Combines proliferating

Not content with staying up til dawn in the lead-up to Xmas I continued the trend and made dozens of works with similar qualities. I call these combines, one of the Pop artists used this word I can't remember which it was so long ago. I was a big fan of Pop art back in the day, but nowadays find inspiration in colours mostly. I still use culture references though.

'Proof II', 2024.

Having started to do works in this format naturally I studied the possibility of using poems as well. Well, having thought about it for a few hours I decided to take action.

'The election', 2024.

This poem was written on 16 February 2013; 12 November 2020; 15 and 23 September 2021. It referred to the 2013 poll but could apply to any election. I'm still interested in poppey things, 'Proof II' is based on a drama that aired in 2007 featuring a journalist. I was studying journalism at the time so naturally I took an interest. Making photos from the TV broadcast seemed natural but nothing at the time could have suggested to me that I'd use them 16 years later in an artwork. For 'The election' on the other hand I use photos from 2022 when Labor was elected (Liberal-National coalition won in 2013).

Bad news from Burundi

On Twitter on Saturday 2 November 2019 at 1.21pm Sydney time I saw a tweet from @iBurundi that went, “Burundi controversial ruler @pnkurunziza plans to create an exclusive law for only himself. He reportedly wants to have a special status that will transcend the government ‘when he leaves’ his current role in August 2020. He wants to become a monarch.” Until 1.55pm on that day the only tweets that had appeared with the #Burundi hashtag were one about soccer and one about a Burundi ambassador on an official visit although it was very early in the morning in Burundi. 

When I saw a tweet about Evangelique Inamahoro I asked a few direct questions. She had been shot outside her home by a man on a motorcycle – who shot her? why? Five minutes later I got a call from a man. We agreed to meet and I gave him a location that suited me. On 7 November I went there in the early evening and waited until a man wearing a purple shirt came up to me. He greeted me politely and I suggested going to my house but he didn’t want that so we went to a café and sat down. I ordered a flat white and he ordered a sparkling mineral water. The waitress also brought a bottle of tap water for us to drink, and two glasses with it.

He said that the government of Burundi – a nation of 10 million people – is abusing human rights. “They talk to God everyday but they behave like monsters,” he said. There would be elections held in 2020 and the president – a man named Pierre Nkurunziza – would try to run again for office even though he had already had the allowed two terms in office. He had been brought to power initially in 2005 and there had been elections in 2010, which he had won, and in 2015. Now, he had extended the presidential term to seven years and said that the first term he had served – after being elected by a limited franchise of people acting as an “electoral college” – did not count.

This part of the story matched what I had learned online. For example at about 2pm on Saturday 2 November a tweet appeared from a person named MissyMunezer (with 909 followers) who used the #Burundi hashtag and said, “Nkurunziza replacing the few who might resist his succession roadmap: Steve Ntakarutimana has been silenced & replaced by a loyal Ndakugarika. What will be Niyongabo army Chief of Staff[‘s] fate?” Her tweet, a retweet from a person named Albert Rudatsimburwa, contained an image of the same official letter that had appeared in the tweet already mentioned. The letter appears below. Rudatsimburwa has “Rwanda” as his place of residence in his Twitter profile. He has about 41,900 followers.

Apart from these two tweets, the hashtag had gone virtually silent for an hour, and it wasn’t clear, even then, that Twitter had not been shut down. MissyMunezer might have been using a clever means to bypass a block but I don’t know enough about the internet to accurately speculate as to why her tweet had gotten through when everyone else in the country, it seemed, had suddenly shut up. Perhaps she was accessing her account overseas?

I asked the man I met, and he said that he wasn’t sure if Twitter had been blocked by the government of Burundi but that people were telling him that YouTube had been blocked in the country.

The tweet about the dead woman went, “Évangélique Inamahoro, a mother of 3 children[,] was shot and killed at home in Kanyosha by two assaillants [sic] who took off on a motorcycle.” It had gone up on Friday 1 November at 12.15am Australian Eastern Daylight Time, which would have been on Thursday evening in Burundi.

The document shown in the above image is a letter from the presidency of the republic, the secretary-general of the government. It is titled, “Press release from the meeting of the council of ministers of Wednesday 30 October 2019.” The document says:

The council of ministers met this Wednesday 30 October 2019 under the leadership of his excellency the president of the republic, Mr Pierre Nkurunziza.

The following points were discussed:

1. Legislative project carrying modification of the law No. 1/20 of 9 December 2004 in regard to the status of the head of the state at the termination of his functions, presented by the minister for justice, of civil protection and keeper of the seals.

The head of state is an important figure for the country. During the exercise of his functions and even at the termination of the same, he deserves to be treated with dignity. 

Therefore, the legitimacy of the head of state depends on the manner whereby he gained power. A president who acceded to power by a coup d’état or by the simple consensus of a group of politicians should not be treated the same as a president who has been democratically elected. 

The law in force relating to the status of the head of state at the end of his functions has not made a distinction with regard to that which concerns the treatment reserved for the old heads of state relating to the manner in which they have come to power. 

The current project wants to make such a distinction. It will also conform to the Constitution in foreseeing the benefit of replacing the privilege of automatically incorporating the Senate, which shall no longer figure in the Constitution.

After discussion, the project was adopted with a number of changes.

I tried contacting the shadowy black man again. In March 2020 we exchanged some words in WhatsApp and I tried again this year but with no success. The things he’d told me were still in my mind. Teachers who rape their students with impunity. People being imprisoned. Refugees fleeing across borders to safety in other countries. It all became relevant in January this year when Margaret Court had her honours upgraded – her husband Barry is Burundi’s consul in Perth – and while I’d had no luck getting the mainstream media interested in his story back in 2019, I thought it might fly now that Court was in the news. Hence this blogpost.

I asked @iBurundi about the 2020 election – Nkurunziza had died in 2020 and a new president was now leading the country – and the account sent me a link to a UN website that chronicles abuses at the election. “Elections happened but they weren’t free or fair,” the account operator told me via DM. The report’s summary contains this:

Numerous serious human rights violations have been documented since May 2019 in connection with the 2020 elections. The perpetrators were seeking to deprive the main opposition party of any chance of winning the election. These violations were mainly committed by members of the Imbonerakure youth league of the ruling party and by local officials who continue to enjoy nearly total impunity. Officers of the National Intelligence Service and the police often participated in or supported such violations or, in the case of the police, sometimes stood by and allowed the perpetrators to act. The judiciary has also taken part in this repression.

The “Imbonerakure” is a terrorist group. Anyone who wants a copy of the UN’s PDF with their report, please contact me and I will email it to you. Burundi’s problems continue and Barry Court continues to be associated with a dangerous regime.

Movie review: Knock Down the House, dir Rachael Lears (2019)

This Netflix original documentary tracks the congressional campaigns of women aiming for the Democratic nomination for four lower house seats. The movie shows grassroots campaigns led by ordinary people – Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, for example, is a waitress at the beginning of the film – in order to bring real change to American politics. One of the main policy areas the women addressed in their campaigns was healthcare and a theme that recurs often is the influence of money on politics in the US.

‘Knock Down the House’ is, despite the drama contained in the title, a sensitive portrayal of ambition and shows how individuals must invest themselves in a venture of this nature; for these women – Ocasio-Cortez (New York), Cori Bush (Missouri), Paula Jean Swearingen (West Virginia), Amy Vilela (Nevada) – campaigning becomes personal and compulsive. Their reactions are honed to be fast; they have to be quick on the draw in order to effectively engage in such activities as doorknocking and public debates. Handing out leaflets on city streets is just as important as developing effective policies or as raising funds from donors contacted by telephone. In each case, the candidate is supported by a team of committed individuals. The movie helps to clarify what is involved in the process of politics. We often criticise politicians and, now with social media, such treatment is more visible than it has ever been, but we mostly don’t think about how it affects people who are, on a daily basis, intimately involved.

The movie does four things that are tied to the notion of ambition. Firstly, the movie is aspirational, both from the standpoint of the actors and of the filmmakers themselves. It is a kind of primer to a process of renewal, as well as being an act of witnessing the ceaseless striving, for authenticity and its attendant success, that takes years of hard, continuous work and that might end up with a defeat at a poll. When filming began, well before 2018, the year in which the elections took place, it was not at all clear who would win and who would lose. But even if none of the movie’s subjects had been successful, it is clear that such efforts can bear fruit after a delay of many years. (Michael Lewis’ ‘Trail Fever’ (1997) demonstrates how this was true of the ’96 Republican races; policies expressed at that time were echoed strongly in Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.)

Secondly, the movie clarifies the dynamic that conditions relations between different political players: between the candidate and her staff, between the candidate and potential voters and sponsors, between two competing candidates (for Ocasio-Cortez the opposition was Joe Crowley, representing the establishment in the form of the “Queens Machine”).

Thirdly, ‘Knock Down the House’ serves to illustrate America’s extraordinary diversity. You get to see a range of different contexts in which politics is performed – from the bright green valleys of the Appalachians to the parched, brown streets of suburban Nevada; from the busy thoroughfares of the Bronx to the leafy avenues of suburban St Louis. The cinematography is excellent, adding charm to a product that, in itself, was always going to be very interesting. It must’ve helped that the director is a woman; the movie opens, for example, with Ocasio-Cortez putting on her makeup in preparation for an important event.

And always there’re the voters, average people with their own taste in clothes, a range of hairstyles; an entire inventory of middle America. For some readers of this post, the idea of democracy in the USA might seem old-fashioned due to known deficits that persist in many states, as well as at the federal level. Because people like the women shown in the movie are aware of such deficits, the movie’s title serves as a potent reminder of an ongoing struggle. So, fourthly (and, possibly, most importantly), ‘Knock Down the House’ shows how some form of representation of the individual – his or her wishes and aspirations, his or her problems and wants – can exist even under the most trying conditions.

I found this movie to be solid; it is also understated and careful: an appropriate response to a situation that deserves, because of the privileged position that the US maintains in the world, closer scrutiny both by Americans and by people living in other countries. Well worth the time needed to watch.

