TheVine writer Andrew McMillen recently conducted an extensive interview with WA musician John Butler. The two traversed subjects such as what Butler stands for in the eyes of the Australian public, his arts funding initiative The Seed, his becoming rather successful in America recently and whether he is indeed just "an outspoken hippie".
That full (5000+ words) interview is coming very soon. But perhaps most pertinently - considering we
elect a new Prime Minister tomorrow - Butler also waxed on about his current viewpoint on "the idea of democracy" in Australia right now. Which, coming from the singer who's latest single 'Revolution' includes the lines
"Pay off those losers we elect to lead / Stealing from the mouths that we're meant to feed', is a topic at the forefront of his art:
AM: I believe you'll be back in Australia for the next federal election next month so I wonder if you'll be interested in discussing how you'll be voting?
JB: Okay [laughs] This will open up a can of worms, but here we go. I believe in the idea of democracy. I believe if I lived in a room with five other people and four of them wanted to do something and one didn't, then we should probably go with the majority. I believe in democracy. I don't believe the form of political democracy that we have in our country is necessarily a good example of democracy. I don't really believe it's democracy. I don’t know.
For example, in my state in Western Australia, [premier] Colin Barnett of the Liberal party got in. OK, get this: Labor gets more votes but between the National party and the Liberal party, they had more votes together. So, after the election's done, Liberals and in the National party make a coalition and they become the leaders of the WA government. That's not democracy. That's a fucking complete manipulation of a system right there.
I didn't vote for that guy and that guy didn’t tell me they were going to partner up with that guy. It's like that's how our country is going to run and now we have another Prime Minister. There were the two that happened, there's a fucking coup that happened and to me - I don't know a lot about it and I really don't understand Australian politics because to me it's set up in way that it's made to not [be understood].
Eventually I think the resource companies run our country and I think they have for a very long time. I think what they want – what the big resource companies want - they get, and I don't think they really like that tax that Rudd had in mind. Once that started hitting the scene, it was kind of like, “Uhh, we need to get this guy out of here, really quick”. And – I smell a rat. I don't understand it, but you know what – I don't think democracy is alive and well in our country, and I think we're being majorly manipulated by the resource industry. That's how I feel. So how I feel about this next election? I think it's going to be like it usually is. It's going to be a choice between two people who I probably wouldn’t want to see in office, but I have to pick one of them. It's the choice between two evils.
The people who probably could do a lot for our country either don't get enough votes, or are seen as too fringe and not have enough lobbying behind them. Lobbying, the fact that our political parties can even be lobbied by huge fucking corporations, seems like a manipulation of democracy already. But maybe that's just me and maybe I'm just seeing things too simply and I need to get a bit more ‘educated’.
To me, it seems like they put into power whoever they want to be in power so they can get the outcomes that they like. At the same time, I vote. I vote and I encourage other people to vote and if in some way we can use that system, this limited form they've offered us to be part of, if we can make a big change then I'm down for that. But sometimes I just don't know, like everybody else: “I'm voting! I don’t know if they’re using my vote.” I encourage you to vote, to be interested in the government, because the government, we basically employ them. I think we could probably do some laying off as the bosses of our country. We should go to our government and probably take a few of the parasites out of the system, but that's a big job. Do you want me to say anything else? [laughs]
I'm voting Greens, personally, but we know that a vote for the Greens is a vote for Labor, essentially.
Yeah, well, I'm not going to advertise who I'll vote for but I did something very similar. I guess if enough people vote for people like Bob Brown then hopefully, if the system actually does work, then we can one day have a Greens Party, then I'll hope for something like that. When I heard Rudd got kicked out, [laughs] I'm not saying Rudd was great. I didn't vote for Rudd, but I saw a puppet master and you can call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever; I smelt a puppet master and it felt like somebody was pulling the strings and I didn't know where the strings were being pulled from but it wasn't from the government. It was something from above, and I'm not talking about God. I'm talking about corporate, and that just pisses me off. It pisses me off that my country is run by fucking pirates.
I think I might close that can of worms again now.
Yeah, you might want to! [laughs].
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Full transcript of our interview with John Butler coming soon.
John Butler - 'Revolution' from April Uprising