Sunday Essay - deaths of cartoonists Murray Ball and Bill Leak, the WA election results

I was saddened to hear of the death of New Zealand cartoonist Murray Ball, the creator of Footrot Flats. I really enjoyed Footrot Flats. As a part Kiwi with New Zealand farm connections I knew enough to understand the local allusions, More importantly, the characters were just fun.

I spent Saturday night watching the West Australian election count. That made for a very late night given the three hour time difference. Since it seemed pretty clear that the Barnett Government would lose the election, the three things that I focused on were the likely scale of the defeat, the size of the One Nation vote and the fate of the WA National Party.

It quickly became clear that a swing, a big one, was on, so my focus shifted to the other two.

Much has been written about the decline in the One Nation vote. If you exclude the lower house seats where One Nation did not contest, the One Nation vote would appear to be around the number suggested by the polls, a bit over 8%, with a higher vote in regional areas, lower in Perth Metropolitan. So well down on the peak poll forecasts, but around the final average poll numbers.

The Liberal decision to preference One Nation in the Upper House in return for One Nation preferences in the lower house clearly backfired. The scale of the backfire is subject to debate, but when you have both Liberals and Ms Hanson herself saying that it was a mistake that cost votes, I'm inclined to go with the professionals.

In practical terms, it looks to have delivered One Nation 1-2 upper house seats, reducing the Nationals by one.to four seats.  In the lower house, it looks as though it may transfer the previously National held seat of Kalgoorlie to the Liberals, although results here are still uncertain.

The results in National Leader Brendon Grylls's seat of Pilbara are too close to call, although it looks as though he will lose the seat to Labor  Here a special factor was in play, Gryll's proposals to increase mining royalties on Rio Tinto and BHP.

In this Footrot Flat cartoon, Dog plays the role of Grylls while you need to dress the two farmers in high vis clothing.

BHP and Rio Tinto are reported to have spent more than $2 million in anti-National advertising, while BHP reportedly tried to encourage its staff in the Pilbara to vote against Grylls. From their viewpoint, it was a relatively small (and successful) investment to avoid a bigger impost.

Listening to election night commentary from both Liberal and Labor spokesmen, they were both men, on the royalty issue, both said that Gryll's proposal was essentially silly because all it would do is to reduce WA's share of the GST. If you think about it, and its correct, that's a dreadful commentary on current fiscal arrangements within the federation, something that Premier Barnett rightly campaigned on. What's the point on taking fiscal action at state level if all that happens is a consequent fiscal hit at another level?  

The sudden death of another cartoonist, Australian Bill Leak, bookends this short post.

Leak was always idiosyncratic, attracting controversy and invective.Towards the end of his life, this seems to have weighed  on him.

Even at the end, he was still campaigning against what he saw as the dead hand of political correctness.

Both Australia and New Zealand have been very lucky in their political cartoonists over a very long period. Often controversial, they have presented political and social issues back to us in ways that make us pause. The pictures they present are something like those distorting mirrors that used to be popular at sideshows and amusement arcades, but they encourage us to look in new ways and, sometimes, just to share the fun.

This Sunday post will also act as tomorrow's Monday Forum. As always, go in whatever direction you like.