Three adults and an election

We have become a household of three adults. 

Don't act so shocked. You knew it was going to happen. The years keep spinning, like a roulette wheel. They were going to land on 18 eventually.

Tim makes a delicious vegan cake.

***

In Australia, we had an important election last night, and because we were a household of three adults, all three of us could vote. 

One of us voted for the very first time anywhere. Three of us voted for the very first time in Australia. 

It was glorious. A little cold, and longer lines than expected. But ultimately glorious.

This is the community hall where we voted.

We had a federal government that had been disastrous. We had a prime minister head out on a Hawaiian vacation anyway, when bushfires ravaged the country in 2019-2020. The feds pushed hard-Hard against the state-led lockdowns that were saving lives and saving the economy in 2020-2021. They bullied women, and ignored their concerns aggressively. They tortured refugees on a scale that made international news in 2022. Gave billions of taxpayer money to their mates, couched as 'pandemic' related, while locking universities out of job keeping programs in the pandemic, and vetoing a small handful of carefully vetted research grants. They ignored devastating floods, and the climate science that had predicted them. From my view from here, they seemed to be as corrupt as they could get away with, and with the blessing of Murdoch media, they were confident they could get away with a lot of corruption.

They are out. 

Out! Out! Out! Resoundingly out!

I hoped as I voted that they would be out, and that little voters like me could send a message about climate, corruption, and bullying. We sent a message. 

Both major parties took a beating, but especially the incumbents. Many of the people replacing them are respected, independent, professional women, who campaigned on climate and on integrity. And they have won! Decisively!

Pandemic, war, climate crisis, inflation. We don't need politicians anymore. We need leaders. We desperately, desperately need leaders. And maybe, just maybe, we got them.

And the fact that this vote happened in the country that birthed Murdoch media brings me so much hope. Friends, I have been so hopeless in the face of news media that spurts anger and lies and manipulation.

But people are still good. People are still smart. People can still see when they are being manipulated and lied to, that they can push back. And our system still lets them push back. They pushed!

I am so so so grateful to be an Australian today.

***

Jonathan, now 18, was eligible to work the polls. He applied, and received a 1-night job counting ballots. 

Tim and I dropped him off around 3pm at a warehouse further down the river. He was there until around 11pm, home at midnight, walked in the door in time to hear the speech of Australia's next Prime Minister.

Tim and I sat on the couch watching the election returns, becoming more and more hopeful, and more and more relieved.

I was massively relieved when Trump was dumped in 2020. But in the US, the reasonable voices at the center can still hardly be heard over the crazies, proven by January 2021.

But here? Here, reasonable seems to be a possibility. Maybe?

This strange, tentative feeling emerging from the worry and the fear. I think ... I think it might be ... 

Hope?