They’re all minor parties now

Across the world, an old paradigm is collapsing, you can hear the gears grinding in people’s heads as they digest the reality; that the days of two party politics are coming to an end.

Who could have imagined the changes the last few weeks have brought to Tasmania – a Labor party in absolute disgrace, and yet a Liberal party totally unable to capitalize electorally, failing to win the most winnable election in decades. And quietly building alongside it all, the Greens looking positively statesmanlike with their emphasis on stable, long term governance.

We Australians have a strange attitude to politics – it obsesses us, but for the wrong reasons. While other nations pay much more attention to issues, and to the business of enjoying life, caring for others and generally making progress, we focus on every flicker of movement from our politicians as if they were interesting or even wise. There is a simple reason for this, we apply to our politics the only metaphor most people really deeply understand – that of sport. So even though its three years between “games”, its win or lose, and endless tealeaf reading about who might win, or lose and why. A groin injury or a political gaffe in a press conference, its the same thing.

Politics should not be a contest, not with each other at least, but with the challenges of taking half a million people and their land use into an exciting if risky future. The Greens if nothing else, are about the future. About our grandchildren’s world. There is a deep and solemn heart to the Green message, and more and more ordinary people, grandparents, bush people, educated people, parents and the young, are grasping it.

Democracy is not about winning or losing. If it was, then the half of the population who voted for the “losers” would be disenfranchised at any given time. Democracy is about everyone being represented. The dominance, or even the existence, of large parties is a perversion of democracy, because every time we elect a representative, they are bound by the party line, when they should be listening to us. Parties are a hindrance to democracy, and so its fortunate that the two party system is coming to an end.

In Tasmania, Labor had long betrayed its advocacy of ordinary people, and along with at least one key union, had sold out, in that chummy sleazy-mates way that things are done here, to the big end of town. In Tasmania, its widely perceived that Labor is in bed with big money. And the Liberal Party IS big money. No wonder there was a hunger for a third alternative.

The pattern of two party demise is global. In the US the Republicans are splintering into redneck Tea Party racists, and old business values – utterly different agendas. In Australian federal politics the Liberal party simply does not know what it stands for, and changes leaders like shoes. The UK elections are set to deliver a similar outcome to Tasmania, with a Social Democrat balance of power. More progressive countries across Europe all have multi-party governments. Its really no big deal.

There is always hope. David Bartlett is young, he is still in the phase of hubris that we all go through from bluster masking insecurity, to genuine humility. We all in this life have to learn that there is no power, there is only co-operation. The electorate has chosen, and the result can be pared down to its core meaning: It did not have confidence in any party to rule. We wanted some governance on our governance, and the slow painful process of making this work has now begun. The Greens are showing the most maturity, the most intelligence, and increasingly the most connection with the hopes and dreams of caring and concerned people. Ugly forces will work to stop them, because huge profits, are certainly at stake. Money has controlled politics for a long time. Real democracy will be a new thing in this state, and we have to nurture it with care. And with determination. We never want to go back to being ruled by the robber barons again.