What’s the quip?: “Never trust a used car salesman or a specialist”.
Well, maybe we will have to add meteorologists to the list. Last week millions of residents in Australia’s tropical northern State of Queensland were told that a menacing cyclone, with the antique name of Alfred, was set to bear down on its capital, Brisbane, and surrounding areas.
The media positioned themselves with predictable drama and a touch of schadenfreude. It was almost as if they were salivating at the prospect of mass destruction and despair. The cyclone’s arrival, even with the aid of modern weather forecasting tools, was wrongly predicted, dare I say massively overblown.
Cyclone Alfred was going to cross Queensland’s coast on Wednesday, then it was Thursday. It did not arrive until Saturday, by which time the cyclone had, thankfully, decompressed, into a mere tropical depression. Even when the front crossed the coast the forecasters erred. Residents of Hervey Bay were told that it was safe to venture forth only for a sudden downpour of 300 mm to arrive, necessitating the rescue of stranded citizens.
So, do we have another reminder of the unconquerable caprice of nature or a worrying tendency to assume that our experts know too much?
Maybe we have accept that there are matters about which we may never know the whole. We certainly know that extravagant predictions are just that.
Concerns about Cyclone Alfred not only led to an intense focus on weather patterns, but also upset the electoral plans of the Prime Minister.
By all accounts Mr. Albanese was poised to call an April 12 election last weekend. Concerns about widespread damage to Queensland derailed this plan, so we now head to a May poll, complete with a pre-election Budget on March 25th. The so-called ‘highlight’ of the Budget will be further spending to discount the power bills of Australian homes. Remember, this will see more money being spent to compensate for the unsustainable promise of reductions in electricity prices made by the Prime Minister at the last election. Memo to the Prime Minister and Treasurer: the cost of electricity will not change until your reckless policy drive to renewable energy changes. Irony of ironies: the funds to pay for this largesse will come from increased commodity prices for the very resources that the government eschews such as iron ore and liquid petroleum gas.
A captivating feature of politics and history is asking the “what we will never know “ questions.
Here are ten from the twentieth century:
- What if Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s car had not taken an unexpected detour in Sarajevo in 1914 and given Princip a second chance to assassinate the heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne and his wife?
- What if Edward VIII had been allowed to marry Mrs. Simpson and had not abdicated?
- What if Argentina had not invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982? Would Margaret Thatcher have been a one-term Prime Minister?
- What if the Japanese had not invaded Pearl Harbour?
- What if J.F. Kennedy had not been assassinated? How would America’s involvement in the Vietnam war developed?
- Would contemporary South Africa be different if its apartheid regime ended twenty years before it did?
- What if the Internet had never been invented? When will any of us truly know the effects of social media about the concentration spans, attitudes and knowledge of those born after 2005? Mind you, I suspect experienced secondary teachers know the answer!
- What if the modern state of Israel had been created away from contentious lands in the Middle East?
- What if the Watergate Hotel burglary was never connected to the White House?
- What would have happened if Donald Trump had not called for an early Presidential debate last year and the cognitive challenges of President Biden remained hidden?
Justin Trudeau must also be wondering what his world may have been like if he had remained as Canada’s Prime Minister for another month. Could he have turned his recent ‘Defend Canada from “dumb Donald” the Southern aggressor’ rhetoric into his and his party’s political renaissance? Now, the Canadian Liberals ask can Mark Carney do it?
And there are the whimsical questions and contemplations!
-What would the world be like if we all drove on the same side of the road?
-What would the world be like if there was one standard remote control for television and sound systems and one programme only for dishwashers and washing machines?
-Would there be a climate change crisis if America and Canada turned down their winter heating thermostats to 22 degrees and Singapore and the UAE made their shopping centres less refrigerated by increasing their summer thermostats to 20 degrees?
-What would the world be like if neither tea nor coffee had been discovered?
Tennis provides no less tantalising ‘what if’ questions!
-In the week of his passing, what would life had been like for Fred Stolle if he had managed to win one of his three Wimbledon finals?
-Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova fittingly ended their careers with 18 Grand Slam titles each. How many would each of them had won without the presence of their great rival?
-Similarly, how many Wimbledon and other Grand Slam titles would Laver and others won if they did not take a break from the amateur code until Open tennis arrived in 1968?
-How many Grand Slam titles would Monica Seles won if not the crazed attack on her when she was at the height of her powers?
Accurate predictions seem increasingly difficult to make about politics, weather and tennis.
This week’s ATP 1000 tournament at Indian Wells has already seen the defeat of Zverev, Rublev and Djokovic before the Round of 32. It was bizarre to see Djokovic, still in search of his 100th title seeded sixth for a tournament he has won five times. For the first time since 2008, Djokovic has lost three consecutive matches. Meanwhile, Swiatek, fresh from time on the supplements bench, can resume her rivalry with Sabalenka in the final.
Now expert opinions turn to predicting the outcome of the Australian election.
We know the form guide. No first term Australian government has lost office since the Scullin Labor government was defeated in 1931. The effect of the Great Depression traumatised Scullin’s tenure.
Will current cost of living pressures claim Albanese? Things are clearly becoming desperate. The Prime Minister has promised to freeze regular indexed excise price rises on beer! Does the Australian electorate march to the polls on its ales and lagers?
Of course, none of us know what may happen in May but here are my early thoughts:
-there does not appear to be any reversal of the loss of support for the major parties who both struggle to obtain a primary vote of near the critical 40%;
-unexpectedly large swings in various electorates will be seen again and will work against and for the major parties; as ever, preferences will be critical in determining contests in marginal seats;
-Labor is electorally unattractive in Victoria and the coalition will be hoping that sentiment against the State Labor government will translate into seat gains for the Liberals. Winning seats in Queensland seems to be a hard task for the Labor Party, as does the Liberals winning seats in WA. The Liberals are hoping that seats it lost to the Greens in metropolitan Brisbane will return to them. South Australia and Tasmania are probably status quo and no seismic electoral movement of seats is expected in NSW ;
and
-it seems clear that more affluent socio-economic electorates are endeared with the prospect of electing a non-aligned member: most pundits expect all but one of the Teal/Independents to be re-elected.
Adding this all up, it does seem likely that we may be reprising the dramas of 2010-2013 with the formation of another minority government.
Whilst winds in Queensland have been destructive, electoral winds from Western Australia’s weekend State election may be more informative. The ALP, despite its commanding majority, lost the heartland working class seat of Fremantle which it had held since 1934 to an independent candidate. History repeats. In the Labor electoral rout of 1931 the ALP lost the Federal seat of Fremantle to a former Independent member, William Watson. The defeated ALP candidate was none other than John Curtin, who reclaimed the seat in 1934, before serving as Australia’s wartime Prime Minister from 1941-1945.
Contemporary electoral results in Fremantle remind us that ‘rusted on’ party loyalties have been corroded to a significant degree.
The millennials and Generation Z cohort will outnumber the baby boomers on polling day for the first time. Compelled to vote, they seem cynical about the ability of either major party to significantly reduce cost of living and housing pressures. Despite the circling of our coastline by Chinese naval ships, it will not be a khaki election, wedded as both major parties are to the AUKUS alliance. Greens extremism on the Middle East conflict may jeopardise their ability to make further metropolitan gains. And then along comes Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of the Patriots…. Who said politics was dull?
Thankfully less destructive winds blew across Queensland than was feared. Whether there will be cyclonic electoral winds of change across the nation is another question about which there is no certain answer.
MAYbe there will be. MAYbe not!