Ethnic bells tolling under the white Southern Cross

There are six to twelve seats where the Chinese votes could be pivotal. Unlike the Muslims, the Chinese have no community leaders who dare to step out of line, to campaign for change to our corrupt two-Party system, to bequeath their heirs with a functional democracy for their homeland.

Simon Holmes a Court, the archangel of the Teals and Community Independents, loves proportional representation. But he remains pure. He will neither ask his flock to campaign on proportional representation nor insist on it as the first condition of support for a minority government. But there is the elephant in the room - doing more of the same will not neutralise Donfather's Law, nor hold back the receding tide that Morrison's unloveliness floated. Hopefully Simon will seize his Mandela moment, and change his mind. There is more than a week in politics left to voting day!

The Greens have proportional representation on their platform, yet they have not said a word about it. Their leader Adam Bandt, however, has said that he will not ask for a ministry to support a minority government. Herein lies a ray of hope. Bandt might be biding his time for asking for proportional representation, and be waiting for the 2028 elections, when he could expect something like 18 to 20 seats under proportional representation.

The redemptive features of proportional representation have been well canvassed by acknowledged scholars over the past decade and more and are cogently summarised in the Final Report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, published November 2023. I would just add that it would insure us against the fulsome visitation of the American evil.

Lamentably, the 1.4 million Chinese Australians, in the best position among ethnics to demand change for our polity, remain timid, uninspired, and derelict in their duty to their heirs. The Muslims have put them to shame.

Hopefully, the Snake will bring a big red packet, soon: a Chinese Poll Tax Trust Fund like the one Helen Clark set up in New Zealand in 2004. That fund would provide funds every year for projects that would rewrite the history of the Chinese in Oz with an unfiltered Chinese Australian perspective, like "Remembering Brisbane's Night of Broken Glass". In time this would lead to the Chinese finding their voice, at long last.

Anthony Albanese might just trump Dutton, at the last moment as he did with the Stage 3 tax cuts. And win forgiveness for his gratuitously fulsome embrace of AUKUS!