A Bilingual Encounter on NSW Elections Day

At the polling station of affluent Beecroft for last Saturday's NSW State Elections I watched with some unease a Caucasian woman demanding from an 80-year-old Chinese lady what the Chinese characters were saying on the How To Vote cards the latter was handing out.

As the old lady spoke very little English, I ventured forward to help. After perusing the bilingual material, I reassured the voter that the Chinese scripts were exact translations of the parts in English - how to vote for the Unity Party in the Upper House and in the Lower House. The voter stomped off, not entirely convinced, probably a little suspicious that we were in some kind of collusion.

I am not a supporter of the Unity Party. It claims to be a party promoting multiculturalism but it had often if not invariably given their preferences to the John Howard's party regardless of his past records on multicultural and race issues. In one instance they had even reneged on a preference swap agreement with the Labor Party towards the Elections Day and after the How to Vote cards have been printed, receiving the preferences from Labor but giving theirs to the Liberals! Sadly many new Asian Australians are either ignorant of the rather complex electoral voting system or oblivious of the Unity Party's preferential deals.

Which brings us to the question of why the Unity Party would use this frail 80-year-old who spoke hardly a word of English to hand out election day materials in affluent Beecroft? What do they hope to gain in contesting a lower house seat such as Epping, apart from grabbing some unintended votes from the Asian community for the Liberal Party ?

I believe the Unity Party a party of Asian business people out to establish contacts and do convenient deals with some ultimate private business 0bjectives.

Howard's Emergency Landing

Prime Minister Howard's undignified dash out of an RAAF plane inspired Kay's letter in Sydney Morning Herald (19 Mar 07) --

Alliance against .......?

There is a sudden push by John Howard to form security alliances with some of our northern neighbours. One has just been signed with Japan. Suddenly there is a talk about enlisting India into the alliance (see Dennis Shanahan’s article in The Australian today

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21384779-601,00.html) which US Vice President Cheney apparently raised with Howard in his recent trip Down Under after it was rejected by Bush administration. Of course the deputy sheriff could not bring himself to refuse this one.

I learnt from one of Lee Kuan Yew’s speeches many decades ago that when there is a call for an alliance the logical question is “against whom?” Howard carefully dropped the hint by saying that he thought China not be upset. We are all too used to Howard’s dog whistling to know that he usually means what he denies. Shanahan had no qualms about pointing out that an alliance with Japan and India would be an encircling of China.

It would suit the US paranoia about China’s economic growth. But what is there for Australia?

Is it a coincidence that Opposition leader Rudd who is doing spectacularly in the polls despite all the mud slinging, happens to be fluent in Mandarin apart from other things Chinese? Is it a coincidence that Howard’s own constituency may become vulnerable because of the increased number of Chinese and other Asian migrants who would be impressed by Rudd language skills?

Howard is experienced enough to know that China is not going to be bothered by a few gestures for internal consumption. He also knows from experience that he can scare some of his older votes with the old fear of China and of someone like Rudd who can be cast as a Sinophile. He is probably hoping that increasing distrusts of China would ultimately discourage Rudd from using his powerful language weapon in the elections later this year.

The sacrificing of some foreign policies can be a small price to pay to retain one’s power.

Howard's Legacy

Kay's letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald today -

RUDD vs HOWARD

For the past week, we have been hearing John Howard and the rest of his cabinet pouring smears on Kevin Rudd over his presence in three gathering which included Brian Burke.

Rudd has been trying to explain it all in his usual analytical and rational way. Along comes Paul Keating and contributed the best lines of the debate so far:

“Look, look, Kevin has done something, he's met Brian Burke. But I'll tell you what he hasn't done - he hasn't lied to his nation about reasons for committing Australia to a non-UN sponsored invasion and war. He hasn't turned his head from the plight of a boat full of wretched individuals looking for shelter, and then adding insult to injury by saying they threw their kids overboard first, you know. And he hasn't prostituted the UN Oil-for-Food program by falsely declaring that Australia's wheat shipments were not ultra vires of the UN guidelines. Now, this is what this prime minister has presided over, you know …I mean, look, you know, Howard has, you know, lied to the country about the reasons for going to war, going to war for God's sake, and now he wants us to believe it's a major problem if Kevin Rudd meets Brian Burke, you know, Brian who?”

and

“Well, the thing about poor old Costello, he's all tip and no iceberg, you know. He (laughs), you know, he can throw a punch across the parliament, but the bloke he should be throwing the punch to his Howard. Of course, he doesn't have the ticker for it.”

Perhaps Rudd needs to learn to use the old methods to deal with Howard and Costello. From Keating.