Resurfacing Down Under - II

Australia is ten times the size of Pakistan with three time zones but its population is only 23 million, 4/5^th of the population of Sindh. Australia is the only nation in the world to occupy an entire continent and the flattest and driest of the continents. Its vast distances and sparse inland population pose major challenges in the development of efficient transport and communication. Such difficulties are summed up in the much-used expression, ‘Tyranny of Distance’. But the Government has done all that it can to mitigate this tyranny. One of the world’s longest railway lines connects Darwin in the north to Adelaide in the south; a distance of 2980 kilometers. The Ghan passenger train connecting the two cities takes 54 hours including a four-hour stop at Alice Springs, a city in the middle of the desert. The railway’s name ‘Ghan’ is the abbreviation of ‘Afghan’. The Afghans were camel drivers who the British brought to Australia in the late 19^th century. The camels were brought to Australia from northern India to help with exploration and load-carrying and were used for transportation of material for building the railway line. Later, by the early 20^th century, motorized transport like trucks became available, which made the use of camels as beasts of burden, redundant. The authorities would have liked to cull and destroy the now ‘useless’, camels but those who had seen them doing much service to mankind, refused to kill them. These camels were released in the vast wilderness. There they prospered and their number is now estimated to be a million and a half, the largest wild-camel population in the world. Today’s Australian camels are the great, great grandchildren of the animals that helped explore and establish modern Australia. But a stage has now come when such a large number is degrading the environment and threatening native species. Now culling is allowed.

[quote]Failure to vote in the elections can lead to fine or imprisonment [/quote]

Australian Aborigines

The indigenous inhabitants of Australia, more commonly known as aborigines, now number around 564,000. One immediate consequence of the colonization of Australia by the British, begun in 1788, was the appropriation of land and water resources. This continued for two centuries as the rural land was used for sheep and cattle grazing. The Aborigines were totally disregarded in regards to their ownership of the land and their need for its resources. Consequently their population declined to less than a hundred thousand. The European settlers justified this appropriation of land and related resources under the concept of ‘terra nullius’, meaning that Australia was an ‘empty land’ when the British started its colonization. Aborigines’ existence and rights were not recognized. If at all, the indigenous Australians were employed on sheep and cattle stations. However, their population started to recover by the middle of the twentieth century. Even then it was only in 1992 that the High Court of Australia, in its famous Mabo case decision declared the legal concept of ‘terra nullius’ as invalid. Since then the Government of Australia has taken steps to recognize the historic mistreatment of the indigenous people and made laws and policies aimed at rectifying the disadvantages suffered by them over the past centuries. The parliament passed a ‘Motion of Reconciliation’ naming mistreatment of the aborigines as the most “blemished chapter in our national history.” Indigenous people are being integrated into the main stream of Australian society and their music, instruments, paintings and patterns are presented as items of national identity. One of these is the ‘didgeridoo’, a kind of natural wooden trumpet developed by the aborigines some 1500 years ago. A didgeridoo is usually cylindrical and can measure from 3 to 10 feet long. Another Australian icon, part of the indigenous heritage, the name of which has entered the English lexicon is the ‘boomerang’. It is a tool constructed as a flat aerofoil designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A boomerang was used for hunting as well as sport. The most well known boomerang is the returning boomerang used for recreation. These days such boomerangs, in a variety of sizes, colours and patterns, are abundantly available in shops with leaflets explaining how to hold and throw them.

Some major centers of tourist interest in Australia include the Great Barrier Reef and the Gold Coast resort area in Queensland, Ayers Rock (Jluru) and Alice Springs. The most well known are, of course, the Sydney harbor bridge and the Opera house.

Pakistan and Australia

It was 1994. A Pakistan Parliamentary delegation headed by the National Assembly speaker Mr. Yousaf Raza Gilani, including members of 3-4 major political parties, visited a number of South East Asian and Pacific countries to apprise them of Pakistan’s position on the Kashmir dispute. During their visit to Australia our High Commissioner Mr. Bashir Khan Babar hosted a dinner for the delegation to which the Speaker of the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Assembly, and a couple of Ministers and other Australian dignitaries were also invited. I, Deputy High Commissioner at the time, was attending to the guests. During my conversation with members of our delegation I mentioned that in Australia a candidate for membership of the parliament can stand election only from one constituency where he and his family normally reside and no member of parliament except the one elected from Canberra, the capital and the seat of the parliament, can build or own a house in Canberra. The parliament members have to stay in hotels or with their friends when they come to Canberra to attend the Assembly sessions. Our MNAs were very surprised; they could hardly believe their ears. They immediately went to Gilani sahib and reported to him what I had said. They expressed shock but not one of them had a word of appreciation or support for a truly democratic dispensation or any desire that such a fair system be introduced in Pakistan.

As for the promotion of the Kashmir cause, which was the primary purpose of the Parliamentary delegation’s visit, Mr. Speaker and his delegation did the best they could. A seminar held at the Australian National University (ANU) was attended and addressed by them. They also held meetings with a couple of Parliamentarians. The most important engagement was the meeting with Foreign Minister Mr. Gareth Evans which was held in a small side room of Mr. Evan’s office. The leader of our delegation made a presentation from a written text outlining the Kashmir dispute, the need for its resolution and Pakistan’s standpoint. The Australian Foreign Minister’s response was in line with the known policy of his country on the issue. But his expression of it was frank, rather blunt. He said, among other things, “I am a friend of both Pakistan and India. I have been visiting the two countries. The Kashmir dispute must be resolved. But both of you are walking on a treadmill. You keep on repeating your known and fixed positions on the issue without moving an inch towards its resolution.”

