Hello to my small group of readers! While there is a lot to say about recent events in Dutch politics, not least that there is finally a new government, I won’t be posting about it for at least a few more weeks. I am running as a candidate for the Greens in the Victorian state elections, which will be held on Saturday 27 November (before anyone asks, my chances of winning are incredibly small). Once that’s done, I should be able to pay more attention to hobbies such as this blog, so see you all in December.
- Justin-Paul
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Nice to hear back from you, I’m still eagerly awaiting your analysis on the new Dutch government, and the Geert Wilders debacle.
Good luck on the election. Just curious, will you be allowed to debate the NatLib Coalition and Liberal candidate? Don’t know how the debate procedure goes on there…
Sorry, I meant NatLib Coalition and Labor candidate*
Good to hear you’re still around. Hope you win.
Thanks guys, much appreciated.
Here’s a bit of info on the seat for which I’m running:
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/vic/2010/guide/kils.htm
Most debates / candidate forums are organised by community groups, local councils, etc. So far I spoke at one, a transport forum, where I debated a Labor candidate and a Liberal candidate (the Nationals don’t run in Melbourne seats).
Next week I’ll be at two forums: one held by the Australian Christian Lobby, another by the National Seniors of Australia. While major debates which are televised tend to be Labor vs Liberal, local ones often include all the candidates running in that district.
Why is it unlikely you’ll win?
What’s your stance on a guaranteed basic income? I don’t know if such a concept exist in Australia, but I’m curious about that at the moment. Your blog has really opened me up to other countries political environments and has made me more broadly progressive, as in more open to groups like Greens and such.
Before I explain why my chances of winning are tiny, a bit of background: Victoria’s parliament has two houses — the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. The Assembly is the lower house, where government is formed — it consists of 88 members who are elected from 88 single-member districts using preferential voting (instant run-off). The Council, being the upper house, consists of 40 members elected from 8 five-member regions using proportional representation.
If the most recent opinion polls hold up, the Greens are on a primary vote of about 15% (it was 10% at the last state election, in 2006), meaning we have a good chance of winning a seat in most of the eight upper house regions where a quota is 16.67% of the vote.
However, I’m in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne, where seats are Liberal vs Labor marginal and the Greens mostly poll at around or below the state average. In Kilsyth we polled 8.5% at the 2006 election, compared to 43% for the Liberals and 38% for Labor. Hence, in order for me to have a chance of winning, I’d have to triple my vote at the very least and overtake Labor — I’m not sure when that’s ever happened.
As for the wage issue — as far I understand the concept of a basic income (i.e. minimum wage, safety net, grants and loans for students, etc.) I strongly support it, but maybe if you could elaborate a bit on how you define it I could give a more detailed response. I also prefer the concept of a “living wage” to a “minimum wage.”
I’m really glad to see the impact this blog is having on you — politics is such an important and varied thing but we rarely understand how it works beyond our own countries. Thank you for continuing to read! (And I’ll address some of those unanswered questions on the other post after the election.)
Oh, and I am kicking around some ideas for another political blog … will keep you up to date.
@ The basic income guarantee
I believe ProgressiveAudio is referring to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Income_Guarantee It’s an interesting proposal often touted by libertarians as an alternative to the “welfare state”. Almost passed in the US under Nixon as well. Alaska partially practices this with their permanent fund dividends. Every resident of the state gets about 5,000 USD a year when they submit their tax returns.
@ political blog If you don’t mind, keep me in the loop as well, I’ve thus far enjoyed your dutch blog immensely, as it’s been educated me quite a bit about it.
Thanks for the response, and thanks for going back to the others.
Anyway, the link tiradefaction gave is indeed what I mean, but it isn’t just touted by libertarians (as far as I know, they used to tout it before Reagan gave them their wet dreams, i.e. destruction of the social safety net), and it seems to go beyond left right center politics, as everyone from the Workers Party of Brazil (solid left wing) to the Green parties of the Netherlands according to the article to the Liberal Party of Norway, which is centrist. I guess the best example I can think of is Germany, (whom I’ve been told by a friend who lives there) who uses its Social Security system to provide a basic income. I guess I should have asked if Australia has that before asking a question like that.
As for your chances of winning, I guess I should ask: are Australian politics dirty and beholden to money like in the US or is it more fair to alternative candidates?
And yeah, your overview of Dutch politics actually got me interested in multi-party politics and also into more broadly progressive stuff. Before looking into the Greens in the Netherlands, I assumed Green parties were full of people into crystal balls and earth spirits, and I dismissed them as nutty. I’ve seen gained a more broad mindset, partially thanks to you. Good luck in the election, look forward to the responses.
