's rights as "indescriptible".
In this one, it was a vote to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Constitution which was approved by voters 35 years ago -- abolishing s.40.3 (3) "The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right. This subsection shall not limit freedom to travel between the State and another state. This subsection shall not limit freedom to obtain or make available, in the State, subject to such conditions as may be laid down by law, information relating to services lawfully available in another state" and replacing it with "Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy".
Back in the early '80's the Irish were clearly operating on the NIMBY principal, but feel free to do it elsewhere.
The referendum question was effectively, in a round-about way, "Do you approve of provision being made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancies?"
While the YES vote won more easily than expected at just over 66%, and the turnout was fairly healthy in a non-compulsory referendum - 2,159,655 punters showed up at the polls -- 36% of electors were no-shows, taking the "don't care" or "couldn't be bothered" position.
Let's face it, the once totally dominant and all powerful Roman Catholic Church has not been getting good press lately, having world-wide credibility and hypocrisy issues surrounding the child buggering priests protection racket, so given Ireland's track record in this grey area, the NO vote had a lot of difficulty taking the moral high ground.
Forget my personal view that the grubby hands of Govt. have no place in the sexual proclivities or reproductive rights of anyone.
As far as I'm concerned, folks can get it on in anyway they can as much as they like, and whether or not they wish, want or need to spawn issue is entirely up to them - that's beside the point.
For mine, the YES vote is still on the shifting sands of time, regardless -- all they've really done is given Govt's. the power to make provision under the law regarding the termination of pregnancies.
What happens in the unlikely event of a hard-line anti-abortion Govt. getting up via the Miracle of Democracy some-time down the track?
Work all that out, if you will, and yr better than me.
Here endeth the lesson in curious Irish Constitutional Law.

Speaking of credibility and hypocrisy, the timing of "Super Saturday" [five by-elections on the same day, never before seen in the history of Federation] was an act of utter utter political bastardry pure and simple, so so typical of Tories.
Never mind the bald-faced two-fingered "up you, Pinko's!" of it being scheduled on the same weekend as the ALP National Conference or that it defies the accepted principal and logic of never holding elections during the school holidays - people can see straight through that for what it is - just pity the poor good burghers of Braddon, Fremantle, Longman, Mayo and Perth, who have to suffer through a nine week by-election campaign.
No one is saying "Damn the High Court!", but nine weeks?!
It's just postponing the inevitable; the coalition won't even go to the time and trouble of running candidates in seats they can't win, and it won't be hard to run the ex-Xenophite, Rebekha Sharkie, out of town in the Adelaide Hills, and replace her with Alexander Downer's arch-conservative daughter Georgina - yet another bloody lawyer, and diplomat.
I know nothing of 38-year-old Georgie, save that she comes from "old Adelaide money", which is just about as perfect a credential as you can get to become a Tory MP.
Her great-grandfather, Sir John ["bull-headed, and rather thick-necked"], was twice a premier of South Australia who was also elected as a Protectionist Party candidate to the very first Australian Senate, but got jack of Melbourne and went back to Adelaide.
Her grandfather, Sir Alick, was the Minister for Wogs in a Menzies government, and finished up with the top diplomatic cherry as Australia's High Commissioner to London.
Her father, Alexander AC, was the shortest-lived Liberal opposition leader ever [8 months] but Australia's longest serving foreign minister [11 years 8 months] and most recently, just like grand-pops, was also Australia's High Commissioner to the Court of St James.
Just a shame they don't have any of the charisma of any of the people in Dynasty, none of them.
Little wonder then, that Georgina reportedly has the Downer knack of putting their foot in their mouths and rubbing people up the wrong way, and her main aim in life appears to be becoming the next "Iron Lady" -- you can see where she's from, and where she's at.
With the recent spotlight on Royalty and to paraphrase the words of the Great Gough "God Save The Queen, because nothing will save the current Prime Minister".

