A lovely day in the neighbourhood

One week after the election that changed the country

On May 21, federal election day in the Year 2022, I stood in a line outside my local polling booth at the Victorian College of Arts Secondary School (VCASS), a school my son had attended from Year 9 until Year 12, and it was a beautiful sunny day, maybe 17 degrees, the inner-city air strangely crisp, with the sense of us being balanced precisely on the edge of a change of season.

There was a little buzz in the air, and people chatted with each other, and chatted with the workers representing the various parties and independents, and everyone was calm and polite, even the those from the United Australia Party.

It is, of course, compulsory in our country to enrol to vote and to show up on election day (or at a pre-poll or to fill out a postal vote) but no-one in this queue was there under sufferance. People may have been fitting the task in between shopping and lunch, or between weekend sports and dinner, but there was no sense at all that they resented this mild, democratic obligation.

Ho…