John Linton .....and were replaced by a dictatorship of thuggery and vested interests of the lowest common denominator since that time.
There must have been a few more boring events in my lengthening life span than the current federal election but its hard to remember one off hand. Perhaps stripping a century or so's accumulated multiple paintings and general dirt accumulation off ten cedar doors when we bought our first old ruin of a house and decided we would renovate it ourselves is the only thing that springs to mind (that seemingly never ending task took most of the weekends of one summer long ago). I'm sure there are others but I just can't bring them to mind. As I was driving yesterday afternoon there was one of those 'listener call in sessions' on 702 so beloved of idea bereft radio people on the subject of why is this election so boring so clearly it isn't just me.
The few callers I heard before reaching my destination were not very helpful in defining the reason(s) and offered the usual ill educated and immature/stupid comments you expect from someone who calls a radio station to make a 30 second peroration. It's quite obvious why the current election, and indeed most of its predecessors, is utterly boring. The people who 'stand for parliament' believe in nothing other than aggrandising themselves by attempting to get the snout in the trough of the federal tax gravy train and the bribes that go with it and don't give a toss about actually representing their electorates or making Australia a slightly better place.
Federal Elections are not helped in this country by our puerile media who seem to think an election is some sort of football grand final (notice how they constantly say federal elections aren't called in September because they would clash with the other football grand finals?) and all they report on are the polls and the activities of the "leaders" as if it is some sort of beauty contest cum grand final. Nowhere can you see any future planning for the betterment of Australia generally or any specific part of it in particular - all you see are the attempts at appealing to the prejudices of the voters in 'marginal seats' and therefore the indistinguishable from each other's "policies" or more correctly - extravagant promises.
Why is this so? It's obvious. The ONLY "policy" either of the major parties has is to get themselves elected so they can personally benefit financially and dole out benefits to the people who bankrolled their election campaign. Sussex Street controls every aspect of the Labour campaign on the single basis of getting its hands on the inflow of taxes so it can divert as much of them as possible to themselves and their 'mates' and I have little doubt that the Liberal HQ personnel are fuelled by the same level of personal and collective avarice. There is absolutely NO indication that either major political party in this country exists for any other purpose.
This election is so boring it has even come to the attention of the ABC's day time radio session presiders simply because the need to "win" the marginal seats has become so paramount that THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE in what either party says....it is derived from the two parties head quarters polling of the different marginal electorates and then serving up the answers which by definition have to be so similar they may as well be the same.
Elections in this country have moved so far from the 'democratic' principles they were allegedly based on that they are completely meaningless and therefore boring. All Australian's future's will be based on appeasing the venal desires of a minority of people who live in 'marginal' electorates. Screw the vast majority of Australians whose votes, courtesy of the demographics of their electorates, are valueless and aren't worth the five minute stroll to the voting booth as they will mean nothing in terms of how our country will be governed over the coming years.
I suppose it doesn't really matter - few if any Australians give any thought to the future of other people let alone the country as a whole. If they did how could they have elected a piece of egotistical nonsense like Rudd to preside over the country for the past three years?
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