STEPPING inside a hair salon in one of our nation’s capitals, a gentleman was getting his hair cut.
“There’s not much on top – I grew too tall for my hair,” he said.
The hairdresser laughed as she kept snipping away with a small silver comb and pair of scissors.
“Do you know who to vote for?” the gentleman asked, referring to the looming federal election.
Picking up a razor, the hairdresser switched it on, perhaps pretending not to hear.
But the gentleman’s voice just grew louder.
He chattered about the arrival in 1969 of his family from England.
In that year the 10 Pound Pom scheme peaked with 80,000 English migrants arriving on Australian shores.
It was part of an agreement between English and Australian governments in a bid to help populate Australia.
“To come here mum and dad had to be healthy and under 45 years old, nothing else,” the gentleman said.
“They came for a better life – dad worked for the railways.
“He always had a thing about voting for the Labor party and told us kids to do the same, so I vote for Labor.
“What about you? Who do you reckon will win?”
“Ah, politics,” scowled the hairdresser in reply.
“All I can say is its lucky we are not voting in a personality of the year.
“Actually, what I have noticed with this election is not many people seem at all interested.
“I think Labor will win, but I do not know.”
After paying for my own haircut, it was time to catch a taxi to the airport.
The driver said he came from India and was studying engineering.
“My family is very poor,” he said in broken English and chatted about one day returning home to India and helping his family more.
When not driving a taxi or studying, he works at a fast food outlet at the airport.
“Australia is a good place for opportunity and work,” he said and chatted about India where a 2019 general election is also being held.
Voting started on April 11 and ends on May 19.
“In my country voting is in seven stages – only one region votes at a time.”
Last Sunday was stage six – “that is Delhi and north India,” he said.
“On May 23, all the votes from the seven regions get counted, then winners are announced the same day.
“Sometimes people die trying to vote.”
There are no pre-polling booths, postal votes or sausage sizzles.
“On voting days, thousands of people travel a long distance and stand waiting in long queues and it is so hot some people collapse and die from heat exhaustion just waiting to vote,” the driver said.
“Australia is a lucky country for voting – people are stupid for complaining about voting.”
Paying the fare, I recalled an old cliché – ‘if you want to gauge public opinion, ask a hairdresser or a taxi driver’.
“Who do you think will win the election in India and Australia?” I asked.
The driver talked about his rural family in India – farmers were not being paid adequately for their crops, suicide rates were high.
The domino effect was high unemployment rates spreading from towns to cities.
“I hope Rahul Gandhi is next Prime Minister – his family values country people, like my family,” he said.
“In Australia, a lot of people say Bill Shorten will be your next Prime Minister, but I do not know.”
Interestingly, India has 900 million people eligible to vote and elect 543 representatives to its lower house of Parliament.
Australia has just 16.4 million people eligible to vote for 151 members in our lower house.
There are only four more sleeps until election day and it will all be over for another three years.
• Chris Oldfield can be contacted on christobel47@bigpond.com
