A few thoughts

A few random thoughts about the events of the past week.

Cricket

Probably most of you were scratching your heads wondering where my sudden love of cricket has sprung from. Well, I've been playing cricket here in Stuttgart since last year as a social sport, largely run by the Indian postdoc in our department, Sreeraj. Every Friday we took over the nearby Kindergarten's soccer pitch, setting up our cardboard wickets and playing 4-a-side until light halts play. It's been fun, and on several occasions we have attracted a rather bemused audience of locals, some of which wonder if we're playing a strange form of baseball.

Conversation for the past month has inevitably turned to the cricket world cup in the West Indies, with predictions of a stunning India-Australia final being made. Unfortunately, India looks likely to return home next week, whereas the competition keeps on going for a month (it is cricket, after all). A more serious dampener, however, has been the suspected murder of the Pakistani coach. The mystery surrounding his death has cast a terrible shadow over the competition. I find it hard to take so much enjoyment from following the scores when I reflect upon the evidence that for some it is life or death.

NSW Votes

As a former New South Welshman, I've been following the progress of the state elections with more than passing interest. It's the first time I've followed an Australian election from overseas, and I found it quite an interesting spectator sport. A good warm up for November (?) when we have the federal elections (in which I am not voting). Anyway, the NSW results are now in, and the Iemma government has been returned with a workable majority in the lower house, although I'm not sure the ALP did so well in the upper house. At any rate, the re-election of the government had seemed a foregone conclusion for some time now.

It's likely that political hacks will study Iemma's strategy for years to come, and for its cunning cynicism it deserves our grudging respect. No one disputes that NSW is in a mess - transport, education, and health show serious failings, not to mention water! - and that the Carr government must shoulder most of the blame. Even Iemma's campaign more-or-less acknowledged this, with the inspiring slogan "More to do, but heading in the right direction". So how to seek re-election? Paint yourself as a breath of fresh air, and run against your party's record. Oh, and pour lots of money into promoting your policies through "public service ads" and add a nice dollop of attack ads aimed at the inexperienced opposition - right out of John "the Rat" Howard's playbook.

I'm not suggesting that the Liberals could do a better job, or that Peter Debnam could make a better premier. His inability to make any meaningful political capital out of the government's failings was pathetic, and sympathy votes don't win elections. Don't count on NSW enteirng a utopian period of centre-left government either - NSW will probably continue to bumble along with a creaking infrastructure, underfunded schools and substandard hospitals. You can read all this in the SMH online. What is for me most infuriating, and also worrying, is the triumph of "spin" that this represents - the "story" presented to the public is what wins elections, and if the story is compelling enough the (contrary) facts can be damned. What we have to be concerned about is that this kind of election could become the norm. After all, politicians will follow electoral strategies that keep them elected. This would be a catastrophe for Australia - as we face up to the existential environmental challenges that blight our land, we desperately need bold leadership, not the talentless party apparatchiks that fill our houses of parliament.