I went to Taiwan and found another Switzerland

I knew it was mountainous because I'd booked to go on a bushwalking holiday there. But it wasn't until I saw this 3D map that it sunk in just how mountainous it is.









Most of Taiwan is high mountains. There's a coastal strip down the west where the big cities are, and a few tiny flat spots up and down the east. It's half the area of Tasmania, yet it has almost the same population as Australia.

What I also hadn't quite expected was what a clean, comfortable, modern place it is. It's prosperous and very well organised. People are well educated, friendly and helpful. There's no litter, and environmental awareness seems to be high. It's easy to get around. There are motorways and tunnels everywhere through mountains. There are high speed trains, the lot. This is not a third-world country!

 




It also has a robust, fully functional democracy, presidential elections due in January 2020. I'm sure there are massive foreign interference campaigns going on as we speak.

If I didn't know that China was listening in, I'd say this is what China could be like if it was working properly.

Democracy sausages, cakes, books, & plants - the funny big sausage that's Australian democracy!

It's federal election day today. It's finally arrived. Some of us take our politics seriously, while others couldn't give a stuff, and regard voting as an unwelcome chore.

There's something for everyone at the polling booth though. The 'democracy sausage' is a big deal these days. It's often run by the relevant school's parents' fundraising group, as here at Normanhurst West Public School today.

As well as the sausage sizzle, there's a fabulous looking democracy cake stall, a democracy book stall, and a democracy plant stall.

Outside it's a very friendly atmosphere, with convivial helpers from the incumbent Liberals, the opposition Labor Party, the Greens, the Sustainable Australia, and the Australian Conservative Parties. On the Senate ballot paper there are over 30 parties listed, and 106 individual candidates. You don't have to vote for them all, but the more preferences you mark, the more likely is your vote to count fully. For the House of Representatives it's a little simpler, though you have to mark every square. Nobody understands the rules fully, even many of the party workers, I've noticed.

Somehow Australian democracy will deliver a verdict, though it could take a few days (or weeks) to assess it. Hopefully it will be a sensible verdict, involving our liberation from the current regime. Hopefully we'll have lots of Greens in the Senate supporting and guiding a new Labor Government, and keeping it on track.

The very confident Labor worker below was giving me her (hopefully not premature) victory salute.



























Next day's postscript:
I'm afraid it was indeed premature. The election went disastrously for Labor, and for all of us really. Even the exit polls were wrong, maybe implying that a disproportionate number of the victorious Coalition's voters were embarrassed to admit how they'd just voted?

Canberra's jugglers and acrobats, and their fine old house

If you're a political junkie you need to visit Canberra now and again. That's where the action supposedly is. Or at least, that's where most of the political juggling and acrobatics happens.

I did New Parliament House last year, so this time it was Old Parliament House's turn. For over half a century they juggled to their heart's content there. Even made a few important decisions.

You can learn all about it as you wander around the place. It's part democracy museum, and part warm and cosy, fine and comfortable old building. There were very few other visitors when I was there. I paid my $2, and I was free to roam the corridors, the two chambers, the Prime Minister's and Speaker's offices and suites, whatever I liked. There's a nice cafe and an upmarket restaurant too, or you can hire bits of it for special events even.

Downstairs there's a nice little display of some of the year's best political cartoons, entitled 'Jugglers and Acrobats'.

Malcolm didn't show quite enough skill, it turned out!

"No ifs. No buts. No Medicare cuts......"

I really enjoy a good protest rally. Not only do I usually find I support the cause and happily add my presence to boost the numbers, but the colour and carnival atmosphere make it a good day out anyway! In fact, today's was so colourful that I'm going to relax my editing standards, and post far more pictures than usual. (I'm never that good at editing things out anyway.)

There were politicians from the Greens and the Labour Party. ("You might have heard of him, the leader of the opposition, Bill Shorten", was the introduction.) There were groups from several socialist left organisations, unions, including especially the Health Services Union I think. There were odd and not so odd individuals. There was even a researcher from Sydney University, handing out surveys to assist his research into democracy and protests! ("I love niche academic research", I told him.)
 
When I filled out my survey, I answered the question about how well democracy was working in Australia, with a 2 out of 10. My initial reaction was to go with a zero, but on reflection, we do get to have our protest rallies at least, and more important, we wouldn't go to them if we thought they achieved nothing at all.

There was an attempt by a very vocal group of asylum seeker supporters to hijack the event, by chanting "Let them stay, let them stay" very loudly at crucial moments, like when Opposition Leader Bill took to the stage. He was actually in a spirited and feisty mood, and refused to go off message. Handled it all rather well. One lady near me got very stroppy with one of the hijackers, and I thought they were about to deck each other.



Eventually the colourful assembly disassembled, and marched down to Belmore Park.

Barangaroo brawling

One of the biggest building sites in the country right now is Barangaroo. Construction has recently slowed right down, thanks to a massive basement fire and contamination by asbestos and suchlike. But here's how it's expected to look when it's finished. Most of the left half of the model to the right is Barangaroo. I was shown the model, and a video explanation, by a very personable and helpful PR fellow at the site, who pounced on me when he saw my camera and my curiosity.

Barangaroo is going to be the redeveloped Sydney dockland area. As sometimes happens with these things, there was a competition to find the best design, and the winning one was a finely crafted, much admired mix of commercial buildings, public facilities and public open space. As also often happens, things subsequently changed rather, and the original architects were left wringing their hands in dismay. the buildings proposed got bigger and bigger, and a totally unexpected and unwanted-by-almost-everyone enormous 6-star casino-hotel got plonked in there too. Sometimes it's in the water and sometimes just out of it. One way and another, the commercial floor space has more than doubled since the plans were approved, and the public space has been shrinking rapidly. The process is what's been dubbed 'concession creep', and it's all such a very Sydney story.

The man behind the casino is one James Packer, the second or third richest person in Australia. In a democracy we'd decide whether we needed a second casino or not. If so, and if it fitted into the master plan, we'd advertise the fact, and we'd put the project out to tender. None of this happened of course. Things don't work like that in Australia. As it happens, James has been in the news quite a lot lately. He's had a bit of a rough patch in his private life. Then last week he got into a rather public street fight with an old friend. Media organisations dubbed him the "Bondi Brawler", and there have even been unkind calls to reconsider his gaming licence. For instance here: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-letters/reconsider-bondi-brawlers-gaming-licence-20140506-zr5k6.html    The Northern Territory News, always outdoing itself for attention grabbing headlines, produced one about a Packer-Up-My-Clacker. See this and other coverage here, courtesy thenewdaily.com.au:  http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2014/05/06/media-cover-packergyngell-clash/

Back to my tour, I also took a look at the work going on in the northern part of the area. A new, artificial headland park is being built. It's meant to pretty well recreate the form of the headland as it was before European settlement. It was the brainchild of former prime minister Paul Keating, and though it too doesn't quite conform to the original plan, I think it will be rather good, just so long as we are still able to get to it with all the offices and casinos blocking the walkways.

Barangaroo, by the way, was the wife of Bennelong, the local 'cross cultural envoy' in the early settlement days. She was a powerful Cammeragal figure in her own right, and opposed her husband's co-operation with the developers of the day. She exhibited displays of anger and was deliberately difficult. Maybe she's still exerting her influence in the area? Maybe there's more she can do still?