Book review: Trail Fever, Michael Lewis (1997)

I read a few chapters of this book and put it aside, but came back to it after reflecting, at leisure, upon how entertained I had been by some of the early chapters. So, I happily finished this fascinating though ancient work of literary journalism. Its subtitle is also ludicrous (‘Spin doctors, rented strangers, thumb wrestlers, toe suckers, grizzly bears, and other creatures on the road to the White House’), evoking within the reader’s mind – and adding a poignant dash of camp that reinforces the notion that Lewis was more a part of the mainstream than his predecessor was – Hunter Thompson’s chaotic 1973 work: ‘Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72.’

Thompson was, unlike Lewis, self-educated. But both journalists display a politically progressive approach to the world, and both are also enormously funny, though in different ways. Lewis grew up in Louisiana and Thompson grew up in Kentucky, but the differences separating the two books come down to matters of style rather than substance. In the intervening years, Thompson suicided (2005) while Lewis wrote and published a number of books on money and sport. The younger man also edited other books.

In ‘Trail Fever’ Lewis chronicles, in sometimes absurd and often hilariously funny ways, the 1996 presidential race, starting with the Republican primaries at the beginning of the year. What is so striking about it is how it shows how the seeds that bore fruit with the election, in 2016, of Donald Trump existed well before Bill Clinton (in the year 2000) opened the way for China to sell its goods in the US market by granting it “most-favoured nation” status.  In the failed ‘96 Republican presidential candidates Pat Buchanan (who supported protectionism) and Morry Taylor (who wanted to reduce taxes) you see the seeds that would grow and, 20 years later, flower in the Midwest.

Buchanan and Taylor also anticipate with their ideas Trump’s dictum “drain the swamp” and had libertarian ideas that reflected a distrust of insiders and what Lewis terms “rented strangers”: the faceless men and women who gravitate toward politics in the hope of securing a well-paid job providing advice or some other form of service to a candidate or member of Congress. Lewis writes:

The Outsiders – the agitators, the troublemakers, the champions of lost causes – are temperamentally unsuited to treating politics as if it were a rigged fight. The Outsider is by nature indiscreet, unstable, and risk loving and as a result will rarely land himself a seat in power Alley. (Pat Buchanan’s drift from Insider to Outsider mirrors the drift in American politics away from large-bore crisis management and toward small-bore career management.) Occasionally the Outsider may call himself a Democrat or a Republican, but he can’t be contained by either party, because his enemy is not the other party but the entire system. He has a taste for the structural issues: campaign finance reform, global trade. The current crop of Outsiders – Buchanan on the right, Perot in the center, Jesse Jackson on the left – stood together against the North American Free Trade Agreement, for instance, and for campaign finance reform. Each in his own way speaks to the dissatisfaction with politics that 70 percent of Americans claim to feel. Each in his own way is guided by some mythic view of the past. And each in his own way addresses the central problem of politics: that an awful lot lies beyond its reach. To succeed, an Outsider must grab for what he knows he cannot have. He’ll probably never get it, but he might knock it loose so that someone else will, one day.

Now we know who that someone is. Tyre manufacturer Morry Taylor produced a manuscript – which remained unpublished at the time Lewis’ book went to print – titled ‘Kill All the Lawyers and Other Ways to Fix Washington’. Lewis spent a lot of time with Taylor, even after Taylor was eliminated from the race to secure the Republican nomination. On Taylor’s relations with most of the media:

Morry can be persuasive when he wants to be. For instance, he is normally withering on the subject of journalism; asked to define “journalist” he will say, “People who can’t add.” Now he tells me that I’m different from other journalists because “unlike those other guys you’re not inserting your private opinion. You just listen and tell people the truth.” I nod to myself: How true. 

The smile behind that last sentence is wide, however, because Lewis is just as acerbic and opinionated when writing about Taylor as he is when writing about, say, Buchanan. The book has 25 chapters (including a prelude and an epilogue) and at the end there is a humorous vignette where Lewis gets caught up in the conspiracies surrounding Clinton that, as the days ticked away toward the beginning of November and became colder and colder, took on a life of their own and accelerated. But it’s a storm in a teacup. These passages are especially funny because, in this case, it’s Lewis’ own reputation that is at stake, rather than a politician’s. He has spent the better part of 300 pages beaming a spotlight on the personalities, the characters, and the words of a set of men and women involved in politics, and now when he becomes a central player he has to be as honest as he was then. It’s truly hilarious. 

This book is a gem not just because it is funny but also because of the insights it contains about America’s democratic deficit. For example, on Jesse Jackson:

The Jacksons and the Buchanans have been folded into their respective tents. You can see that Jackson is struggling: because their concerns are not explicitly addressed, the poor don’t vote; because they don’t vote, their concerns are even less likely to be explicitly addressed. How this resolves itself, God only knows.

The thing to keep in mind if you are a progressive in the US, however, is that Buchanan’s and Taylor’s ideas remained current in the hearts and minds of a significant slice of the demographic, emerging finally in 2016 in Trump’s campaign speeches. (For the book, Lewis made a visit to the border and interviewed a Mexican who was trying to get over the fence into the US.) Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic nomination but, in the future, Lewis’ book suggests, someone with similar ideas is going to come along and successfully steal his thunder. 

In a sense this book was waiting for me (it had, of course, sat unread in my library for years, but that’s not what I mean here). A couple of years ago I wrote a post about the future of US politics, musing on the likelihood of something worse than Trump emerging on the Right. This book buttresses that notion. Just as the Democratic primaries held today will probably presage the emergence of a candidate with similar views a generation hence, the same thing can happen on the conservative side of the political spectrum. We’ll have to see what form such a persona might take.

Trump, impeachment and the real problems in US politics

On 25 September news filtered out, as usual initially on social media, of the decision by the Democrats in the US House of Representatives to start an inquiry into matters that might lead to the impeachment of the president. This news ran on air on the TV all day and I knew that it would continue to dominate the media for a while.

The question that the Democrats have to answer is whether Donald Trump solicited and received information from the government of the Ukraine about Joe Biden’s son. Biden is currently one of the front-runners in the race among Democrats to find a candidate to compete against Trump, who is a Republican, in the 2020 presidential election. Dirt on Biden’s son might, the thinking goes, damage the father and reduce his chances of success in any polls.

So the whole impeachment thing turns on a technicality, a piece of legalistic thinking of the most arcane sort. In the US, it is illegal for a politician to receive anything of value from a foreign country to use in an election.

But this minor item of US legal exotica is of little consequence compared to the reality of US electoral dysfunction. Let’s leave aside the debacle of the 2016 presidential election, which all evidence says Russian influencers skewed in favour of Trump. If this was the only problem the insignificance of the piece of election law being analysed in this post would already be proven but there’s much more that makes it even less relevant.

In the middle of last year I wrote a post which was a review of a new book on democracy by a British academic named David Runciman. In my review I talked about some of the problems with the US electoral system. I have seen, since then, many people online talking about “the system” in a way that makes me think that there is a lot of discontent in the country about the political settlement. Back on 7 August 2018 I wrote:

In fact (and Runciman hints at this at one point in the book) the US is not actually a democracy at all, but rather an oligarchy. And the political right [wing] there is always working to further limit access to the democratic process to exclude people living in the lower-socioeconomic strata of society. Look at recent efforts by Donald Trump to make having photo ID mandatory when going to vote. It’s all about trying to make sure the elites are the only ones who can cast a vote.

I went on to list a number of things that the US should do to make it easier for the maximum number of people to vote in elections because the whole US electoral system is skewed in favour of the conservatives through a variety of means. I have slightly revised the list:

• Make voting at all elections mandatory
• Establish a federal statutory body (and separate state bodies) to run elections and (in order to eliminate gerrymandering) set electoral boundaries; such bodies would operate at arm’s length from any executive or legislature and appointments to their boards would be based on bipartisan consensus
• Stop preventing ex-convicts from voting 
• Increase the number of voting booths and make them easily accessible
• Stop using electronic voting machines (which can easily be gamed) and only use paper ballots
• Move voting days to Saturday

There are probably another half-dozen things that might be done to improve the political process. You might, for example, outlaw political action committees and prevent political appointments being made to make up the Supreme Court. The list above is just what I can right now come up with sitting here, in Australia, looking in from outside (and feeling a bit helpless).

If things such as these were promoted by the Democrats with the same energy they are displaying in their effort to impeach Trump, then they might have a better chance of winning elections. But they either don’t know what the real problems are or else they are just in thrall to the moment, like a junkie who needs his fix to get through the day. The system is the problem. Trump is not the disease, he is a symptom of the illness of entrenched inequality. An illness that, furthermore, permits rich corporations to heavily influence the process of government through donations and through professional lobbying. Foreign influence? Pah! The Ukraine thing is a nothing but a sideshow.

[UPDATE 5 October 2019, 8.55am:] A comment went up this morning at 8.37am Sydney time. It was from a person whose Twitter name is Steven Badeener and who had joined the site in June this year, and had accumulated 21 followers since then. It went, "You have no business commenting on these things, they are above your head. Now take your worthless opinion and self promotion and shove it." I had evidently hit a nerve with someone. A Google search turned up no-one with this name. The only record I found was the Twitter account that had responded to me. In the tweet, the mixture of suppressed politeness and conscientious thoroughness made me think that this person is not young. You can't please everyone, it seems.

Expressions of incredulity that Australia voted conservative

This is a completely unscientific survey. For those, like me, who like to know what’s been happening online since the May federal election, however, this will contain some insights. I started the survey on 13 July and it ran for about 10 days, ending on 23 July.

I have separated the tweets into categories, as is my wont, to make the piece more readable and easier to understand. On some days there were more tweets that caught my attention than on others, and this might have had something to do with the issues that were being discussed by people on the #auspol hashtag, which a lot of the tweets below contained. This survey is a lament, if you want to find a genre to classify it among similar kinds of articles. The overriding emotion was sadness and there was also a fair bit of confusion. If you want to read another, similar, account of political crisis, I can recommend Bret Easton Ellis’ brilliant ‘White’ which was published this year and which I reviewed on the blog early last week.

