Australian politics is something that is generally regarded as particularly tedious. I suppose we see it as more of a joke than anything else, and it's a sign of either an amazingly inept cohort of representatives or, more likely, a sense of complacency in the general populous. Really, we don't know how lucky we are to have Australian politics.
I've learned a lot over the past week just talking to the local students about their thoughts on Hong Kong politics. I learned that while everybody is entitled to a vote, only half of the representative house is comprised of this general, public vote. The other half is reserved for a 'professional' vote, where businessmen and women or 'people of influence' (read: people with money and people who benefit from having a government closely tied to money-making China) are entitled to more than one vote. One student told me that a woman disclosed to the media that she was able to vote something like forty seven times. So there are two halves to the House - one comprised of a legitimate vote and the other as a shadow house. If a bill is to come into law, it must pass both houses. I can guess that you see the problem with this system.
Current issues in Hong Kong stem primarily from a concern over basic housing. A twenty square metre apartment in a salubrious suburb (say, around Mong Kok or Yau Ma Tei) can cost upwards of four hundred thousand AUD (or 3 million HKD). Most people in basic retail earn close to eighty thousand Hong Kong dollars in a year. While the basic needs of everyday people fall to the wayside, billionaire moguls holding monopolies over property and retail, like Mr. Li (EDIT: Not Mr. Lau, sorry for that error), dominate the capitalist structure of Hong Kong. Mr. Li's name seems to rouse much contempt on the streets. He owns a grand scale of property, business and his son holds HK's largest tel-co, PCCW, (I believe another son owns rival company 3; no conflict of interest there, nonono...) (EDIT: Mr. Li is actually a noted philanthropist, donating billions worldwide to both China, disaster relief and research). I suppose this illustrates Kong Kong's wealth gap, the extremes of hyper-capitalism.
Perhaps the most twisted thing I heard from a group of students was the government's influence on everyday life. Business here is strictly linked in with China - what is good for business is often good for China, and the opposite is true. I guess this boils down to something like this: a friend said to me that she's planning on attending some of the mass protests in the city tomorrow, but she's afraid that if the media and government catch her face and identify her, all hopes of a government job (the professional, well paid jobs) evaporate.
(EDIT) Oh, and there's something I forgot to mention. There are shops in the Central district that will refuse to sell their wares to the HK populous. These stores offer expensive wares, jewelry and fashion, and will only sell to mainlanders with bags of cash. National Geographic ran a recent article (June 2012) that told a story of a mainlander who walked into a Central store with money in hand and yelled, 'Take me to your most expensive items.' Naturally, Hong Konger's are pretty pissed off with this.
And this is a democracy. When I compare it to the Australian political system, I feel a sense of frustration and great sadness for the people of Hong Kong. At the same time, I'm immensely grateful that I can live in a country where I can vote for who I like and know that there's no shadow cabinet controlling the passage of law, or that Julia Gillard isn't kowtowing to the Premier or any other major power (even though we're still too comfortable with jumping into bed with America, we still like to be independent).
So there's a protest tomorrow. It marks Hong Kong's 15th anniversary of the handing over of power from British rule to Chinese rule. Some three hundred thousand are expected to turn out to voice their anger at the cost of property, at the visiting Premier Hu Jintao, at the CEO of HK, at the suspicious deaths of anti-corruption activists in the mainland...It seems anti-mainland sentiment is bubbling up.
I'll be attending too, to take photos and see what it's like to witness people raising their collective voice in protest for something that I take for granted.
http://www.amnesty.org.hk/html/node/10592
http://hk.asia-city.com/events/news/hong-kong-prepares-record-july-1-protest
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