So, who do you think will win the upcoming federal election and why? When will it be?
Seriously, put aside your bias for a moment. Why? Because it is an opinion that is discriminatory and unbalanced with an absence of objectivity. Put aside your emotions because they cloud the issues. What is required here is pure intelligent logic, nothing more, nothing less.
What would influence your vote the most? Is it the state of the economy? Your allegiance to your party? Perhaps you favour the party with the highest ideals with the best social justice policies. Maybe you are an idealist and want more change, more reform.
As a woman (for those female readers), you are conceivably affronted by your treatment over many years, and the consequences still define you. Of vital importance to you might be the environment and the lack of any coherent policy.
Perhaps you are from the “a pox on both your houses” faction who wouldn’t vote for any of them.
There are many issues to consider. Loyalty to the party you have voted for all your life. It has a strong, almost sentimental appeal and doesn’t take much thought, but there is little logic. Your interest might be equality of opportunity and fairness. “That’s the party my dad voted for.”
Are you a voter driven by anger over a specific issue that affects you directly? Perhaps the depth of your pockets dictates what boxes you tick. Then again, you might be the type who seriously weighs up the talents or otherwise of the candidates in your electorate. Or, for ease of conscience, you vote as a block, husband and wife/partner in the belief that one of you knows better than the other. Or hubby knows best about these things.
You are offended by the corruption and immorality that exists in Government. However, you believe that “the devil you know is better the one you don’t.”
Contrary to that, you couldn’t care less, use a blunt pencil to mark the voting form because you have to get the shopping done before canteen duty at the footy club. It’s when you open the curtain at the poll booth that you give any thought to who you might vote for. Consequently, your vote is wasted because it is illegible, but you’re not too fussed. In the past two elections, over two million voters have decided not to vote at all.
Perhaps you prefer to vote for the party that delivers for the have nots, or conversely, you want the party that rewards those who have a go.
At this stage of the election cycle, the polls will only tell us how people are thinking, not who they will vote for. It is impossible to get a fix on the outcome of this election because, as is usual, the differences in opinion vary considerably.
Until the election campaigns start in earnest, most people will go about their daily business doing whatever they do, confirming the purpose for life without considering the reason for it – society ticks along doing what is needed to grow our food – feed our children.
There are those devoted to our entertainment so that we might obtain pleasure from it. Others volunteer so that it is organised. Yet others do good works because they yearn to help others like those seeking asylum but instead have looked rejection in the face. Others battle with the daily grind of survival, seeking the leftovers of the haves. Others will tell of their ordeals so that they might encourage hope.
The prosperous will record in glowing terms of their success as if it is available to all who seek.
This recipe contains all the ingredients that form what we call society. When they all come together, this amalgamation of skills, supporting others with philanthropy, determine what sort of society we are or should be.
I have left aside the two most essential ingredients in this recipe. The first is how we, as a nation, are led and, secondly, how we are governed. You are the unbiased judge on both. What do you think? We have not been gifted with good leadership since when?
In the recipe of good leadership, there are many ingredients. Popularity is but one. It, however, ranks far below getting things done for the common good.
[textblock style=”4″]
Bias: It is an opinion that in the absence of objectivity, is prejudiced and unbalanced. Its foundation is untruth and therefore cannot be impartial.
[/textblock]
This election is remarkable for many reasons. None more so than it will happen when the world is deciding, as COVID-19 recedes, just how it will change the function of Government. Probably in ways we never imagined.
Will, the people, choose the incumbent Morrison Government with a proven record of disasters over a long period, or will they seek a new Government to replace them. Or perhaps people of independent minds will decide the outcome.
Never have the people been entrusted with such an important decision.
[textblock style=”4″]
The common good, or empathy for it, should be at the centre of any political philosophy. However, it is more likely to be found on the left than the right.
[/textblock]
This Government has a record of internal turbulence made worse by the return of Barnaby Joyce as leader of the Nationals. Will this incoherent loudmouth enhance the Coalition’s chances, or hinder them?
