It is now 5 days until the Federal elections and most people I talk to can’t wait for the campaign to be over. The obsession in the media with personal and electoral trivia and the blatant dishonesty and misrepresentation by each side in their public pronouncements and the use of ’sound bite’-style advertising leaves me feeling really angry. Whatever the ‘party-minders’ may say this type of campaigning insults ordinary Australians.
I think both potential leaders – Gillard and Abbott – are better politicians than their actions and words in this campaign suggest. Perhaps neither have the requisite leadership skills and they feel pressured enough to pursue ‘party-minder’ strategies.
The decision on the party to support is a difficult one. Labor seems to me an incompetent government that does nor deserve re-election. That Rudd was replaced by his own party confirms this. My traditional sympathies have been with the Liberal Party primarily because it has historically supported markets rather than politician-bureaucrat driven policy outcomes. This is a questionable distinction these days. For example, it is Labor who are supporting the use of market-driven incentives for dealing with climate change and the Liberals who are opposing this. This form of opposition seems devoid of principle and motivated by a vulgar populism.
I have been a long-standing supporter of Tony Abbott and I regret that I don’t feel able to give him whole-hearted support on this occasion. On the other hand the Labor Party does no better. Julia Gillard is an appalling leader, part of the incompetent Rudd team, who has failed every test since she took over the leadership role (asylum seekers, climate change, mining tax). Labor’s claims that a 1.5% increase in the company tax rate as proposed by Abbott will drive up prices is a deliberate lie.
In the House of Representatives I’ll vote 1 Greens but probably give my preferences to the Liberals which, in my electorate, means a vote for the conservatives. My local member is Jenny Macklin who is a weak Labor parliamentary performer but who will probably win. In the Senate I’ll vote for the Greens - that might help to have a useful impact. In addition, I feel compelled to vote for the opposition as a response to this letter that had precisely the opposite effect on me to that it surely intended. Thus my miserably unimportant vote will go to the Liberals where it won’t affect anything.
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“Whatever the ‘party-minders’ may say this type of campaigning insults ordinary Australians.”
Alternatively, perhaps it gives a lot of people what they really want. You can look on the bright side — perhaps there is so little to worry about in Australia, people think of useless things instead.
Yeah the letter from the 55 economists did raise thoughts of the words of a certain member of the oldest profession. I did post the following at John Quiggin’s post but I have a hunch he’ll moderate it-
As I understand it the overall stimulus figure was $42bill, near enough to the full price of an NBN superhighway for us all. That raises in my mind the obvious question as to why a moving forward Labor Govt didn’t seize the moment, enter into emergency talks with Telstra to buy their network as they did recently and roll out their brilliant ‘Snowy Scheme’ NBN for us all? After all it was a national scheme to spread the stimulus around very broadly and even involve our Future Fund in such productive and necessary infrastructure. The added bonus would have been a surprise 1GB/sec for so many by now.
I must say I didn’t hear a peep out of the 55 economists at the time about that sort of stimulus, but perhaps they’d like to comment here on Westpac’s letter to borrowers today that their mortgages are to rise by 0.25% as of Oct10, due to a combination of the rising cost of market funds and the RBA’s official hike in April/May.
In terms of what we’re getting from the pollies on the campaign trail I’d argue we do put them in an impossible position re the need to pander to the marginals and the only way out of that would be to have proportional voting and one vote one value for the Reps. Avoids branch stackingand pork barrelling with national tickets and would allow the parties to parachute in top talent without the need for the baby kissing and they could concentrate on national issues. One can only dream I guess.
Prostitution might be strong – I’d call it grovelling and fairly ordinary party political stuff. A bit disappointed overall – reminded me of the very ordinary electoral campaign.
You really should read the Greens’ economic and industrial relations policies before you vote for them.
They’re watermelons – green on the outside but very red inside.
Im in the seat of Batman and am thinking of an informal vote in the house and possibly Stephen Mayne in the Senate.
The Liberal party ,made a big mistake when they got rid of the likeable malcolm turnbull.