Australia, this is why we’re still the lucky country

OUR Government might be in shambles and there’s a chance we’ll have to go back to the ballot box, but according to Jamila Rizvi we have a reason to smile.

THIS is the second national election in six years where voters have delivered no clear winner.

Australians appear near-equally divided over the relative merits of the major parties. A mishmash of a Senate will be returned, as citizens vented their frustrations about how the country is being run on that large white ballot paper.

Votes sprayed left, right, centre and in the case of Pauline Hanson’s election in Queensland, full circle for xenophobia.

Nobody can predict with any certainty where postal votes will land and which marginal seats will fall on either side of the knife-edge. A final count of ballot papers will take some time.

Even after that process concludes, a hung parliament may very well mean more waiting. It took 17 days for Julia Gillard and the Labor Party to negotiate their way to government in 2010.

We don’t know how long it will take this time around. We may end up back at the ballot box.

Tony Abbott must be rubbing his hands together, Mr Burns-style, in anticipation.

This lady perfectly captured the mood at the Liberal Party function on Saturday night. Picture: Jason Edwards

I was working for the Gillard Government back in 2010. I was a 25-year-old staffer with no personal responsibilities, my head firmly in the game of politics. I lived and breathed that election, spending a grand total of one night in my own bed over the course of the campaign.

Looking back now, I’m reminded of how quickly life can change.

Today, I’m writing from an apartment in Berlin, Germany, where my in-laws are making breakfast and my son sleeps quietly in a cot in the next room. My husband is shouting out the latest Australian Electoral Commission results from the couch, political tragic that he is. He, like so many Australians, is deeply frustrated with the current state of affairs.

I’m a little more circumspect. Maybe it’s the distance or maybe just an excess of German beer talking but I feel incredibly lucky today.

The fact that Australians can deliver such an uncertain electoral outcome and then wait patiently, peacefully for a final decision is truly remarkable.

At the risk of sounding like an unusually patriotic Pollyanna, it makes me proud to call Australia home. A country where free and fair elections are something we assume as given. A country where the most controversial thing about Election Day is some posters being vandalised, or your democracy sausage being served with diced instead of sliced onions.

Throughout the world there are many nations where the outcome of an election can mean life or death for groups of citizens. The murder of MP Jo Cox in the Britain shows that the developed world isn’t immune from this sort of politically charged violence. It puts our relative political turbulence in stark perspective.

Yes, most of are dismayed to see Pauline back in the Senate, but just be thankful that voices like hers are being expressed peacefully. Picture: Dan Peled/AAP

An unknown number of days without a real government lay ahead for Australia and yet nobody is particularly worried. Of course, many of us passionately believe that either Turnbull or Shorten would make the better Prime Minister.

But there is no sense that the country is in danger — that our citizens are in danger — simply because one will ultimately prevail over the other.

On Monday night, our neighbours back home in Australia generously pushed our greens bins outside and onto the kerb and the rubbish was collected by morning. The mail is still being delivered, the 4G phone signal remains strong and an internet connection, although slow to download the latest episode of Game of Thrones, means I can Skype my dad for his birthday from the other side of the world.

Earth-moving equipment at construction sites roared into action as normal on Monday morning. Nurses and doctors continued their work free of political pressure to prioritise one patient over another. Public school teachers are preparing their materials for term three. Ships are docking at ports, delivering what we have bought and departing once more, packed with what we want to sell. Planes take off. They land. Young people leave for new adventures abroad and families are reunited once more.

And hey, at least we all got to enjoy a sausage. Picture: Braden Fastier

Peek outside your window and you’ll see no violent mob of discontented voters ransacking or vandalising shops to express their displeasure. No armed militia patrolling the streets to enforce peace.

Whether the view is of farmland, a suburban park, beachside shops or the bustling inner city, the chances are you haven’t questioned your safety since the uncertainty of this election outcome made itself apparent on Saturday night.

Not a single bullet has been fired in anger over this result. No lives were sacrificed.

It’s easy to forget that compared to so much of the world, this makes Australia unusual. Despite political uncertainty, our country plods along peacefully. There isn’t even a hint of expectation to the contrary. Life goes on as normal. A fact that proves this not-so-little island in the middle of the Pacific is anything but.

Jamila Rizvi is a writer, presenter and news.com.au columnist. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Originally published as Australia, this is why we’re still the lucky country