In his book, Ellis recounts a number of conversations that he had with different people following the election of Donald Trump in 2016. His book goes up to 2018, where the stories stop due to the requirements of publication. So the book finishes with a kind of study of futility as people responded in various ways to Trump’s election. Many of Ellis’ friends are progressives, but not all of them. For his progressive friends he had difficulty discussing politics because of the extreme polarisation that Trump embodies. Ellis’ boyfriend at the time was, basically, almost catatonic with frustration and despair and it looks like he stopped bathing or going out of their apartment.

You see some of the same kind of emotions expressed in what follows. This is by no means as rich in detail as the passages in Ellis’ book that deal with the election outcome and its aftermath. This is, to be frank, quite a poor version of the same thing. But I hesitate to apologise for this shortcoming, having at least gone to the trouble of finding tweets to classify. The categories I have used are:

• General resignation and regret
• Blaming Shorten
• Link to current issues
• Blaming Murdoch
• Scapegoating Peter Dutton on account of his increased majority

General resignation and regret

At 9.12am on 13 July a Perth account with 111 followers tweeted, “Dumb Australians voting for a dump Australia. To [sic] many old self-centred, self-focussed neandertals [sic] in [sic] voted for stupidity.” Another account, one with 447 followers that is based in Melbourne, retweeted that tweet plus added this comment: “Why progressive politics (keep) losing, in a nutshell.”

On the same day at 9.37am an account with 296 followers tweeted, “We really do need to stop blaming the politicians. We elect these idiots. It is our fault. They win because their message has majority appeal. People would rather believe the lie than engage with the harsh truth.” I responded to this person with this: “Precisely. But then they start blaming the community for electing the ‘wrong’ people to power.”

On 17 July a Sydney account with 1654 followers tweeted, “Can we wind back to 18 May and rerun the election.”

On 19 July at 9.24pm an account with 4084 followers tweeted, “When will Australians start using their brains you reckon they have? Voting in a happy clapper is not demonstrating intelligence.”

Blaming Shorten

On one day in mid-July at 11.55am an account with 1679 followers tweeted, “People are going to rue the day they voted for the Liberal Party simply because they didn't like Bill Shorten.” This tweet included a retweet of a tweet from the same person that had gone up a minute earlier that said, “’[But] I just wonder if maybe what happens – at a deeper level sometimes – a country sometimes makes a judgment about people over time, and I just wonder if they just decided ‘we are not electing Bill Shorten’,’” This quote came with a link to a Guardian story by Amy Remeikis titled, “Alastair Campbell on the 'populist virus' and why Bill Shorten lost.”

Link to current issues

On 13 July at 9.06am an account with 373 followers tweeted, “And yet half of Australia voted for these monsters....shame on this govt.” This was in response to a tweet that had gone up five hours before that said, “Aged care funding for nursing homes cut by $1.2bn in federal budget.”

At 7.14pm on 13 July an account with 209 followers tweeted, “I do not recognise Australia right now. I'm finding it hard not to look at some ppl & wonder how they voted & how they feel now.” This tweet came with another tweet from an account with 139 followers that had tweeted, “WELL FANCY THAT! The only Journalistic Outlet to actually attempt to hold this #CorruptCoalition @LiberalAus accountable, get TAGGED as the ENEMY. Congratulations AUSTRALIA you nearly have what you voted for [:] a FASCIST Govt.” This had an image with it that showed a story headline from an ABC website. The journalist was Felicity Caldwell and the headline read, “ABC described as ‘enemies’ of the LNP at state convention.”

On 14 July at 9.59pm an account with 63 followers tweeted, “The French proletariat on a national holiday sing 'anticapitalista!' In the streets. Australians drown their brain in piss and elect pentecostal [sic] evangelical morons to government. Such a contrast.” The link was to the French national day, 14 July.

On 15 July at 8.10pm an account with 191 followers tweeted, “Retirees have also remember [sic] that they believed the lies #SloMo and Palmer spread before the election. Seems all the bad things the Government promised Labor would do, have been done by our Penticostal [sic] PM. You voted for this shit.” The tweet referred to the government’s announcement the day before about the deemed rate of interest for part-pensioners, earned on savings, which is used to calculate their payments as the pension is paid in full only to people with no savings. The government calculates the amount of money to pay to such people by assuming a certain return from investments, but this was considered by experts to be unreasonable since real interest rates have gone down in recent months due to the Reserve Bank’s cutting of the cash rate to a record low. Returns from term deposits had gone down as well in this climate of low interest rates.

On 15 July at 10.11pm an account with 90 followers tweeted, “Just because the nation was ready for change doesn’t mean the government they so ignorantly re-elected was ready to change a god damn thing in respect to indigenous recognition! @ScottMorrisonMP has made himself very clear.” This tweet related to the issue of the Voice to Parliament that had been requested by the Referendum Council in 2017.

On 19 July at around 7pm an account I follow with around 39,100 followers retweeted a tweet from the ABC’s ‘The Drum’ program that had gone up at 6.33pm, that said, “’It's disgraceful. The policies are woefully inadequate. They are not in line with what the experts recommend they need to be. It's terribly unfair the next generation of people are going to be left feeling the true impact of climate change.’ (2/2) @AnikaMolesworth.” The guy I followed added with his own tweet, “And yet the population continues to vote for these policies and the myopic politicians who peddle them.”

Blaming Murdoch

On 13 July at 6.25pm a Gold Coast account with 922 followers tweeted, “"The simple truth is that we are being outgunned by the brute power of billionaires. And the same can be said for democracy." Extremely familiar, Sally! Eg: #Murdoch's #LNP #IPA strategy to ‘Kill Bill’ & outright #lies about #Labor policies pre-election!”

The same day at 6.49pm an account with 56 followers tweeted, “These #Murdoch stooges will never be satisfied until they get a PM they can bend to their every will. What they did to Turnbull, they will do to Morrison. They want Spud, already a useful idiot for corporate media.”

Scapegoating Peter Dutton on account of his increased majority

At 6.55pm a Melbourne account with 1058 followers tweeted, “’When something's before the courts, like when ppl take Peter Dutton to court, you...respect legal processes.’ Set in his ways: flogging a dead horse on Dutton, over whom ppl were so outraged they re-elected him, + the govt, w a bigger majority.” The tweet came with a link to a blogpost by Tim Blair on the Daily Telegraph website.

On 18 July at 5.27am an account with 15,503 followers tweeted, “The principles & values of a democracy are not the principles & values of this Govt. This has been clear to anyone looking for sometime [sic]. Just think how they won re-election - anything but democratic.”

This tweet came in response to a series of tweets that started on 25 July at 4.25pm when John Lyons, the ABC’s executive head of news, tweeted, “AFP/HOME AFFAIRS: Timeline of a remarkable week. Monday June 3 an official from Home Affairs Dept calls 2GB’s Ben Fordham demanding to know a source; Tuesday June 4 AFP raid @annikasmethurst home; Wed June 5 AFP raid ABC; Thurs June 6 AFP was planning to raid News Corp Sydney HQ.” In response to this, journalist (and now academic) Peter Greste tweeted on 16 July at 7.11am, “How did one of the wold’s great liberal democracies come to this? Is this REALLY the kind of state we want to live in?”

The tweets were in relation to a pair of raids by the Australian Federal Police targeting journalists that had caused a great deal of commentary in public by journalists and citizens. Peter Dutton is the minister for home affairs, the organisation that oversees the AFP. The problem with a lot of the commentary that appeared in the wake of the raids is that accusing the government for the actions of the AFP is actually more than a bit paranoid. There was no indication that the government knew about the raids before they took place and, in fact, after they had taken place the prime minister said publicly that his government supports a free media. And to suggest that there was anything undemocratic about the government’s election was just laughable.

Victorians plump for Labor and (more importantly) for sausages

If you ever needed confirmation that Australia, and particularly Melbourne, is food-obsessed, then what follows should allay any doubts that might have remained in your mind. Eating sausages at polling places is practically mandatory; they even had them on hand in Antarctica, where residents vote with Victoria. Farmers at least should take some comfort from Saturday’s election.

If you don’t buy a sausage you won’t get any ballot papers. This is of course a joke, but it’s not really far from the truth. In this post almost every man and woman represented by a tweet was partaking of snags. With or without fried onions and with or without tomato sauce – ketchup for Americans – or mustard, or BBQ sauce (an Aussie staple which has a dark brown colour and a smoky tang).

The new normal gives new meaning to the expression "Silly sausage", a term of endearment from the old days used by parents when comforting a child who had banged a knee or grazed a knuckle. And the question being asked on election day (apart from the poll result) was this: onions on the top or on the bottom?

At 8.49am Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) on Saturday 24 November, Melbourne resident Simon Bowden set the tone early (polling stations opened at 8am and would close at 6pm), tweeting a photo of two young men eating sausages wrapped in slices of bread. Both men had beards and wore glasses. The tweet contained the #demcracysausage hashtag. At the same time federal Nationals MP Darren Chester tweeted a photo showing a sausage, with tomato sauce and fried onions on it, sitting on a slice of white bread. His tweet included the comment, “First democracy sausage down! Don’t have breakfast Traralgon voters - Grey St Primary School is producing magnificent sausages in white bread, onion on top! The only way to go.” Two minutes later Melbourne resident Nicole (@coldishtoes) tweeted a photo with the hashtag that showed a sausage with fried onions on top of it on a slice of white bread.

At 8.58am Rob Harris, who lives in Canberra, responded to Chester’s tweet, “Just spoke to Mum and Dad and they’re walking down the hill now to get one.” Chester got back to him two minutes later, “Make sure they say g’day and I’ll shout them a sausage... after they vote of course! Wouldn’t want to be accused of soliciting votes with sausages! What a scandal that would be.” At 9.05am Victorian resident James (@ichymochek) tweeted, “Congratulations to everyone today who manages to not only vote, but also eat a sausage.” Two minutes later Benno of the Twitters (@jeamland), a Melbourne resident, tweeted a photo showing a piece of white bread with a sausage on it that had tomato sauce liberally applied to it. The whole thing was held in a paper serviette.