no Nobel Peace Prize for nobody

Comrades,

No-one was ever going to go to Singapore.
Leaving aside the fact that I can't see Fat Boy Kim ever getting on no lil' airplane, when he's got that famous British Racing Green armoured train to get around in, "Mr Chairman" was never going to let DJ Trump get away with any kind of grand-standing, let alone score any political points, whatsoever.
Nothing in that for the Glorious Leader; so no Nobel Peace Prize for nobody.
Fat Boy was never going to agree to a "complete de-nuclearisation of the Korean Peninsular" without a binding non-aggression pact and more rare vintage wines and Choco Pies for the Pyongyang Palace.
It's so easy to forget that the POTUS is now onto his second Secretary-of-State in that fat buffoon Mike Pompeo, after the sensible-in-the-context, Rex Tillerson, lasted just 427 days in the job before he was so completely flabbergasted by the utter non-existence of any foreign policy agenda, there was no point in going on.
Pompeo's people in State who are on the ground had to break the news to him that nothing was doing in the way of any sort of concessions, and then he had to tell DJ! that it was no deal.
And of course, if there's no deal in it, any mild interest The Donald may have had in foreign policy is immediately lost.
It was all a hastily cobbled together sham to make DJ! look good domestically, in keeping with his grand "getting things done" mantra.
Oh well, cheesburgers, Diet Coke's, and a round of golf anyone?
In any case, the communique that the Trumpotus has sent via the US Postal Service to North Korea is not diplomatic [only the "tremendous anger and open hostility" bit is]; it's more like a fawning love letter..."a wonderful dialogue building up" a "beautiful gesture" "very much looking forward to being there" and "please don't hesitate to call, 24/7"...a pleading remember me? I'm still here!

In any case, who needs the real folks to turn up in good ol' down town Singers when they're both play acting mannequins anyway - anyone can pop on one of these you bewt silicon numbers [and by the way, I want some of those t-shirts for my mates in the Drinkers for Disarmament movement] and look the part, with you-know-who looking over their shoulders.
All you need is a Mr Ping of China mask to complete the quadrella.

It might not be the End of The World as we know it, but it's sensible to keep yr head down, and scan the horizon for mushroom clouds in the morning.

just when you least expect it, Xanana Gusmão is back

[Electoral workers, Dili. East Timor General Election, 12 May 2018. Photo: Reuters/Lirio Da Fonseca]

Comrades.

Only last week I was writing about the worrying renewed rise of the old Strongman in South-East Asia, after 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad, won the general election in Malaysia, after 15 years out of the game.
Well, now it's happened again, in a place dear to my heart, East Timor.
Just when you least expect it, Xanana Gusmão is back.
After the weekend's exercise in the Miracle of Democracy [and the election has, btw, been declared "free & fair" by the international observers], 73-year-old Gusmão has been swept back into power, again, after he vowed never to return to politics after stints as both President and Prime Minister.
There is absolutely no doubting Gusmão's credentials as a genuine bona-fide Independence war hero, but he's come to power this time on the back of being the lead negotiator in getting back East Timor's oil and gas fields, that were shamefully and outrageously thieved off them by the Timor Gap Treaty [for which Gareth Evans, despite his excellent Pinko record, will never be forgiven].
They were well and truly rat-fucked there, and it's taken 29 years to sort out and achieve justice.
But, the Greater Sunrise fields are now a stranded asset if ever there was one, and with Timor Leste predicted to run out of their current oil & gas reserves well inside ten years, there's trouble ahead.
The arse has fallen right out of the fossil fuel market as the world turns to renewables, Woodside and ConcoPhillips are very hard bastards indeed, and as long as Gusmão insists on the pipeline to run the very doubtful "Rivers of Gold" to the remote south coast of Timor, instead of Darwin, the resource will never be exploited.
Ever.
That's the harsh reality, mate.
In a cruel twist of fate, the opportunity is gone.
It's probably as worthless as the paper it's written on.
After pointing out a photograph of Gusmão returning in triumph from New York to Dili with the new border treaty in hand to get straight on the campaign trail, the Good Lady Wife was moved to remark "sheesh, Xanana's looking a bit old and fat these days".

[CNRT leader, Xanana Gusmão, March 2018, Dili. Photo: Associated Press.]

The Miracle of Democracy in East Timor is in a rut, with the two main factions of the old Independence fighters, warlords if you like, still fighting each other, after a pretend kiss and make up.
Still?
The 68-year-old now twice former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, the long time leader of Fretilin, is out of office after less than ten months - being snookered from all sides in Parliament forcing President Lú-Olo to call an early election - and will probably be run out of town.
The election was won by Aliança Mudança ba Progresso (Change for Progress Alliance, or AMP) who could rule in their own right, without the need of the support of fringe parties like the Democratic Development Front [FDD], a coalition of various splinter groups.
But, AMP is itself a three-way coalition led by majority partner, Gusmão’s National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction [CNRT], along with yet another former President Taur Matan Ruak’s Popular Liberation Party [PLP], and the Kmanek Haburas Unidade Nasional Timor Oan {KHUNTO].
Fretilin was routed at the polls, but far from disgraced. The third corner of the infernal triangle is, if course, another former President and PM and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 68-year-old José Ramos-Horta, [who I have an enormous amount of time for and I've been honoured to shake his hand], who has sensibly long since left the political landscape to work in world diplomacy as a special envoy-at-large, burdened with always being a peace-maker.
After surviving a serious assassination attempt, José won't be tempted into making a comeback.
KHUNTO is a "youth movement" which has its roots in a Dili martial arts gang of all things, that decided in get into the Democracy caper five years ago, and last time around, they unexpectedly won five seats.
But being a somewhat anarchic mob, they don't appear to have any leaders of note, and I have no idea what their policy platform is, that's if they have a practical one.
Timor's hopes rest in young leaders, but where are they, with old-guard revolutionaries still running the show?

