tatou a écrit :
mon impression, c'est que les Australiens ne sont que tres moyennement interesses par la politique. Il faut dire que quand tu es allonge sous le ciel bleu face a la mer avec une biere apres ton barbecue dominical, tu n'as pas vraiment envie d'elever le debat (les rares fois ou ca m'est arrive, on m'a generalement repondu "Have another beer, mate").
Bravo! I really think you've 'hit the nail on the head' (ie tu as vraiment raison!) I always knew it was true before, if at a social gathering you strayed too far from general conversation into serious conversation territory like politics, somebody would just offer you another beer, but I wasn't sure it was still like that today! (It just goes to confirm one of my earliest posts "How to be normal in Australia" - the very first page "Initiation" (and the chapter called 'Never appear worried' is also a good one for reference I think on this subject).
I'm not sure how a lot of Aussies in general feel about the election, and I definitely wouldn't go so far as to say they're saying 'lets get rid of Howard' (maybe they're thinking it though, but too polite to say it - that's what your vote is for doing).
I can say that the subject of the election cropped up at one of our Alliance Francaise soirees a couple of weeks ago, and about 10 minutes later, somebody quizzically asked "Why are we talking about politics??" as though to say 'we're Aussies, we don't TALK about politics, so what are we doing?' - Maybe we were confused! We were talking partly in French at the time and in the spirit of free French speech we let the conversation go on for another 5 minutes or so, till we got sick of it, and the others decided to have another wine and finish up with the comment something like 'but if he goes, you'd just be trading one slick operator/breaker of promises/typical politician for another' - and that was the end of that.
I have heard that comment quite a bit - it tends to start and finish the conversation all in one sentence 'who cares - it's not like we'd get much better'. Two people I know well have surprised me by declaring they want Howard to stay, and when I asked them why on earth they'd want that, they said they're not labour voters any more, because the last time Labour came to power they went on a big spending spree and put the whole state into big debt - and they did.
tatou a écrit :
Ces elections se resumant a un duel entre deux adversaires, j'ai l'impression que c'est plus le charisme des candidats que le programme politique de leur parti qui va finalement faire pencher la balance.
Exactement! You've got it again - at least it's how I feel.
We mentioned the televised debate at last week's Alliance Francaise soiree, and the responses were stuff like:
a: I thought Latham looked cool and confident, like he knew what he was doing, and Johnny just looked plain nervous.
b: I didn't bother watching it, no interest, we were watching Australian Idol (and this last comment came from an age 50+ winemaker of the group, to give you an idea how determined he was NOT to watch anything about politics on tv)
The general feeling I've got from 'our' group, is that you could just be exchanging one set of problems for another, and nobody has said who they're voting for (though one absent member of the group is tipped to vote for our local Liberal rep because she's blonde and pretty. There's quite a lot of emphasis on the local political competition too, and it seems to be being spoken about more frequently and in a much more relaxed and less cynical way than the big election.
Some of my thoughts, anyway.
I'm fascinated to see that so many of you are interested that you've made 42 posts on the elections and the 'race' has only just begun!
Je vais dire ca a mes amis francophiles ce soir - they'll be amazed too.
Kate