Australian Democracy

Of all the countries where I served or lived I found the rules and working of democracy in Australia the most effective and fair. It might technically be a constitutional monarchy but it uses a parliamentary system of government. The real authority is in the hands of the elected Prime Minister and his cabinet whose term is just three years. Senators representing all the States serve terms of six years that are staggered so that half of the 72 senators retire every three years.

[quote]The next day Dr. John Hewson was almost a non-entity[/quote]

Mr. Paul Keating, leader of the Labour Party (ALP ) was the Prime Minister during the two and a half years of my stay in Australia. He had taken over the reins on December 19, 1991 following his ‘coup’ against the Party leader Bob Hawke. His Party’s faith and the electorate’s trust in him was confirmed when he won the March 1993 general elections. The opposition leader Dr. John Hewson, who got as much television coverage pre-elections as the sitting Prime Minister, did not hesitate or delay in conceding defeat and announced it publicly as soon as the final results were declared. In the true spirit of democracy he also resigned as the leader of the Liberal Party. The next day Dr. John Hewson was almost a non-entity, a proof of the admirable basic structure of the Australian system which emphasizes policies and plans rather than the character and personality of the individual politicians. John Howard was elected as the new President of the Liberal Party and the leader of the Opposition. Under him the Party won the next election and the next. Australians pioneered and adopted reforms that underpin the electoral practices of a modern and true democracy. Some are as follows—

1. Compulsory voting: It is compulsory (since 1925) for all citizens over the age of 18 to vote in elections both Federal and State. Failure to vote, without a genuine reason, attracts fine or imprisonment. The percentage of enrolled electors that voted in the 2010 federal elections was over 93%.

2. Publicly funded elections: Candidates nominated by recognized political parties do not have to spend their own money for contesting elections. Australia has a system (since 1984) of public funding for election campaigns. The Australian Electoral Commission administers this Fund.

3. Parliament live: Proceedings of the parliament, including Question Time and all debates are broadcast live and widely reported. This serves as an informal but useful check on executive power.

5. Hansard: the official transcripts of the speeches delivered in the parliament, (Hansard ) are available almost immediately after the proceedings end for the day. Printed copies are automatically provided, among others, to all the diplomatic Missions. We, in our High Commission would get a copy every day during the session of the parliament. Embassies are thus able to respond appropriately and promptly to any statement made or resolution passed in the parliament about their respective countries. Anything said in parliament can be reported fairly and accurately without fear of a defamation suit.

6. Preferential voting: In order to ensure that in an election only the candidate who gets the support of more than fifty percent of the votes cast is declared successful, Australians use an elaborate; complicated, but fair method of voting and vote counting. It is the preferential voting system. Under this system,(introduced in 1918), voters number the candidates on the ballot paper in order of their preference. Voters are required to place the number “1” against the candidate of their choice, known as their “first preference”. Voters then place numbers “2”, “3”, etc., against all the other candidates listed on the ballot paper, in order of their preference. The candidate with the highest number of votes is declared the winner if he gets more than half the votes polled. If not, then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and his votes counted for the remaining candidates according to the order of preference. This process is repeated until the top candidate gets more than fifty percent of the votes. This process is lengthy and cumbersome but use of computers makes it easy and quick. It takes only a few hours and the final results are ready. There is hardly ever any complaint of rigging.

7. One constituency per candidate: A candidate for a parliamentary seat can contest election from one constituency only and that too has to be where he and his family reside.

8. No living in the capital: No elected member, except the one who represents a constituency in the Capital, is allowed to buy or build a house in Canberra. When they come to the Capital to attend the session they have to stay in a hotel or with a friend.

9: Lawmakers only: Unlike the practice in our country members of the Australian parliament are not allocated any funds for their constituency. The job of the Parliament is only to legislate. Any developmental activity and expenditure from the approved budgets are the responsibility of the Executive.

Australia’s sister country New Zealand is separated from Australia by the Tasman sea. New Zealanders are also of European extraction, except a small number of Asian immigrants and the Maoris—the indigenous people who according to the 2006 census are estimated to be 620,000 in number or about 15% of the national population. Maoris look much different from the Australian aborigines. They are better assimilated in New Zealand society than the Aborigines. Maoris’ traditional dance, now part of the country’s performance arts, known as kapa haka is simply spectacular.

Because of the close relations and affinities, travel between the two countries is easy and hassle free. New Zealanders regularly find employment in Australia. Australian government makes provision in the national budget for payment of pensions to New Zealand workers who retire and return to their country. Once in the 1980s, an Australian leader; probably the Prime Minister himself; publicly criticized New Zealand for sending “ their low I.Q nationals to work in Australia,”who then have to be paid big amounts in pensions. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Robert Muldoon was asked to respond to the Australian complaint. He said ( or words to that effect ), “Yes , we do send our low I.Q workers to Australia and that helps to raise the I.Q level on both sides of the Tasman Sea.”

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