When Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull engineered a rare double dissolution in Australia, and Prime Minister David Cameron promised Britain a referendum on remaining in the European Union, they were taking high risks.
But it did not seem so at the time. Mr Turnbull no doubt believed the electorate would not be ready to return to Labor so soon after the Rudd-Gillard Government. Mr Cameron made his promise when he was in coalition with a pro-European party and probably did not envisage his party winning power in its own right, forcing him to deliver the referendum.
Even then, he probably believed that, like Scotland's independence referendum, this one would narrowly confirm the status quo.
The shock in Britain appears to have buoyed Donald Trump's presidential campaign in the United States to a degree that he seems to have discontinued a brief attempt to moderate his style and rhetoric after sacking his campaign manager.
No matter how outrageous he may be between now and November, nobody will discount the possibility that he could win. In Britain, the electorate seems chastened by Brexit, conscious that it has taken a step into the unknown.
Its confidence cannot be helped by the decisions of the most prominent Leave campaigners, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, to step back from the leadership or prospective leadership of their parties before the next phase of Brexit begins.
Binding referendums, like elections, are not just a lively debate and a victory to celebrate. They are important, often fateful decisions for the country concerned, and sometimes for the rest of the world.
Australians who voted for Hanson and others outside the mainstream were probably registering discontent with the performance of both Labor and the Liberals in power.
Both have dumped leaders who won the previous election and now Mr Turnbull, or perhaps even Labor leader Bill Shorten, like Julia Gillard, face the prospect of being a minority Government dependent on deals with independents. It is untidy, but it is the mood of the times.
