Elections Resolved

The election shave finally been resolved with an MP split of 76/74 towards Labour, meaning Julia Gillard has retained her seat as Prime Minister.

Watching these elections in Australia has been a strange experience. For the most part, Australians are rather indifferent regarding politics and it's generally considered bad manners to bring them up in conversation. However, things got busy during and the ousting of Kevin Rudd upset people enough to talk about it and adding to the drama was question of whether or not there would be enough votes for either side to form a government. But like most things political here, two weeks after the election, it was old news. No one really cared any longer who would be the next prime minister.

Which really surprised me. Americans care about their elections. It's big. The lead up to a presidential vote lasts two years. So when the final three independent MPs called a news conference mid day, mid week to announce which side they would ally with and only four people (myself included) tuned in to watch at work, I was a little taken aback. I mean, it's big news and no one could predict the outcome! I was really shocked that so few people took any interest at all. And even after the announcement was made, it really wasn't talked about at all and only got a further three days of news coverage.

One little annoyance: one of the guys who tuned in with our little group to watch the election was a guy who has harassed me at work before for being an American. He's the most annoying man I've ever met with the intelligence and humor of a tooth pick. We were all complaining about the last MP to announce his vote because he took forever rambling on about nothing at all--his family Christmas and other irrelevant crap. I mean, we were all complaining, but when I said (to the computer screen, might I add), "No one wants to hear about your family Christmas!" this guy turned to me and laid into me again about our president and his inauguration speech and blah, blah, blah. I've seriously had enough of people hating me for being an American and giving me crap for no reason other than they can, so I shut him up. I turned to him, cut him off and said, "Oh get over it already!" It really wasn't much of a response to his rantings but it made me feel good. I've been putting up with American hate for so long that telling someone to shut up just felt so good. At the very least he hasn't said anything to me since then--not a word--which is perfectly fine with me.

So there you have it! The elections resolved! Hopefully the world can start turning again now and we can get this damn visa processed already.