Oh, well not to add more confusion, here’s what I know of German basic income:
“(Sozialhilfe) in Germany which makes sure people do not become destitute when they loose their job etc.: The state pays for your flat and your insurances, the state pays you a sum that is not making you rich, but is based on providing you with all you need for living OK, and even pays for bigger things you may need (if your fridge breaks down, or your washing machine). If you do not earn enough to feed your family, likewise, you can apply for a kind of added payment: Thus many who have low wages (and families to feed) additionally get part of their rent from the state and also other kinds of benefits in kind.”
I had to dig through my old messages for that. Don’t mean to make my responses long while you’re running in an election, just don’t want to make anything confusing.
I’m back! Might attempt a post tomorrow on the Victorian elections over at Greenchange (I’ll link to it here if I do), but don’t get your hopes up too much. I’ll start by answering some remaining questions from this and the other comment threads.
Before I start, my election results:
My election results are here: http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/Results/state2010resultKilsythDistrict.html
Basically, a drop of 0.66% compared to 2006. There were no doubt a few factors in this. 1) The Liberal incumbent is quite popular, 2) I didn’t run a very active campaign for various reasons, 3) There were more candidates this time around, including the progressive (but problematic) Sex Party, and the independent (Shane McKenzie) was also progressive — the Greens no doubt lost some primary votes to these two candidates. Statewide, we increased our primary vote from 10.0% to 11.2% in the lower house, and from 10.7% to 12.0% in the upper house. All three of our MPs were returned, but we didn’t make any further gains. I’d summarise it as a solid if unspectacular result. The Liberal Party won the election by the smallest possible margin, ending eleven years of Labor Party rule. I’ll elaborate further in my Greenchange post.
Anyway, back to your questions.
Yes, I strongly support the idea of the basic income guarantee, provided it isn’t used as an excuse to introduce a flat taxation system, of course.
In Australia there are some welfare benefits — the main one is called Newstart Allowance but it is pretty meagre, and even when it it topped up with some rent assistance and some bits and pieces like cheaper public transport fares it still doesn’t take into account the costs of living. It’s also a one-size fits all program, which ignores the fact that welfare recipients are almost never find themselves in the same set of circumstances. I doubt there’d be a lot of support for a more comprehensive welfare system here as many Australians look upon people receiving benefits as “dole bludgers” (i.e. lazy people living off the taxpayer’s money).
Some Greens undoubtedly fit the description you provided, but it’s a pretty small group. We get a lot of support from the alternative medicine community, for example. Active Greens members in Australia tend to be white, middle-class, white-collar professionals of European descent. It’s a problem in the sense that it’s quite a narrow demographic.
I believe corporate money plays a significant role in Australian politics for the major parties (Liberals / Labor), but nowhere near the levels at which it influences policy in the US. Still, industry lobby groups associated with mining in particular hold a lot of sway — it’s just not as overt as elsewhere.
Thanks for the election information, I see you got 7 percent of the vote, that’s impressive, at least on this side of the Pacific.
The basic income guarantee can take any form, it doesn’t have to be on some flat tax (which I’m against as well), and as TiradeFaction noted out, Nixon who was one of our most right-wing presidents did support it, but so did his opponent in ’72, George McGovern, who was one of our most left-wing presidential candidates, who was even thinking of making Ralph Nader his running mate (vice president). His idea of the income guarantee was far more comprehensive. The example I gave from Germany is what I’d support, though maybe it would funded by some other means than just a progressive income tax. It’s interesting the situation in Australia, it’s pretty much the same here. Coming from a family that relies on welfare, I understand how hard it is to only get skimpy help here and there, and it sucks badly since I’m entering college really soon. It’s part of my motivation for a basic income guarantee.
As what you said about the Australian Greens, I think that’s a problem with a lot of environmentalist movements, alternative medicine and such I mean. I understand they are a base of support, but I’d love to see Green parties distance themselves from pseudo-science nonsense like that, it’d be like if they began teaming up with advocates for Intelligent Design.
It’s also just generally interesting to read about Greens and their role in other countries, because over here they don’t really do much at all outside a few states. The Green Party in the US has had a number of near successes here in California and actually had a representative in the California State Legislature, but she quickly switched to the Democrats, and a similar thing happened in Arkansas. The only state I know of where the Greens have had tangible success is Maine, where they have had a member in the House of Rep. on and off for several years now, and have crafted policy, generally making the policy there more progressive than in most states. They just got one again during the latest elections (though he’s officially independent). So we’ll see what happens there, especially since he’s surrounded by tea party retards.
Oh, I know you’re not running anymore, but I might as well ask, what do you think of participatory budgeting? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_budgeting) And what do you think of direct democracy? As in initiatives/referendums, so forth? Direct Democracy has a huge presence on the state level here in the US, and cities hare are beginning to use participatory or “peoples” budgeting. Are similar trends happening in Australia?