[KHUNTO campaign rally, Dili. Photo: Meredith Weiss.]


Old Mate Alkatiri is between a rock and a hard place, as a Muslim he's always been an outsider in a country wholly dominated by Roman Catholicism, and his idea of negotiation is "my .44 is gonna do the talkin', from now on", so even Fretilin's pull on it's own storied heritage was not much good to them at the polls, even though they still enjoy wide support - but just not enough.
As the hopeless imbroglio of the last ten months proved, it turned out Fretilin couldn't run a chook raffle, let alone get supply bills through a hung Parliament.
Alkatiri will likely now be banished again to the tiny exclave of Oecusse, where he was previously sidelined with the grand informal title of "The King of Oecusse"...out of sight and out of mind...
The poor bloke reportedly wept at the news of the election result, knowing it's probably now the end of the road for Fretilin, maybe not yet electorally, but in historical terms at least. I remember hearing Ramos-Horta being interviewed in 2012 just before I visited East Timor, and he was asked what the top priorities were for Timor Leste, and he replied with two words "education, roads".
He then explained if you don't have the money to educate your young folk, slipping into eternal grinding poverty is inevitable, and the Portuguese and Indonesians did absolutely nothing to improve communications, and without roads there's no economy, beyond subsistence farming.
[Anyone who's been up into the coffee country and then on into the strange haunting mountains around Ermera, will tell you of the legendary wash-aways and pot-holes up there that are big enough to swallow up a 4WD, whole. The Indonesians re-built Baucau Airport 120 km east of Dili at enormous expense as a military airbase, and there were grand plans for it to be turned into an international tourist hub after Independence, but the road to Dili was never completely sealed, and the joint now lies abandoned in ruins].

Most people under 50 would have little, if any, memory or experience of the Indonesian invasion, and anyone under 25 would not even really remember the Civil War of '99, let alone living under Indonesian occupation -- and the under-25's now make up more than 60% of the population - time to move on?
It's easy to be pessimistic about East Timor's future, but they are a wonderful people, and an incredibly resilient, if hopelessly politically fractured society...but, for mine, the way forward is only possible if they start to let go of their past.

[Fretilin campaign rally, Dili. Photo: EPA]

Election Special!

Comrades,

God, it must be good when yr the Govt. and you suddenly find a shit-load of extra shekels in the coffers that you didn't know you had so you can work up an absolutely you-bewt number-one rip-snorter of an Election Special on the "she'll be right, Jack" principal.
Woot!
It's the best in years, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, The Lord ScoMo, in a cracking mood, throwing cash at everything and everyone like it's confetti; why not pork barrel anything you can find with a vote in it to save yr own political skin?
Pensions up! Taxes down! Free money galore! Cheap craft beer! Manna from heaven! Anything.
Promise everything to everyone...it's a well-worn time-honoured winner.
No mention of stagnant wage growth, the spectre of deflation, woeful welfare, global warming, crumbling cities, or a myriad of other such inconsequential matters.
Nope.
And of course the whole shebang was kicked off with no need to raise the Medicare Levy, as Canberra is now so awash with moolah, the crippled can just toddle off and suit themselves.
It's impossible to know where to start on this absolute corker, so why not with a bit of sweet political bastardry?
The Tories must just love to death the "up you for the rent!" stripping $84M out of the ABC's $1.1B budget over three years, as everyone knows the National Broadcaster is infested with Commo's from top to bottom, there's Pinko's at every microphone, and you'll find plenty of Reds under the Beds in the sheltered workshop, all drawing massively bloated stipends.
Oh well, video killed the radio star and as Michelle Guthrie keeps on harping on about "appointment television for the under 60's is dead", so sometime very soon you'll be only able to get Aunty streamed to yr Dumb Phone anyway.
Doesn't matter, there are only so many votes in public broadcasting with the vast majority of electorate happy enough with food-porn like My Kitchen Rules.
The Special Broadcasting Service has an entire channel devoted to it.
In the "jobs and growth" sector, the Govt. is employing more spooks down at ASIO and there will be a need for more Federal Cops if the powers-that-be are to be successful in their plan to "raise $3.6bn over four years through a crackdown on illicit tobacco."
Good luck!
That's a helluva lot of chop-chop.
No mention, of course, of the medagwindfall that would flow in taxes from a well-regulated recreational cannabis industry, oh no siree.
Take it out of the hands of organised crime, and put it towards building hospitals, schools, and roads'n'shit, nah, that would just be way too sensible for any politician worth their salt to consider.
Allow me to mount one of my other personal hobby horses here; there are no votes in foreign aid, so who cares if it's at an all time low...but it's pleasing to see a few hundred extra mill extra going to our cousins in the South Pacific, but that's only a knee-jerk reaction to the Santo wharf in Vanuatu beat-up, it's all about the perception of growing Chinese influence next door, in other words, fear and loathing of the Yellow Peril.