At 9.08am, Melbourne resident Tim Welsh-Eliot tweeted, “Cooking a hot breakfast, including sausages. In case my local voting venue doesn't have any democracy sausages for sale. Sure, @electionsvic has a map of places to vote, but doesn't indicate which ones have a sausage sizzle. Someone needs to lift their game.” A minute later, Jordan Janssen tweeted, “Held out to vote on Election Day for the democracy sausage, and there wasn’t even one being set up at my local polling booth. Just rude.” A minute later Guy Barker tweeted, “No one panic, but rumour has it that Richmond Primary School doesn’t have a sausage sizzle today.” At 9.13am the @demsausage account replied, “Alarming. How reliable is the rumour? Should we mark it as sausageless on the map, or wait for other reports?” Six minutes later, Barker replied, “Unsure yet - I heard it from a Labor [pollie] who apparently heard it from the [Victorian Electoral Commission]. Will keep you informed.”

At 9.21am Tom Minear, a Herald Sun journalist, tweeted, “’Worst nightmare’ - Federal Labor MPs fear Bill Shorten’s bid to become prime minister will be damaged if Premier Daniel Andrews is forced to rely on the Greens to form government.” The tweet contained a link to a story on the newspaper’s website. As if she had just seen Minear’s tweet, at 9.23am The Australian reporter Rachel Baxendale tweeted, “Greens MP for Prahran @Sam_Hibbins is fending off Liberal and Labor contenders in the only genuine three way contest of the election. Upper House Lib @georgiecrozier (not pictured) is also handing out at Prahran RSL.” The tweet came with a photo showing volunteers with the colours of their political parties lined up outside a building on a suburban street.

At 9.26am federal Labor MP Rob Mitchell tweeted, “It’s Election Day don’t forget to cast your ballot. @DanielAndrewsMP all the way.  If you’re in Whittlesea [don’t] forget your #democracysausage from the wonderful Whittlesea Lions daredevil[; top or (safety first)] bottom onion.” The final comment referred to a story that had hit the news the week before that recounted how the hardware chain Bunnings had instructed charities selling sausages on bread outside its stores to put the onion on the bottom, next to the bread, out of fears that if onion fell off the sausage it might constitute a health and safety risk (people might slip on it).

At 9.30am Melbourne resident Sumeyya Ilanbey tweeted a photo showing a sign that had been placed on the pavement outside a building. On the sign was printed, “Coffee, hot chocolate, democracy sausages, cakes, cakes, cakes, 2019 calendars.” Also on the sign was printed “EFTPOS available.” The tweet said, “Eftpos available at this election booth in Brunswick.” (EFPTOS means “electronic funds transfer point of sale” and refers to the machines that retailers put next to their cash registers to take money from customers who don’t want to pay using cash; they can instead use a bank transaction card that is linked to a bank account. Usually sausages sold outside polling places cost a gold coin: one or two dollars.)

At 9.34am Victorian resident Anna Mallard tweeted a photo showing a hand holding a paper serviette that was wrapped around a piece of bread that held a sausage with mustard and tomato sauce on it. The tweet had the #democracysausage hashtag in it. At 9.37am Melbourne resident Dancing Dan (@dancingdanb) tweeted, “I live across the road from a polling station but there is no democracy sausage set up!! I should just set up my bbq on the verge.” A minute later Nathan Wind, who didn’t put on his Twitter profile where he lives, tweeted a photo showing a hand holding a piece of white bread wrapped around a sausage that had tomato sauce, onion and mustard on it. The tweet also contained the short comment, “Democracy!!!!!”

At 9.40am The Age journalist Michael Short tweeted, “[Votes] below the line, but onions below the sausage?” His tweet referred to the fact that preferences exchanged by political parties for votes cast for the upper house of the Victorian parliament were not always clear. It was impossible with the system as architecture for voters to know where their preferences would end up, and therefore which party’s candidate would be elected. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) psephologist Antony Green had been telling people in the week leading up to the election that people could ensure their actual preferences were followed by selecting candidates on the ballot in the area below the line, where the names of individual candidates, not political parties, were set out for voters to tick with their pencils. At 9.43am account @uberingingmelb tweeted, “No sausage sizzle, or even coffee here...” A minute later Short put out his tweet again this time with a retweet to a story published by his newspaper informing readers about the reasons they should vote below the line on upper house ballots.

At 9.41am Melbourne resident Matthew Mills tweeted, “Went to vote. Liberal candidate had parked his car on the school crossing making it hard to see oncoming traffic when crossing the road. I mentioned it to him and he said there were no [‘No parking’] signs.” Five minutes later he also tweeted, “When I came out of voting I noticed he had moved his car a few feet backwards off the crossing. Democracy works!”

At 9.48am Melbourne resident Dale Roberts tweeted, “Voted Labor. Voted below the line in upper house. Voted onions on top for my democracy sausage. Travelled to another electorate just to get a democracy sausage.” His tweet contained a photo showing two young men with beards holding pieces of white bread with sausages in them that had mustard and tomato sauce on them. There was also onion on the sausages. One of the men was smiling lopsidedly and the other was standing behind him looking straight at the camera with a faintly humorous look on his face.

At 9.51am Jack Bee-Knee (@alsolounges) tweeted, “If you're burning onion while simultaneously undercooking it, [you] have no right to comment where it's placed.” A minute later, rose (@rowjamm), who didn’t include her locality in her Twitter profile, tweeted a photo showing a table set out with a bowl of vegetables in a brown soup and a piece of unleavened bread. There was also a cup of cappuccino next to the food. Her tweet contained the comment, “No sausage, but can't complain canai?” At 9.54am Natasha O’Connor Put a photo showing a frankfurter in a bread roll sitting in a paper dish. The tweet also had the comment, “It's here! #VicVotes today to hopefully keep Matthew Guy out.”

At 9.57am Thornbury resident Matthew Hall tweeted, “Today’s #vicvotes is the first time our whole family will casting ballots! Huzzah! #democracysausage for all!!” A minute later Melbourne resident Dean Adams tweeted, “I love living in a place where #democracysausage will trend higher than #vicvotes or #VictoriaVotes on Election Day.”

At 9.59am Bentleigh Farmers Market’s account retweeted a tweet from CBR Foodie that read, “@bentleighfarm has set the #DemocracySausage bar pretty high for #VicVotes this morning! I think we’re done. Back to trolling #Canberra #food tweets now...” This tweet retweeted one from Bentleigh Farmers Market that read, “Even better than a #DemocracySausage is a yummy bacon & egg roll or veggie burger (with or without egg). Available from 8am until 12.30pm, inside or outside our #FarmersMarket at the polling station at 90 Bignell Rd #Bentleigh East.” This tweet had a photo with it that showed a male hand holding a bun that contained a burger made from something yellow and what looked like egg and avocado.

At 10.02am Melbourne resident Laura McCormack tweeted, “For anyone voting at All Saints Anglican in Northcote, Beryl & friends have your democratic rights covered.” The tweet contained a photo showing a slice of white bread wrapped around a sausage that had onion and tomato sauce on it. A minute later, Melbourne resident Teri Cooper tweeted, “Voting done, now for a #democracysausage for @DanielAndrewsMP and don’t hold back the onions!” Thepolitician named in the tweet was the premier of the state, Daniel Andrews, of the Australian Labor Party (APL). The tweet contained a photo showing a woman standing next to a table that had mustard and BBQ sauce bottles on it. The woman was putting tomato sauce on a sausage she held in her hand wrapped in a piece of white bread. There were there women standing behind the table who were serving customers. One of these women had her hands clasped in front of her stomach and she was smiling.

At 10.06am a Perth native who lives in Melbourne, Anthony Stewart, tweeted, “In a democracy the onions go on TOP!” His tweet contained a photo showing a sausage wrapped in a piece of white bread with fried onions on it. The whole thing was held in a paper serviette.

At 11.01am @andrewgigacz tweeted, “Look, I'm not saying the DEMOCRACY SAUSAGE is a secret plot to ensure the Liberals get thrashed, but it's an anagram of A CODE: MASSACRE GUY.” The comment referred to the Liberal Party leader in Victoria, Matthew Guy. At 11.04am Matthew Elmas tweeted, “Pork and fennel snags at my polling station in Macleod. How gourmet. Will cost you an extra 50c though. Not sure about whether its onion on top or not.”

At 11.06am Hugh Rundle tweeted, “What a joke. VEC assigned 3 staff to distribute #VicVotes ballots at Collingwood College. Current wait is over an hour in the rain.”

At 11.08am a man who says he lives between Fremantle (in Western Australia) and Melbourne named Damien Rabbitt tweeted, “can confirm NO #democracysausage at the Northcote Baptist Church Hall, but quite some queue to vote.” The tweet came with a photo showing cars parked on a suburban street and a long queue of people lined up on the footpath. The queue ended at a building that did, indeed, look like a church. At 11.11am a resident of the Latrobe Vallye, Jarrod Whittaker, tweeted, “Same deal at Newborough town hall. Plenty of democracy, no sausage. This is an outrage.” The tweet came with a photo showing party volunteers standing outside a building with voters entering it. One woman shown is seen stretching out her hand to receive one of the how-to-vote pamphlets that a volunteer holds in his hands.

At 11.14am Carlton resident @clintwits tweeted, “Well [that’s] disappointing... No @DemSausage or cakes at #carlton Gardens primary... Ah well will just have to go home and do my own sausage sizzle then.”

At 11.21am Melbourne resident Damian Chandler tweeted a photo showing a ballot paper for the lower house that had been marked with a pencil. Someone had written a new series of boxes, each of which had a number in it, and the labels read, “Boobs, Hot dogs, Beer, Vodka.” The box with the number five in it had no label. A ballot paper filled out and submitted with this kind of marking on it would be counted as an informal vote.

