Back at the turn of the century I decided to step back from day-to-day activities at my company (doing actual ‘work’ was such a bore) preferring to be ‘Chairman of the Board’ in the background. Well, I am Chairman of the Board but you know what I mean: a figurehead. I left the day-to-day matters to my business partner and other staff, with my role being confined to visiting our business customers once or twice a year, mediating disputes (which I hate doing!): that sort of thing.
What I am rather good at is smoothing over the occasional customer complaint we receive. I have it down to a fine art of just letting them ‘vent’ and ‘rant’ whilst I inject “Oh gosh sir, how awful”, “You were right to complain” and “Gosh that shouldn’t have happened” into the discussion. After a minute or two, they’ve got over it and are no longer angry, at which point I skilfully enquire, “Which footie team is yours?” Twenty minutes later, having let them talk about either rugby or league, they’re happy-as-Larry.
In 2007 we decided to open an office in Sydneytown having been ‘exporting’ across the Tasman for several years, and it was the best decision I ever made. NSW is the best place in the world in which to do business. It always amazes me how few New Zealand businessmen export to Australia.
Last Monday I sent a letter by snail mail to young Jason, our manager in Sydney (I really must stop calling him that; he started work for us the day he graduated from Westlake Boys but he is now 40!). It turned up yesterday which shows the postal service in both countries is alive and kicking.
Except it isn’t.
The counting of votes progresses at a snail’s pace after the Australian election. It seems in many electorates they are still waiting for “postal votes” to turn up. By an amazing coincidence, places with the lowest percentage of votes counted, and the highest percentage of “yet-to-be-received” postal votes, include Gilmore, Lingiari, Richmond and Wills – electorates the ALP could lose once all preferences are distributed.
A letter from New Zealand to Sydney arrives in three days but tens of thousands of ballots haven’t arrived – from across town – three weeks later? A person far more cynical than me, dear reader, could conclude that maybe they are waiting to find out how many votes the ALP needs to win? (if you know what I mean?)
An equally remarkable coincidence is the low percentage of Senate votes counted in Western Australia where One Nation is trailing the ALP 0.24 to 0.43 – but where the Australian Christians and Liberal Democrats, on 0.15 and 0.13 respectively, are more likely to have preferenced One Nation ahead of Labor.
In South Australia One Nation keeps creeping up as the votes are counted: now trailing the Liberals 0.37 to 0.28 but with a swag of LDP and United Australia preferences yet to be counted.
In both states it seems they’re waiting for vast numbers of (ahem) “postal votes” to arrive in the mail (ahem): in contrast to, say, New South Wales and Tasmania, where the ‘right people’ got elected to the Senate and the vote-counting is almost complete. Fancy that.