The gloves are well and truly off and the campaigning on for our votes in the state election, judging by the barrage of pork barrelling. A new police complex, complete with actual police, is on the agenda. Road improvements, more hospital beds, more doctors – you name it, we are going to get it. There is no end to the ways in which our lives will be better after the November 24 election. So why wait until then? Give it to us now. Silly me. That is not how the system works, or more precisely, is worked.
The two major parties work on the premise that we will be so besotted with all the baubles on offer that we will forget their blunders and misdeeds. The minor parties work on the premise that we are all so sick and tired of the broken promises of the majors that we will install independents to – as the late Don Chipp said – “keep the bastards honest”. I am not sure either of these premises is valid at the moment.
I can’t think of a time in my adult life that I have had less faith in the system, and the people running it, regardless of their political persuasion. With few exceptions, they lack credibility, vision and backbone. They treat the voters with disdain, they flaunt the rules to suit themselves and they are out of touch with what is happening in the real world.
Most of us are working harder than ever for less. We are paying a fortune for essential services such as power, medicine, education and transport. We are over-governed and we are paying for it through rates and taxes. We are not happy and seemingly powerless to do anything to change it.
I am going to be looking for a candidate who gives me hope. Someone who shows me a vision for the future, one not based on lining my or their pockets, but instead on ensuring a future for my children, and their children. Someone who is more invested in life values than political mumbo jumbo and party rhetoric.
I am not sure this person exists, and if they do, whether they would ever run.
But if I did have a political genie to uncork, that would be my wish.