At 11.24am Melbourne resident Geoffrey Payne retweeted a tweet that had gone up an hour before. It said, “Out on the booth for @Cindy4Brunswick with @gedkearney @VictorianLabor.” The two Twitter handles were for Cindy O’Connor, the Labor candidate for the state seat of Brunswick, and Ged Kearney, the Labor member for the federal division of Batman. The tweet came with a photo showing four women smiling at the camera. One woman had a read hoodie on with the hood up. Another woman was wearing a blue skicker with the hood down.

At 11.28am Melbourne resident Kelly Benson tweeted, “The diligent bbq team at St Kilda primary are delivering sausages to people in the voting queue. That's service!” The tweet came with a photo showing a woman’s hand holding a paper serviette with a piece of white bread in it wrapped around a sausage, with onion on top. In the background you could see the feet of people queueing on the pavement of what looked like a sports ground.

At 11.31am Perth resident and self-proclaimed Greens supporter Zia Hakimi tweeted, “Huge lines outside Brunswick Town Hall even though it has been raining quite a bit.”

A minute later, Melbourne resident Shane Brown tweeted, “Member for Essendon, @DannyPearsonMP [Victorian Labor lower house MP] checking some high-quality #Democracysausage action at Moonee Ponds West Primary School. @Pillstyle [Paul Limoli] in full control of the barbecue.” The tweet came with a photo showing a BBQ set up outside a building with a blue awning over it. There was a man holding tongs looking after the sausages that were frying on the hotplate. Next to him a young man was standing and it looked like this man was talking with an older man opposite him (presumably the politician named) who was wearing a grey jacket and a suit and tie.

At 11.36am Ballarat resident Bridget Rollason tweeted, “No #democracysausages at the Maryborough polling booth in the marginal seat of Ripon, just a long line.” The tweet came with a photo showing people standing in the sunshine outside an Art Deco building. At 11.39am Melbourne resident Katerina (@kat_la) tweeted, “Coffee stop. Melissa Templestowe. Great coffee and food.” The tweet came with a photo showing a woman’s hand holding two disposable coffee cups with plastic lids.

At 11.42am Melbourne resident Jacquie Tran tweeted, “I love that my country has compulsory voting (making it a democratic responsibility as much as it is a right), and that my state's electoral commission promotes the #DemocracySausage!” The tweet came with a retweet from the account operated by the VEC that said, “Voting centre queues are busiest around 11am - why not have a #democracysausage while you wait? Otherwise, mid-afternoon is the quietest time to vote. Use the hashtag #votingqueues to post live updates of how busy your centre is and help others avoid the crowds.” Two minutes later ABC employee (producer of Jon Faine’s radio program) and Melbourne resident Katrina Palmer tweeted, “Long queue to vote at Brighton primary. Can confirm steady flow for #democracysausage.” The tweet came with a photo (shown) showing a school sports ground with tables set up on the periphery where people were standing. The queue of voters is not shown, this photo just shows the charities that had set up tables to make money selling sausages and bread.

At 11.50am Melbourne resident Ted Sussex tweeted, “Our [Lady of the Sacred Heart College] in Bentleigh with 4 food stalls.” The tweet came with four photos, two of which showed tables with biscuits and cakes on them, one photo showing a barbeque, and one showing a table with wrapped sandwiches and sauce bottles on it.

At 11.54am Melbourne resident Daniel Bowen tweeted, “My democratic duty is done. Note the onions on top.” This came with a photo showing a man’s hand holding a paper serviette wrapped around a piece of bread with a sausage and onions in it. There is also tomato sauce on the sausage.

At 12.03pm, Melbourne music journalist Reece Hooker tweeted, “The biggest scandal of the 2018 Victorian state election is clearly, obviously the absence of a sausage sizzles at some voting centres.” The tweet came with a screenshot showing an online conversation between two people about sausage sizzles at polling places.

At 12.06pm Sky News reporter Patrick Murrell retweeted a tweet from the VEC that had gone up a few minutes before that said, “We'll go to the four corners of the earth to get your vote! Shout out to voters at Casey Station, Antarctica, who are enjoying a #democracysausage while voting (photo credit: Dale Smith).” The tweet came with a photo (shown) with three men standing on rocks and a woman sitting. Two of the men are holding what appear to be pieces of bread wrapping sausages, but it’s not entirely clear from where the camera is positioned. In the background behind the people is a sign saying “Casey” and a pole with signs attached to it showing the locations of other places. The signs are pointing in different directions and they are yellow. The pole they are attached to is held up by guy wires anchored in the ground. Behind the group is the sea and you can see snow.

At 12.12pm Angela Korras retweeted a tweet that had gone up a couple of hours before from ABC radio host Rafael Epstein that had said, “So, so satisfying to vote! Best voting system in the world. Cheers to #democracysausage volunteers, party volunteers and @electionsvic people.” The tweet came with a photo showing a hand holding a paper serviette on the outside of a piece of white bread wrapped around a sausage with onions on top. The sausage also had tomato sauce on it. In the background behind this was a building with party volunteers standing outside it and party candidates’ posters.

At 12.18pm Melbourne resident David Stocks tweeted a photo with the #democracysausage hashtag that showed a paper serviette wrapped around a piece of white bread which held a sausage that had mustard and tomato sauce on it. In the background, behind the food, was a queue of people in the grounds of a suburban church. A minute later Melbourne resident Helen MacLean tweeted, “Walked to my local primary school, didn’t get rained on, bought my #democracysausage, two cookies and a jar of pear and raisin conserve, (and voted). Democracy is a wonderful thing!” The tweet came with a photo showing a hand holding a paper serviette wrapped around a piece of brown bread that held a sausage with tomato sauce on it. At 12.21pm Melbourne resident Katherina Howell tweeted, “It’s a two democracy sausage (each) kind of day.”

At 12.22pm @fukvit10 retweeted a tweet that had gone up an hour before from a person identifying themselves as Lett Sipping Bogan that had retweeted a tweet from (self-declared) Bellevue Hill (Sydney) resident @paulkaz12 that showed two lobsters on a grill. The image was a nod to the Opposition leader, Matthew Guy, who had been caught in August 2017 having dinner with mafia boss Tony Maddaferi at a seafood restaurant.

At 12.29pm @ynoirb tweeted, “There is a polling place at the end of my street but I walked 2 kms to another suburb to vote because I WANT MY DEMOCRACY SAUSAGE also they had a cake stall.” At the same time Melbourne resident Renatha Mulqueeney-Reed tweeted, “Couldn't stand it! Voted yesterday yet keep seeing pics of sausage sizzles! Forced to go to @Bunnings and pretend to be shopping only so I could buy a sausage sizzle on the way out! Onions on the bottom tasted all wrong but still very satisfying.” The tweet came with a photo showing a hand holding a blue paper serviette with a piece of white bread and a sausage in it. There was barbeque sauce on the sausage but no fried onion was visible.

At 12.31pm Melbourne resident Alastair Pitts tweeted, “Democracy done. Made sure I got my #DemocracySausage as well.” The tweet came with a photo showing a hand holding a tan paper serviette with a piece of white bread in it wrapped around a sausage. There was tomato sauce on the sausage and the hand that held the serviette also held the leash of a spotted grey dog.

At 12.34pm Bendigo resident Lou Bray tweeted, “Voting at my old primary school.” The tweet came with a photo showing a hand holding two paper serviettes with two pieces of white bread in them that were wrapped around two sausages. There was no sauce in evidence, nor onions. In the background behind the food was a building with people coming and going and with the election posters of candidates scattered around the place.

At 12.40pm Melbourne resident Clare Murphy tweeted, “I love democracy,” with the word “love” replaced by the emoji for a heart. There was also a photo showing a paper serviette wrapped around a piece of white bread in which a sausage and onions were nestled. In the background behind the food you could see the posters of candidates, and people milling around. At the same time Williamstown resident @docavvers (Averil) tweeted, “Vegan cupcakes at Williamstown Primary, but I had a #democracysausage. And put the Shooters last.” The tweet came with a photo showing a hand holding a paper serviette wrapped around a piece of white bead with a sausage and onions in it. There was also tomato sauce on the sausage. The political reference was to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, which has in recent years been contesting elections in the states.

At 12.44pm radio presenter Brian Peel tweeted, “Served how a snag should be served. Onions on top!” the tweet came with a photo showing a hand holding a paper serviette wrapped around a piece of white bread with lots of onions on top. There was also tomato sauce. At 12.48pm ABC Melbourne reporter Joanna Crothers tweeted, “The polling station in Seddon didn’t have a #democracysausage I’m very disappointed.”

At 12.50pm Melbourne travel writer Tim Richards tweeted, “No mere sausage for me before voting in inner-city Melbourne. Behold the porcini egg with Jerusalem artichoke rosti & roast mushroom duxelle from Industry Beans. Next, I shall vote.” The tweet came with a photo showing an elaborate meal laid out with great care to appeal to the diner. It wasn’t clear what the food was made from but the comment gave sufficient information, I presumed.

At 12.52pm Michelle Eddy tweeted, “Footscray City Primary School selling Free Range Black Angus Sausages #democracysausage. Coffee & Cake Stall. It’s a good day to be Victorian.” The tweet came with a photo showing people standing around tables set up under awnings. On one table were large yellow and red bottles presumably containing sauce.

At 12.55pm Melbourne woman Goldie (@goldie_fm) tweeted, “My @DemSausage has been had.” It came with a photo showing a hand holding a paper serviette wrapped around a piece of bread with a sausage in it that had mustard and tomato sauce on it. At the same time Heather B (@hev_boyd) tweeted, “Democracy Sausage.” Her tweet came with a photo of a hand holding a paper serviette wrapped around a piece of bread with a sausage in it that had tomato sauce on it.

At 12.57pm Melbourne Guardian reporter Luke Henriques-Gomes tweeted, “Some complaints there’s no almond milk at Moreland Primary.” Nine minutes earlier he had tweeted a photo of his hand holding a paper serviette wrapped around a piece of white bread with a sausage in it that had BBQ sauce and mustard on it.

