“Labor was making gains, but ‘minority’ became a catchword, until just after nine, when the cavalry came roaring in from the West. That’s when, I suspect, the champus corks hit the ceilings over much of Canberra,” writes ROBERT MACKLIN.

I DON’T believe in miracles, either literally or figuratively. But sometimes there’s a conjunction of events so in tune with the times that it feels like some wondrous conspiracy of perfection. 

I don’t mean the election result, but rather the down-to-earth components that permitted it, beginning with the greatest single bulwark of our political stability, the Australian Electoral Commission.

It administers Australia’s preferential system, which is the best in the world. But its task is much bigger than that. It helps that voting is compulsory; and we wouldn’t change that for anything. The contenders don’t have to worry about getting people out to vote; and it lessens the influence of the fanatical fringe groups. 

But it does mean that the AEC has an enormous logistical task in establishing polling booths within easy reach to voters across an entire continent, and to staff them with pleasant and knowledgeable folk to guide us through the process. And with COVID-19 once again on the rise, they must mask and protect both them and the voters.

Our own experience, I suspect, was fairly typical. Maybe we got a little lucky in parking right beside the modest queue at our granddaughters’ school. But as usual the “how-to-vote” volunteers were perfectly polite. We waited no more than 20 minutes before reaching the entrance, where we were each given a short, sharpened pencil and directed to one of at least four separate queues. 

Ours led to a friendly woman who found the confusing surname (which follows Mac not Mc) in a trice; then repaired to one of 12 cardboard booths to mark all the squares where the biggest question was who to put last. 

Then came the “declaration” as we completed the vote, and I asked the lady collecting the pencils if I could keep mine as a souvenir. “Of course you can,” she smiled. 

Back in the open air in multicultural Canberra, there were irresistible “democracy dumplings” on offer, and I also took a sausage for old times’ sake. Then it was home with a glow of pride and the purchase of a bottle of champus for one result, shiraz for another. 

Meanwhile, the wonderful AEC was preparing the count that, in lesser hands, would be like plunging into a vat of live octopuses and adding up the suckers on all eight limbs. 

Instead, when 6 o’clock rolled round and Leigh Sales appeared with her horn rims at the ready, Antony Green fired up his amazing touch screen, and David Speers played with his red and blue squares – and brown in the middle – while Tanya Plibersek and Simon Birmingham, the human faces of their parties settled in.

That’s when we started counting the times someone said: “But these are only early figures…” while odds on the shiraz shortened and the champers started to sweat. Tassie looked crook, western Sydney worse, especially in Fowler. Country booths rolled in, and they were awful. 

Tanya was “hopeful”, whatever the hell that meant. Simon was insouciant… and that looked scary. But then, as those Teal women mounted their charge on the Morrison ramparts, the AEC (unlike Antony) was totally unfazed. Up went the figures and they just kept rising. Labor was making gains, but “minority” became a catchword, until just after nine when the cavalry came roaring in from the West. That’s when, I suspect, the champus corks hit the ceilings over much of Canberra.

But not in the counting houses of the AEC public servants. They had a job to do: preserving our democracy with what someone called “bits of paper”.

robert@robertmacklin.com