Watching this election crawl to the finish line is about as interesting as watching the grass grow! Well that’s not really fair there are some really nice types of grass which may be wonderful to watch. I feel a little humiliated now. There was I telling everyone you must vote, the past is behind us, we can move forward one way or the other and look here we are a total mess again!
To be honest our government kinda reminds me of camping it’s a total shamozzle, no one likes it but we all grin and bare it!
But I think there’s a few reasons why we got to this point
It’s too bloody hard!
I honestly think it’s easier sitting you HSC English paper than filling in a ballot. For starters the white paper doesn’t fit in the booth then it’s 6 above or 12 under or something like that! Surely in a world where you can pay wave to by a coke there is an easier way to fill in a form! Secondly what’s the deal with absentee votes? I voted outside my electorate and I had to vote for a bunch of people I have never heard of….what’s the point in saying I’m absent?! Not to mention, does anyone really know who all those parties are? I never hear a thing about them until they pop up on a piece of paper so long I could use it as wrapping paper!
Interest.
Does anyone really follow the campaign trail….accept journos and me?! I’m struggling to find anyone who doesn’t just think ‘when the hell is this going to be over’ and that’s fair enough given the 8 weeks of hell Turnbull put us through but how do we get people to pay attention?
Turning up to vote
If I had a vote for every person I’ve spoke to who did a donkey vote, I’d probably have enough numbers for some kind of a seat and maybe we’d have a parliament. I’ve always been a fan of compulsory voting thinking yeah everyone has their say…but it’s slowly dawned on me how many people don’t want their say, they simply turn up, throw a vote and avoid a fine! There is a whole fb page of how good your thrown vote was 😕 .Maybe we need to make it for those who want to vote? Who knows what impact it’s having on the results
Scare campaigns
How much do you really get of the campaign? It’s beyond me at times! I think that this year was a good one to show how important the advertising is! I personally am confused as to how labor can run a campaign saying Medicare will be privatised, liberal says no it wont and it continues….shouldn’t there be some thing saying you can only advertise absolute truths! How many people have voted one way or the other based in a 30 second scare campaign they saw during Masterchef?
Media influence
I find it interesting that in the senate the people who got elected are the ones the media have pushed – Jackie Lambie, Pauline Hanson, Derryn Hynch and so on. I mean even I have to say there’s a good couple of dozen names I’ve never heard of so do you vote for the ones you’ve heard of?? Of course
So here we are…. now it’s like a bad movie version of the tortoise and the hare….who will get there first! It’s no surprise that people don’t care and it’s no surprise that we have no faith in our politics and are more concerned about sausages than our leaders! I guess it could be worse we could have #brexit or Trump!
nickyainley 