At 1.01pm @kevs_view tweeted, “Queue for #democracysausage longer than the one for #vicvotes at Chelsea Heights [Primary School]. Due to the great empty gas bottle catastrophe of 2018. (But worth the wait).” The tweet came with a photo showing a hand holding a paper serviette wrapped around a piece of white bread that had a sausage in it (with onions on the bottom) that had tomato sauce on it.

At 1.03pm writer and radio host Paul Verhoven tweeted, “Question: how many #vicvotes voters had to pay for their sausages and is being made to pay for your democracy sausage deeply undemocratic?” At the same time Melbourne resident Sally Hayles tweeted, “Ripponlea Primary [School] bringing the goods this Election Day with a sausage sizzle, sweet cake stall and the shortest line for a metro voting booth I’ve ever encountered.” The tweet came with a photo showing a hand holding a brown paper serviette wrapped around a piece of white bread with a sausage and onion in it that had BBQ sauce and mustard on them. In the background behind the food was a building with a table out the front of it that had an awning set up above it. The table had bottles of sauce on it.

At 1.08pm, @kerry_lambert tweeted, “The was no sausage sizzle at my polling booth. Now THAT is a true democracy at work.” At the same time ABC digital producer Andie Noonan tweeted, “Vote 1: #democracysausage. This Brunswick East polling station has controversially gone with onions on top though.” The attached photo showed a hand holding a paper serviette wrapped around a piece of white bread that had a sausage in it with fried onions on top as well as mustard and tomato sauce.

At 11.11pm, the federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale tweeted, “Enjoying a delicious democracy sausage here in beautiful Richmond! Thanks to all of our amazing Greens candidates, staff and volunteers here in Victoria for a great campaign.” The attached photo showed the politician ostentatiously holding up in front of his face a piece of white bread wrapped around a sausage. His mouth looked full and his lips were closed. In his left hand you could see the paper serviette that had been given to him when he bought it. No sign of onions.

At 1.15pm ABC Victoria political reporter Stephanie Anderson tweeted, “Democracy queues. Should’ve got the sausage first...” The photo showed a queue of people standing outside a building in what looks like a school sports ground.

At 1.17pm Nick Etchells tweeted, “Question answered. Bill Shorten votes #onionsonthebottom.” The photo that came with the tweet showed the leader of the federal ALP standing underneath a blue awning that had been set up over a table in front of a building, and eating a sausage wrapped in a piece of white bread. In front of the politician were two cameramen, one with a video camera and one with a still camera. They were busy taking his picture. It was impossible to see the onions in this shot.
At 1.21pm the Democracy sausage Twitter account retweeted a tweet that had gone up a minute before from Ryan Sheales, a communications staffer at the Victorian Council of Social Service, that had said, “I just met a democracy sausage DOG. His name is Teddy Roosevelt. This is beyond my wildest dreams.” The tweet came with a photo of a brown dachshund on a black leash.

Anyway, you get the message. I could have spent all afternoon collecting like messages but I decided to limit the post to a reasonable length. The desire to vote was equalled by the person’s desire to take a photo of their hand holding a sausage wrapped in a slice of white bread that had been sold to them for a dollar or two (one person reported a price of $2.50) by a charity eager to raise funds. Nothing can come between an Aussie and his or her food.

But what was also often noticeable in these tweets was the staged purpose of the message. The photo would be taken deliberately to show the food in the foreground with the polling place visible in the background. The feeling that you were seeing something managed by the poster existed in a majority of cases. Democracy turned into an opportunity for a wicked selfie. Eating sausages as a marker of authenticity. Voting as a blazon for identity politics.

In the end the result was so convincing that Antony Green was able to call it before 7.30pm. It saw a big swing to Labor in metropolitan Victoria but losses were not just limited to the Liberal Party. The Australian Greens also bled some supporters to Labor in many seats. The swing to the Labor Party in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne was most noticeable, with a string of wealthy areas close to the CBD changing from Liberal to Labor with the help of preferences. Talk of a close election was utterly unfounded in the event, and the opinion polls over the past two days, which predicted a swing to the ALP and a result where the ALP would get 54 percent of the two party-preferred vote and the Liberal-National coalition would get 46 percent, turned out to be pretty accurate (as normally happens in Australia, where voting is mandatory). At 8pm on the election night the 2PP result was actually 57 percent to Labor and 43 percent to the Coalition.

The law and order campaign waged by the Liberals completely failed to get any support from Melbourne voters. Likewise the scare tactics used by federal Liberals on account of “terror” in the wake of the 9 November stabbing attack on Bourke Street (which actually highlighted mental health as an issue) was dismissed by the city. The Labor Party’s drug injecting room will therefore go ahead.

On the bigger question of whether onions should go on top of the sausage or next to the bread and underneath the sausage, I think it’s pretty clear from the sample used in this post that the consensus among Melbournians was that it should remain where it has always sat: on top. As with the government: no change needed. The voters solidly rejected the finicky solution conjured up by Bunnings, but the recall factor that onions held for Melbournians should be a source of comfort for the retailer.

A reckoning in the eastern suburbs for the Liberals

In the morning I was travelling to Newtown to buy coffee but at Central Station my right ankle packed it in and so I came home without making the purchase. Then I cancelled the movie I had organised to see that evening and sat down to watch the Wentworth by-election take place. I’ve filled out this account with some details that will make it easier for people outside Australia to understand. For various reasons this election was particularly important, although it was not part of a general election. General elections for federal Parliament are held every three years. As an extra, in this account there is a storm.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, had lost his job in August in a party-room coup and had been replaced by Scott Morrison. Wentworth was Turnbull’s seat. He then decided to resign from Parliament, making it necessary to hold an election for the seat outside the normal general election cycle, with the next scheduled to be held in May 2019. The by-election was critical for the government because the Liberal-National coalition held power in the lower house by only one seat. If the Liberal Party lost the by-election, the Parliament would be hung and getting legislation through it would be hampered by the necessity of making agreements with cross-benchers (members of the lower house who belong to neither of the two major parties, but who sit between them in the chamber).

Soon there was news that sausages on sale at polling places were being sold for $5 each. Normally, sausage sizzles like these charge a gold coin ($1 or $2) for a piece of bread with a sausage wrapped in it. This point was funny because Wentworth is home to some of the wealthiest parts of the city of Sydney. “Democracy is finished,” added Guardian journalist Greg Jericho to the retweet that contained the news. Later, he added, “Although to be fair it looks like they’re using hotdog rolls rather than a slice of [Woolies’] bread. And the snags do look rather big.” The reference was to the retailer Woolworths, which is a dominant player in the domestic grocery market. The original tweet, from Channel Ten reporter Jonathan Lea, had contained a photo that showed a man standing at a BBQ wearing a black T-shirt that had “I see a little silhouetto of a man” printed on it in white.

At 10.39am Health Nerd (who calls himself an epidemiologist and says he writes for the Guardian and the Observer) tweeted, “The fires have been started. The sausages are burning. Anthony Green has been called from the deep. THE VOTING HAS BEGUN.” The reference to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) psephologist would have reminded people that the usual post-election telecast covering the vote was scheduled to start at 6pm. Green always features heavily in these productions, sometimes bringing in accurate predictions ahead of official announcements as the counting by Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) volunteers and staff progresses once the polling places close at 6pm.

After getting back from my aborted outing I had ironed my shirts and changed the sheets on the bed, putting the used set into the washing machine to clean. Now, the machine told me its cycle had finished and so I put the top sheet in the dryer with the pillow case, set the dial, and turned the machine on.

At 10.51am Sean Bradbery tweeted, “So far Scott Morrison's only achievement has been to turn the 8th safest seat in the country into a marginal.” He was referring of course to the fact that Turnbull had held the seat of Wentworth by a margin of around 18 percent. The previous day as I had been driving in my car, the ABC had told listeners that opinion polls had an independent candidate, Kerryn Phelps, a local GP for many years as well as a former president of the Australian Medical Association, and a City of Sydney councillor, neck-and-neck on a two-party-preferred basis with the Liberal Party’s candidate Dave Sharma.

The acronym “2PP” is used in discussing opinion polls to indicate that the number under discussion is the two-party-preferred number. Another acronym that is used is "2CP", which means two-candidate-preferred, and this acronym was used for this election because Kerryn Phelps, the front-runner in the opinion polls, was an independent, and had no party affiliation. The acronyms rely on the tendency for voters to give their preferences in a predictable way. So, for example, people who vote for the Australian Greens tend to give their second preferences to the Labor Party. So, in most contests the votes given to Greens candidates will be apportioned to the candidates of the Australian Labor Party when the second preferences of those voters are counted by the AEC.

How-to-vote cards that are handed out by the competing parties at polling places are printed 4-colour leaflets that show how the party in question wants people to mark their votes on the ballot paper, which is filled out using pencil in the booth. The resident has to get their name crossed off a master list by a volunteer, then they are given a ballot paper and go to an empty booth. (In general elections, residents get two ballot papers: one for the House of Representatives and one for the Senate. In the Wentworth by-election, there was naturally no Senate contest.) The booths are made of folded cardboard. Once in the booth, the resident marks the ballot paper with numbers in the order they want to preference candidates. The voter can follow the how-to-vote card of their party or they can mark the names of the listed candidates in any other order they choose. All of the boxes on the ballot paper have to be marked with a number otherwise the ballot is counted as informal and if that is the case the marked votes are not given to any of the candidates whose names appear on it.

At 10.54am Greens candidate for the seat of Wentworth, Dominick Wy Kanak, the deputy mayor of Waverly Municipal Council, a local-government authority in the area, tweeted using the @IndigenousX account, “Busy Bondi with enthusiastic Greens at the gate.” The tweet came with a photo showing a group of people, some with the party’s green T-shirts on, standing in a street with how-to-vote flyers in their hands. Kanak was in the centre of the photo wearing a T-shirt with a design made to look like the Aboriginal flag, in red, yellow and black.

At 11.13am Jieh-Yung Lo, a commentator, tweeted, “I am not a resident of Wentworth but as an Australian who believes in a fair go, I'll be cheering for Dr Kerryn Phelps because the well-being & survival of children, refugees & asylum seekers are more important than the survival of the Morrison Government.”

