I've been thinking about this a bit, lately. Australia is in the middle of a massive flooding crisis (again), which has mainly affected rural areas. Yet it has been extremely noticeable that, each time this has happened in the last year or so, the media has been far more concerned (to the point of it almost being comical) with flooding in the respective capital city impacted, rather than the much heavier hit rural areas...
Population size and density plays into this. I realise that. As does proximity, with media orgs and journalists mostly being based out of the capitals. But it is so blatant, when it gets to the point where even specific "regional networks" are more concerned with the city than the country, and when regional areas are almost completely ignored, even when people actually die in the flood.
So there's that. Which is nothing if not representative of a trend that we have seen in this country for at least a decade.
But there's more than that - when the journalists do get out to these country towns (varying in size from a few thousand people to literally 100K), and interview the people there, it is immediately apparent that they see the world in a completely different way, both to the journalist asking the questions, and to most... "Elite" city folk.
They're not worried about climate change. They don't view these floods as "apocalyptic", or "the worst we have ever seen". They're just going about their business, trying to survive and get by, and actually banding together to look after each other, and the vulnerable members of their community. It's actually remarkably wholesome to see (what we see of it, which is not much).
This, in complete contrast to the city/suburban folk who got flooded out, who have... Already literally turned on each other, and started apportioning blame. Despite the fact that they are the ones the government mostly focussed on, and they got the most support, before anyone else.
This, despite the fact that people in those "rural communities" are poorer, less "educated", and generally... With worse health outcomes than people in the city.
It was the same during Covid, of course, but I've never seen it to quite this extent before. These are "the forgotten people", whose votes are generally discounted (because rural electorates, which get swamped by city voters) and who are, I have to be honest, largely ignored, by not just the media, but by... "City folk" more broadly.
Obviously you see this trend even more clearly in the US, and arguably the UK. I think this phenomenon is pretty much part of most "human societies", for at least the last 200 years or so, but it's still... Really jarring when you see it. The level of disenfranchisement be real. And we should really do better.
Arguably, this was a big part of the Trump phenomenon, and Brexit. And perhaps Meloni, and the recent Swedish election, even, too. It's just... Stunning, frankly, that the "elites" continue down this same path, even here, and don't seem to have learned a single fucking thing from those examples...
So yeah. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I've been wanting to get that one out of my system, for days, since I really started to think about it, lol...
In some states one city determines elections which sucks. I take it that is the same in Australia on a national level?
It's also worth mentioning that, since like, 1990-on, almost every Prime Minister of the country (and probably 80% of Opposition Leaders, too) has come from Sydney. Generally the Eastern Suburbs. Both "conservative" and "left" ones, that is.
It's almost a complete joke, at this point. Like, I know you have that with NYC, in the US, but it's... I would say it is considerably worse here.
They don't even bother trying to pretend it's not a "Sydney old boy's club" anymore, smh...
There you go, I'm not talking out of my arse completely:
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1516/Quick_Guides/AustPM
Excellent website in general, btw... Like, cynical as I am of "official" stuff, this website tends to be very good, for guides like this, if ever you happen to be looking for anything regarding Auspol and the like.
Having been to Old Parliament House, now the "Museum of Australian Democracy", it strikes me that the archivists and curators there are very good at their job, and very passionate, which, again, is a surprise.
The National Library/Museum, by contrast? Yeah, not so much, lol...
Yep. You can't really win the federal election unless you win Melbourne and Sydney (essentially a given. But they carry much larger "weighting" than, say, NY State or California).
But you also can't really win the election unless you carry Tasmania and regional Qld, which offsets that balance slightly, otherwise a non-left government would never be able to win, federally (again, because Melbourne and Sydney)...
In the end, sheer weight of population wins out, because Melbourne and Sydney combined make up nearly 50% of Australia's population, at this point...
Which is absolutely fucking insane, but here we are.
The two territories (less than 1/25 of the population, in total, but like... 1/10 of the land area) therefore deal with this situation by completely throwing away their vote, and literally always voting for the left party...
See also: literally every city I have ever lived in, for one or the other party (usually the lefty one, because I tend to live in "working class"-type cities/suburbs, when I can - for reasons that should be fairly apparent by now). V annoying...