Speaking of Yellow Peril, while the Lord ScoMo and Mr. Trundle were trumpeting the Election Special Budget, the learned judges of the full-bench of the High Court [sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns] were quietly handing down yet another judgement in the s.44 imbroglio.
As everyone knows, the Founding Father's were playing the race card with that one, absolutely determined to keep any feelthy foreigners out of the Corridors of Power, and the High Court still agrees, absolutely, taking an extremely narrow and technical view of the section of the Constitution at hand.
Katy Gallagher, Senator for the Australian Capital Territory, did not meet the "take all reasonable steps" test to renounce her inherited Britarse citizenship, even though she could produce a credit card statement saying she had paid the Poms to let her go, but the Home Office decided to take their time and didn't formally register her 'renunciation' until after the 2016 election.
Near enough is not good enough for the High Court, so four other MP's followed her out the door, and the good burghers of Perth [Tim Hammond resigned last week because of work/life balance issues, but that's by-the-by], Fremantle, Longman, Mayo, and Braddon all now go to by-elections to stir things up before the next general election, which constitutionally, must be held no sooner than 4 August 2018 and no later than 18 May 2019.
And won't everybody be sad to see the back of the politician with the best example of nominative-determinism...Rebekha Sharkie!?
And you can be as sure as hell that there will be no referendum put to the people at the next poll to amend s.44 to keep the dual-citizens in, as there are two chances of that getting up by a majority of the popular vote and in a majority of the states - None and Buckley's.
Said it before, say it again...let's face it, we're racist to the bootstraps - yr either Strayan, or yr not.
End of story.

Cripes, it's been a busy week for the the Miracle of Democracy.
Only this morning has news filtered through that 92-year-old Mahathir Mohammad has been swept back into power in Malaysia.
After the previous Govt. was ripped apart by corruption scandal after corruption scandal, the Malaysian electorate were obviously looking for a tried and tested Big Man to come out of retirement and lead the way, and, boy, hasn't he got some form in that department?
You've got to remember that Mahathir don't like the White Man [you'll remember he called us bullies, and worse, and Paul Keating called him a 'recalcitrant'], this was the dude who hung Barlow and Chambers back in '86, and he locked up his main political rival on trumped-up charges of buggery, not once, but twice.
But in a most curious state of affairs, Mahathir has now forgiven that very same sodomite, Anwar Ibrahim, promising to spring him from the jail house, and then make him Deputy Prime Minister!
Excuse me, but what the fark is going on there?
Clearly the Malays have gone down the populist route, electing an old leader in charge of a new party, and soon enough they will wind up with "authoritarian democracy" just like back in the good old days, as more and more of the region falls back into the hands of the traditional "Strongman" - that's just the way the game's always been played in those parts
Nothing to see there, situation normal.

inspecting the natives...

I note that President Macron didn't say désolé or regrettant let alone chagriné at Ouvéa.
He just had a bit of a poke around under heavy security, had a quick lookie at the graves, laid a wreath or two, and planted a coconut tree.
Thought it was a bit cheeky of him to bring along the original of the 1853 document annexing New Cal to France to be lodged in the White Man's Museum in Noumea.
"The gesture was supposed to symbolise the final chapter in the period of colonisation", even though Macron, while professing no particular view on whether people should vote "Yes or "No' in the indepedence referendum, then went on to say "France would not be the same without Nouvelle-Calédonie".

In any case, this picture of him on Ouvéa makes him look like some kind of Gallic version of King Charles the Turd inspecting the natives...

Photo: AFP.