At 11.16am comedian Dan Ilic tweeted, “Bellevue Hill Public School #democracysausage review: Full bodied, tasty, good caramelisation of the onions, just a hint of forest floor, subtle flavours harking back to '07. Cheery fellas on the tongs. Good banter. $5.” The ironic tweet came with a photo showing a sausage held in a bread roll and a paper napkin held in the same hand.

At 11.19am Jack’s Project SafeCom tweeted a photo showing a cardboard sign that had been made for the by-election. It was branded with the name of the prominent independent candidate and had other words on it as well: “Where’s Malcolm? Vote 1 Kerryn Phelps. Send the Liberals a message.” The sign also featured a photo, in a cut-out, of the former prime minister.

At 11.26am Melbourne resident Lesley Howard retweeted a tweet from commentator Dee Madigan that had gone up at around 10am, and which had said, “No matter what happens today in Wentworth, climate change and the treatment of kids on Nauru are back on the political agenda. Massive kudos to @drkerrynphelps for that.”

At 10.28am Sydney resident Jodie Salmon tweeted a photo of her hand on her ballot paper in the booth. Her hand was holding a pencil. The tweet that came with the photo said, “The pen is mightier than the bonesaw.” The comment was a reference to the alleged Saudi killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, and was especially apposite as he had been killed for wanting to encourage more transparency in government in the Middle East. The tweet also had the hashtag #Journalismisnotacrime in it. The ballot paper in the photo was not numbered so it did not show how she had marked her preferences. The green slip of paper said at the top, “Number the boxes from 1 to 16 in the order of your choice.”

At 11.34am a professional photographer from Queanbeyan named Hilary tweeted a photo showing men and women wearing white T-shirts that had “Freedom for refugees” printed in black letters on the back and on the front. Some of them were holding their hands above their heads with their wrists crossed. The tweet also said, “Paddington.” The signage behind the volunteers was blue in colour and it was not immediately clear which party they were representing as they stood there on the pavement.

At 11.38am Blue Mountains resident Preston Towers retweeted a tweet that had gone up at around 11am from News-dot-com political reporter Sam Clench that had said, “I've located the best polling place in Wentworth - Paddington Public School. It has a market AND, even more importantly, cakes.” The tweet came with a photo showing a table covered with a white cloth on which a variety of cakes and other baked goods had been laid out. Towers had said, “THIS is more like it, though it’s not #DemocracySausage.”

I noticed at about the time I took the top sheet and the pillowcase out of the dryer, and put the bottom sheet in, that #wenthworthvotes had also been used by some people as well as the correct hashtag #wentworthvotes. The extra “h” was puzzling and I wondered how it had got in there.

At 11.46am Brisbane resident Fran Ross tweeted a tweet the progressive activist group GetUp! had put up about an hour before that retweeted one from Liberal Party MP Craig Laundy which had been posted at 9.29am, and which had said, “Bloke pulls up at a polling booth in a black BMW X5, gets out & and puts up a @GetUp sign .....”

At 12.06pm Towers put up another sausage tweet, this one retweeting one from ABC News’ Sydney digital editor, Riley Stuart, which said, “$5 for a sausage sizzle???! I’ll vote for anyone who brings these prices down ...” The tweet had a photo showing a hand holding a white bun with a sausage in it that had tomato sauce and mustard on it.

At 12.15pm LaLegale retweeted a tweet from a Geelong resident (“Grumpy, conservative old gay man”) named Eileen Twomey-Wright that had gone up about 30 minutes before, and which had said, “In the category of: Never Underestimate the Stupidity of the Electorate - #WenthworthVotes is trending number one on my list. Try: #WentworthVotes, people. Gawd.” The wrong hashtag was tending on Twitter.

At 12.20pm Central Coast man Troy Grant tweeted a tweet that Antony Green had put up about two hours before and that contained a photo showing the ABC’s psephologist standing on the pavement outside a voting booth dressed in Lycra. The tweet said, “The set-up at the Watson’s Bay polling place on my Tour de Wentworth ride this morning.”

At 12.23pm Milan resident Philippa Nicole Barr tweeted a photo showing a piece of A4 paper that had been stuck to the side of a garbage bin on a street. The paper had a picture of a polar bear on it and the caption, “Think of your children and your grandchildren. Vote Out Climate Deniers. Vote Out LNP.” Barr had commented, “Omg I love this. So DIY.”

At 12.40pm Jess ‘McGiggles’ Epps, who lives in Sydney, tweeted, “Would you like a damocrisy sossige with your misspelt hashtag?” The tweet came with a screenshot of the Twitter interface showing how many tweets the wrong hashtag had received. The people who had used it included ABC journalist Patricia Karvelas and the MEAA, the journalist’s union. Three minutes later Jodie M, a Melbourne resident, noted that the hashtags #voteWentworth and #WentworthByElection were also being used for the event.

At 12.47pm comedian Joel Creasey retweeted a tweet from theatre director Richard Carroll that had gone up at around 11.30am, that said, “Just voted for @kerrynwentworth @drkerrynphelps.” His tweet showed his face, with a fashionable, dark, three-day growth, as he stood in a suburban street outside a polling place.

At 12.53pm Maria, who only identified herself as living in Darug country, tweeted, “Sky news [sic] saying Dave Sharma is going to lose, but thinking it may be a scare tactic.  Depends on preferences which are impossible to predict, my guess is as good as @AntonyGreenABC.”

At 1pm Melbourne resident Max Alexander retweeted a tweet from Jonathan Lea, who we have met before in this account, that had gone up an hour earlier and that said, “Government now telling me Wentworth is no longer conservative or their heartland but progressive. Say heartland is more Qld. Clearly repositioning to soften the blow for what’s coming...”

At 1.24pm shareholder rights activist Stephen Mayne retweeted a tweet from Sam Clench, who we have met before in this account, that had gone up a few minutes before, and that said, “Bit of juxtaposition going on here in Bondi.” The tweet came with a photo showing a poster of Scott Morrison putting his hand on the shoulder of Malcolm Turnbull. The poster also had the word “Remember” printed on it, and “Disunity. Dysfunction. Chaos.” In the background behind the poster was Bondi Beach, with its lifesavers’ tent and its blue and green waves and with people sitting on the sand in the sun. Bondi is in Wentworth.

At 3.23pm Fiona Caldarevic from the NSW town of Narrandera tweeted a photo that had gone up about five minutes before from ALPHRW founder Nart (there was no more information about him, but the ALPHRW might mean “ALP human rights watch”; it seemed to be an activist group) that showed a photo of the tourist advisory sign in the Blue Mountains that is set on a road indicating toward Wentworth Falls, a town that is situated there. The man after whom the federal division of Wentworth and the town are both named was William Charles Wentworth, a famous colonial-era statesman who was also an explorer in his youth. “Brilliant,” commented Caldarevic in her tweet.

At 3.24pm Jonathan Green, the editor of the literary magazine Meanjin, retweeted a tweet from Sky News Australia that had gone up on 17 October at around 10pm, that quoted a columnist for the News Corp vehicle The Australian, Chris Kenny, saying, ”The reason they're having the by-election is that @TurnbullMalcolm spat the dummy and ran away. He shouldn't be putting the Party through this. He's shown no loyalty to the Party that gave him the Prime Ministership.” Green added the comment, “They. Assassinated. Him.”

At 3.40pm Paul Colgan, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Business Insider Australia, tweeted, “All these people who like their martinis stirred rather than shaken coming out of the woodwork now. Fitting, given it's #WentworthVotes today.” The comment was a reference to the positions on some issues that had been voiced by the independent candidate Kerryn Phelps. In most elections, the ALP is the primary candidate against the Liberals, but in this election, because of the high net wealth of the average voter in the division, the ALP candidate was not considered a likely contender. But of course, the stakes in the contest were much more significant than Colgan had stated them, because it wasn’t just the personal philosophy of the two major contenders that was germane in the case, but rather what was in the balance on the day was the Coalition’s majority in Parliament. On top of that, Phelps has different views on such major issues as climate change and on the status of refugees detained in offshore camps operated by Australia. It was true however that on economic issues Phelps has a campaign platform that is not so different from that of the Liberals, including lower company taxes and policies that encourage entrepreneurship.

Phelps had said that if elected she would guarantee supply to the government (the ability to raise money for government business) but had not ruled out launching no-confidence motions in the lower house. The government’s ability to ensure supply and to avoid no-confidence motions in the lower house is critical to its survival. If it cannot ensure supply or if a no-confidence motion is successfully moved against it in the lower house, the outcome is likely to be a general election.

At 3.46pm Sam Clench tweeted, “One voter sums up the problem with the Liberals' stability argument: ‘That's a joke, isn't it? After what they did to Malcolm?’” The tweet contained a photo of the Kerryn Phelps cardboard sign mentioned earlier that featured a picture of the former prime minister.

Rain had been predicted for Sydney in the evening. At 3.49pm @giddeygirl tweeted, “Really raining now in Canberra. Thunder. Lightning. Wind. Heavy drops. Hooray.” The reference to the Queen song ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was topical considering the T-shirt that the BBQ chef had been wearing in an earlier tweet. By 5.25pm the dark clouds had started to cover Sydney and thunder could be heard rumbling in the distance.

At 5.29pm @Roger192964382, a resident of Victoria, tweeted the odds that had been given that afternoon for the Wentworth 2PP contest by a betting agency. It wasn’t clear from the enclosed image which betting agency had given the odds, but the numbers were definitive. Phelps was on 1.32 (the lowest odds, meaning that she was the most likely to win based on the bets that had been received), Dave Sharma was on 3.20 and the ALP’s Tim Murray was on 16.

At 5.36pm I received a text message from my auto insurer notifying me that there was an increased chance of hail in my suburb. They send out these messages when storms come over the city. The last time I had received a similar message was in September. At 5.43pm Therese Taylor, a lecturer in history at Charles Sturt University in the Riverina, which is located in the southwest of NSW, tweeted, “Sydney settles down at the end of the day and waits to know the results of #WentworthVotes. A storm is rolling in, on the twilight sky. Atmospheric.” At 5.46pm the TV signal was lost for a few seconds due to the atmospheric disturbance the storm had created.

