Thursday, May 19

I woke up this morning, realising that I had had a revelation while I slept. In just over 50 hours from now, I'll be voting in an election which will affect the direction that Australia will be travelling for the next few years.  I'm sick of seeing politicians on TV making fools of themselves so that people might remember their name when it comes to putting a number on a piece of paper.  They've told me, over and over again, that only they can secure Australia's future, and then nothing gets done in the areas that I think are important.

And, the worst part is, they denigrate their opponent to the point where, if that person is elected he/she will have to live with all the over-egged slurs and false accusations that have been thrown during the 'campaign'.

I don't want to play that game any more.  I realise that I've never read the manifestos of the various parties; I don't really know what they stand for and I have no idea whether they are at all interested in meeting my expectations of what a government should provide.

My bad!  I'm certainly not going to wade through the reams of turgid prose the parties provide on their website trying to conceal what they really believe in.  Instead, I'll identify a handful of issues which I think are important and try to work out from that which party best fits my expectations.

And here they are (just off the top of my head): 

    1. Have a Federal Integrity Commission to deal with all the rorts and corruption.

    2. Re-build a professional, independent Public Service to cut out all these so-called reports carried out by the Government's mates at huge expense.

    3. Start dealing with climate change

    4. Sort out the NDIS

    5. Sort out Aged Care.

Is that enough?  Well, it's a start. I could add 'Sort out Barnaby Joyce' but that's probably beyond any government.  I've left it a bit late to follow it up with any of the candidates but I might spend an hour or two on the web this afternoon checking their various websites. I have a strange feeling that I might end up not supporting either of the major parties.