In a post-pandemic world, infighting over ideological issues that don’t help any of us might be a thing of the past, and the common good might become more critical. Many things will change, the jobs market, how the economy works and how we are governed.
In any case, if we are to save our democracy, we might begin by asking that, at the very least, our politicians should be transparent and tell the truth.
[textblock style=”4″]
My thought for the day
The left of politics is concerned with people who cannot help themselves. The right is concerned with those who can.
[/textblock]
PS: Any perceived bias by me is countered by the 80 misdemeanours of this Coalition I have identified in my latest series of articles.
[textblock style=”7″]
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
[/textblock]
If you don’t follow football but are forced to watch a game on television, then it is made slightly more interesting if you choose a side. A huge section of the electorate are in that position.
Does one choose the underdog or betting on predictable form choose a known winner? When both teams look like losers then you might just get caught up in the razzmatazz.
This sort of corruption makes it much easier to decide who to vote for at the next election:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/04/the-australian-people-had-their-chance-finance-minister-dismisses-criticism-of-coalitions-car-park-fund
GL, Birmingham’s comment about the people having had their chance and using it to reelect the LNP smacks of the sort of sinister undertones that would have made Herr Goebbels proud; ‘Ach’, he might have said, ‘das Australisch menschen sind so blöd, sie kann sein reingefallen leicht.’ (apologies to the readers familiar with German… google translate may have garbled this entirely.)
We ran a poll on this site a few years ago asking people to select – from a list of about ten options – which was the most pressing issue in Australia that needed to be addressed.
There was a clear winner: inequality.
And yet Mike Taylor, voters choose to go with the proven liars and originators of the most egregious methods of dividing, penalizing and ostracizing those who don’t vote for them. Are people just masochistic or braindead or worse, complicit ?
On a side note:
Gosh, what a giant non-surprise that decision was by the Libs –
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/lnp-selects-only-man-in-five-way-preselection-race-to-replace-laming-on-ballot-20210705-p586tt.html
Henry, it confirms that our readers are more discerning than the average voter.
I read somewhere that the Australians have voted for their short term financial gain, every Federal Election since Federation.
If that is true then every candidate for election need only promise that their electorate will get a bigger piece of the pie.
Sport a sorts
Grants sorts
Water debacle
Car park sorts
Come to mind !
If inequality is the biggest single issue on voters minds, then the LNP should never have gained governance in 2013 and certainly not in 2019 !
Bugga that was supposed to be “rorts” not sorts
“Sorts” works. He sorted out very neatly exactly where to spend* the money to the greatest effect.
*Of course, by “spend” I mean “announce possible expenditure “
While I am a Labor voter, the next election, has a greater meaning than just a choice like we have had in the past. We are governed under the terms of a constitution that says it’s style and type is Secular. This has never to my knowledge ever in the past been a cause of contention to any real extent. I believe that this is now not the case. An imported foreign influence has appeared within one of the main parties and from the statements of it’s leader, who just happens to also hold the high office of Prime Minister there seems to be a much greater emphasis on a religion’s dogmas as a driving force in how this country’s government operates. I preferred it when this was not so. I prefer the secularity that is our law. I do not want to see that abrogated by any method that can be devised, or somehow supplanted. So, I will be voting for any party that guarantees that there will never under their watch, be a change to that secular requirement in our constitution whether we continue with a Monarch as our Head of State, or as a Republic with a President instead. I believe that this nation, because of this imported influence affecting policy, stands at an existential crisis point, that will affect it’s destiny. And that is. We will continue to enjoy the freedoms of belief we have under our current arrangement, or we will be subject to the whims, fantasies and dogmas of this foreign belief system. I know which one I do not want to live under.
Scummo will win the next election because your words are opinion neither real nor available to the vast majority .
Labor has, in your 80, ample ammunition to win but not the heart to load, aim and fire.
If only albo can see how the media grabbed the liberal women’s squib and rang some headlines.
I doubt if labor has realised 2 of the last 3 PMs know that their god made all women with a flaw that ensures they can never be equal for 25% of the month, much less knowing how to use the info.