At 5.50pm @suthernx tweeted, “My prediction is Sharma will poll 30-35% of votes. Phelps will get up on the back of Greens preferences.” The TV signal was lost again momentarily. Outside, the sky was almost black with clouds, and thunder was sounding continuously with lightning flashing in the gloom. It was still 10 minutes before the polling places were scheduled to close and the storm was smothering the city in moisture and electricity. Rain was falling steadily and the sound of thunder was almost continuous. Flashes of lightning broke through the dark sky and from my apartment the city skyline was almost invisible. By about 5.07pm the centre of the storm had moved over my location just west of the central business district and the thunder had by then died down to a distant rumble that disturbed the evening from time to time. By then I was watching the ABC’s election coverage and the thunder could be heard in the background in the telecast as the storm moved east.

At 6.43pm Antony Green tweeted, “0.3% counted - LIB Projected [first preferences]=35.2%[,] down 27.1% [from the previous election, which was held in 2016].” The tweet contained a link to a story on the ABC’s website.

At 6.51pm Central Coast resident Bill Quinn tweeted, “My late mum always said that fair weather on polling day meant no change, and wild and/or wet weather meant a change. Just sayin'...”

At 6.52pm Antony Green tweeted:

2 of 41 counting centres reported.
PartyCode, First pref %, (matched PP [(polling places)] change in %)
LIB 57.1 (-23.4)
IND 23.9 (+23.9)
ALP 7.0 (-0.4)
OTH 6.2 (+1.9)
GRN 5.8 (-1.9)

At 6.58pm Guardian journalist Katharine Murphy tweeted, “One [Darlinghurst] booth in now (Phelps territory), swing against the Liberals up to 30%.” “Terrible figures” for the Liberal Party, said Green on the TV just after 7pm adding that he wanted to wait a few minutes before making a prediction about the result.

At 7.04pm Edo Voloder, a resident of Dandenong in Victoria, tweeted, “By-election Primary Votes (1.6% counted): LIB 40.9 (-30.3) Phelps IND 33.1 (+33.1) ALP 9.9 (-2.1) GRN 8.8 (-3.6).”

At 7.13pm Antony Green tweeted:

6 of 41 counting centres reported
PartyCode, First pref %, (matched PP change in %)
IND 36.5 (+36.5)
LIB 33.9 (-24.6)
ALP 10.9 (-8.3)
GRN 10.4 (-6.9)
OTH 8.2 (+3.4)

It took more than a few minutes but at 7.17pm, less than 80 minutes after the polling places closed, Green called the election for Kerryn Phelps. At 7.20pm Katharine Murphy tweeted, “The Morrison government has lost its majority in the lower house.” At 7.21pm Green tweeted:

9 of 41 counting centres reported
PartyCode, First pref %, (matched PP change in %)
LIB 35.8 (-25.0)
IND 35.5 (+35.5)
ALP 10.9 (-7.2)
GRN 9.6 (-6.7)
OTH 8.2 (+3.4)

At 7.23pm federal editor and Canberra bureau chief for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Bevan Shields, tweeted, “At the Paddington Central booth, the Liberal Party vote has collapsed from 60.43% under Malcolm Turnbull to just 33.7% now.” Just before 8pm on TV Green announced that, with 29.4 percent of the ballots counted, on a 2PP basis Phelps had won 54.7 percent of the votes. The TV coverage about 10 minutes later showed what was happening in North Bondi at the Phelps post-election event, where Macklemore’s 2017 song ‘Glorious’ was playing for the crowd. Phelps thanked her wife Kathy, her children, and her grandson.

At 8.10pm Canberra journalist Samantha Maiden tweeted, “The whole comedy of the Liberals trying to look into banning gay teachers from schools or gay teenagers from private schools or whatever and then Double Bay saying SCREW YOU WE ARE SENDING IN THE LESBIANS! Is also ...delicious.”

At just before 8.30pm I logged into the coffee company’s website and ordered a kilo of my usual blend to be shipped to my home.

UPDATE 21 October 10.32am: Margin in the contest narrowing with postal votes still being counted. Last I saw, Phelps' lead was down to 905 votes, with thousands of votes still to be appraised.

UPDATE 21 October 11.06am: Antony Green on ABC News says the result of the contest will not be known for several days.

UPDATE 21 October 1.14pm: In a tweet from Sydney artist Jeffrey Wood that was retweeted at this time, there was a screenshot showing a page from the AEC website which had Phelps 889 votes ahead of Sharma with the time-stamp in the comment of 12.51pm.

UPDATE 21 October 4.13pm: In a tweet, Antony Green said, "Check count corrects increase Phelps lead from 884 votes to 1186 votes. Two-candidate preferred percentages Phelps (IND) 50.8%, Sharma (LIB) 49.2%."

UPDATE 21 October 5.39pm: A tweet from Miranda Devine, the right wing commentator: "Dr Kerryn Phelps has increased her lead by another 679 votes, to more than 1700, after a check count at Bondi Beach public school booth." The tweet carried a link to a story in the Australian newspaper.

UPDATE 23 October 3.40pm: Phelps is ahead by 1540 votes in the continuing count and Antony Green says on ABC News that it is unlikely that Sharma can overtake her going by the trends in the postal votes that are being received by the AEC.

UPDATE 24 October 6.08pm: The Phelps lead at this time was 1643 votes.

UPDATE 27 October 9.34am: ABC News announces that Phelps has won the by-election.

UPDATE 29 October 7.01am: Checked the AEC website again this morning and the most recent results are dated 25 October at 6.03pm. They showed Phelps ahead by 1783 votes.

UPDATE 2 November 9.38am: This morning a person on Twitter asked if the Wentworth by-election result would be announced today and at 9.22am the AEC's Twitter account answered, "No. Today is the final day for late arriving postal votes.  The AEC will issue a media release and tweet in advance of the day when a declaration will be scheduled."

UPDATE 4 November 3.56pm: A Sydney Morning Herald story published today said that the announcement of the victory of Kerryn Phelps would take place on Monday and that she would be found to have won the contest by a total of 1851 votes.

UPDATE 5 November 10.39am: Business Insider Australia tweeted that Phelps had officially won the election, with a link to the story which quoted the AEC. The final margin between the two leading candidates was 1851 votes.

The man walks out in SA election

I stayed up late on Saturday night to watch to the end of the post-election coverage on the ABC News channel. The South Australian election was the main topic of discussion at the commentary desk but there was also a federal by-election in Batman, a Melbourne inner-city electorate, where the Australian Labor Party (ALP) had been up against the Australian Greens.

Within 25 minutes of the premier, Jay Weatherill, conceding defeat on national television in the SA contest, the incoming leader, Stephen Marshall of the Liberal Party entered the Hackney Hotel, a pub on the outskirts of Adelaide, accompanied by music chosen by organises to embellish and distinguish the event. It was The Killers singing ‘The Man’. The band had been formed in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2001 and the song had a dirty undercurrent of 70s funk mixed with lyrics sung in a loose and raw post-punk style. The lyrics are pure rap-macho, daring the listener to challenge the band’s outgrown sense of self importance.

I know the score like the back of my hand
Them other boys, I don't give a damn
They kiss on the ring, I carry the crown
Nothing can break, nothing can break me down

Such misogynistic chest-thumping and nightclub posturing might have suited neoliberal youths representing the new generation in the hotel crowd, but they led to comments online. There were feels. Many thought them unsuitable. Marshall had just unseated a 16-year Labor government after an electoral boundary reshuffle and a result actually showing a 1.5-percent swing to the ALP. Weatherill had conceded defeat but he hadn’t stepped down as ALP leader. The vast majority of the Liberals due to enter Parliament following the election had never held office before. One Liberal, who sat on the commentary panel alongside the ABC’s anchor Annabel Crabb, had served in the last Liberal SA government all those years ago and by himself constituted the collective memory of leadership for the successful party.

The song stroked many people the wrong way. Why had the state, so strong for the ALP, suddenly gone Liberal? Many were asking the question, but one thing was certain, the transfer of power would be successfully accomplished. The threat of populism embodied by the SA Best party, led by ex-federal senator Nick Xenophon, had been overcome. They hadn’t won more than about 14 percent of the vote in any seat for the lower house of Parliament. But no matter how many people resented the ALP’s loss, the Liberals would take control the following week.

The election was held, as is usual in Australia, on the Saturday. By Monday, the state governor, who reports to the queen in England, would have carried out his remit by acceding to the popular will and sworn-in the leaders of the new government. Deal done.

Why is it so hard for other countries to do this kind of thing? Australia is the world’s fourth-oldest democracy, so we have a lot of elections under our belt. But it can’t be so hard. Russia? China? Egypt? Thailand? Cambodia? Why can’t the old men in power in those countries give it up gracefully and thereby recognise the power of popular fiat?

On Sunday afternoon, ABC psephologist Antony Green was tweeting about the results of undecided seats like Adelaide and Mawson. Votes were still being counted. Weatherill finally announced publicly that he would stand down as ALP leader in the state. The machine was working. Why can’t other countries solve the riddle? The orderly transfer of power without violence. What is stopping the old men in those countries from recognising the sovereignty of their people? What do they fear? That their ill-gotten gains will result in them ending up in jail? They want to enjoy the proceeds of their thievery in old age, like any routine superannuant. The poor things. I feel so sorry for them.

An unsolicited coda to the election emerged on Sunday night when it was reported that bushfires were burning in the town of Tathra, on the NSW south coast. ABC reporter Peta Doherty was on the ground on the cross to Jason Om, an anchor who had written movingly about his conversations about the same-sex marriage debate with his immigrant father last year. Doherty had been evacuated from her house in the town to the nearby centre of Bega and promised Om that she would provide crosses from there later when things settled down. Houses had been lost in the conflagration and the NSW Rural Fire Service was fighting blazes at multiple points. It was just another working day in a functional democracy.