Yes, I support participatory budgeting and more direct democracy. But that’s the easy part. It’s much harder to get the general public interested in these things, especially in countries like Australia where most people are relatively well-off, and those who aren’t usually feel disconnected from the political process and have no interest in participating because they can’t see how it could ever benefit them.
From my observations, participatory budgeting works best in countries where basic services are not up to scratch – Brazil is one such example, but even then you still have the problem of exclusion based on income. So I guess the solution is to create a structure which includes people from all social groups and is wary of “special interest” involvement.
Also, this sort of budgeting usually takes place at local government level, right? The problem in Australia is that a significant part of local government funding comes from rates payments by land and property owners in that area. Rates are something you have to pay actively, unlike income tax, so I’ve found people are much more reluctant to pay higher rates for better service from council. As someone who works in local government, I find people don’t appreciate just how much councils do and how important their work is.
Sorry for being so late to these responses. In the time I asked you about participatory budgeting, I researched it, e-mailed economist and researchers about it, and basically I’ve come to the conclusion that participatory budgeting can only work on the local level, so if that is the situation in Australia, I guess it wouldn’t be very popular. I now think participatory budgeting is touted for too often from leftist who have a hard on for South America (Venezuela and Bolivia in particular) because it’s a somewhat successful process that originated in Latin America, and not America or Europe.
I still think participatory budgeting can be a really good thing with the right level of engagement from, and empowerment of, the community, but everything has to be set up so that it really is the people who decide. However, I agree that some of the praise probably has to do with leftists being too excited about some of those Latin American governments.
In fact, that is a problem I have with many of the more leftist magazines like New Internationalist: they’re too forgiving of countries like Venezuela and Cuba, too excusing of the thuggery of the Chavez and Castro regimes because they’re left-wing. It’s why I end up reading more centre-left media because I just can’t stomach the hypocrisy of magazines which criticise, say, the Russian government for its intimidation of the press, and then gloss over the fact that Chavez does similar things.
Having said all that, I think Bolivia is probably a fairly good-news story from Latin America.
I also am annoyed by leftist whom i typically agree with being apologetic for cuba to the point of ridiculousness. I believe that george galloway dude (whom im not a fan of) called it a special democracy. Yes it has an nhs and its carved itself a decent living in the 3rd world but its also run by a rich dictatoral family which is the very thing leftist are supposed to be against i thought. That being said i oppose the embargo because its the main reason they dont have a democracy. As for venezuela and bolivia, what i meant is theres plenty of leftist here who look to latin america pretty much because its not full of middle class white people. These people typically see social democracies like the netherlands, finland, sweden, norway and such as enabling capitalism and true socialism is now in latin america. Im very critical of chavez myself also though i think when it comes to opposition hes more annoying than oppressive. Hes had his successes and failures. He acts like a total clown on the international stage though. Bolivia and equadors leaders are better i agree. Overall im supportive of leftist latin americans and their asperations, its just some of their leaders are questionable.
correction: bolivias leaders are better and so is equdars. Sorry for the sloppy writing. Im on a cell phone right now.
Ok, now that I’m on a PC, I’ll clarify a few things.
About Chavez, I’m not an expert on him, but I’ve followed him for years, and I used to think pretty much 100 positive things about him but over the years the image has degraded. From what I can tell, his domestic policies have both successes and failures, and generally he’s raised the quality of life and shifted the discussion and focus in politics in Venezuela and Latin America as a whole. But because he’s in this corner with the USA, he acts like a complete bafoon on the international stage, befriending dictators, making ridiculous speeches, and rattling his saber just to pull back before things get really hot. He even tried rattling his saber to the Netherlands, threatening to take Aruba back or something. Then he realized who would win in a war between the two countries and never mentioned it again. You’d also think he’d naturally support these arab uprisings, and if it were just in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and such, he would, but it includes Syria and Libya now, two of his friends, so he’s all like “no, don’t condemn these countries, maybe the protesters are cia agents!” This really pisses me off and makes me lose a lot of respect for him and his movement. His foreign policy can best be summed up as what can piss off America and Europe the most?
Yes Chavez has not been the best friend to opposition in Venezuela and now I think he’s ruling by decree (oh dear) but I don’t completely hold this against him, after all he’s survived coup attempts and is head of the country that was the butt buddy of the US which has a rich powerful elite that wants him gone.
As for Bolivia and Ecuador, I think their leaders are a lot better in many regards, Ecuador especially, but even then there’s some big disagreements I have. I guess in many ways I’m a really old school leftist, so this hippy dippy mother earth indigenous people are better style of leftism in Bolivia isn’t my cup of tea.