Sunday, 4th November 2007

According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald "quite a few Sydneysiders think the Kyoto Protocol is a Japanese delicacy; others think it may have been a peace treaty ending World War II".

This information made me wonder if, rather than a citizenship test, Australia would be better served if it initiated a right to vote test with such questions as, "Of which political party is John Howard the leader?" or "Which political party is in government at the moment and has been for the past eleven years?" The drawback with compulsory voting, it seems to me, is that a large number (majority?) of people turn up at the ballot box to make their mark simply because they don't want to pay a fine - and who can blame them? And forcing folk to take part in an activity in which they have zero interest or knowledge is akin to forcing me to go to an AFL Cup Final.

A friend of mine admits to feeling guilty if she doesn't vote because the suffragettes went through hell to obtain the vote for her. I invited her attention to Michael Moore's observation that once they had the vote the women proceeded to vote for the stupid white men anyway but it made her feel no better. There are few women in politics and the ones that stay the course have to very quickly acquire balls, fighting as they do in the rough and tough of the boys' playground gangland.

I did muse on how the invasion of Iraq could have been averted had our political leaders been married to great women like Lysistrata: "Sorry, lads, go to war and it's the end of all sexual activity on the home front!" What are their wives up to, any? Baking scones while their men folk wreak havoc? Perhaps they've all given up, let their men go their own way and hope they can manage alone.

"Behind every successful man is a surprised woman".