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Nine! Nine days. Just nine days to go. Finally, 47 days after the Prime Minister visited Yarralumla to seek a double dissolution, the remaining time of the least illuminating election campaign in living memory can be measured in single figures.
For some it is already over. And, no. Those of you a tender disposition, fear not. Yes, they took an easy way out. Yes, they chose to end it all. But their decision did not involve consulting Dr Philip Nitschke. It merely means that they have cast an early vote.
Pre-polls opened last week, on June 14. By last Tuesday just under 600,000 voters, close to one in twenty of all on the electoral roll, had cast their ballots. Numbers were up more than 60% on the first week of voting in 2013’s election.
And this was pre-poll voting, too. Not postal. Pre-poll voting where you have to look up a list of often obscure locations that tend to shift from day to day, run down to little corners on the second or fourth floors of second-rate office space rented on the cheap and for just a few weeks by the Electoral Commission. This is something that takes an effort – particularly given that if you front a polling place between 2.00 pm and 5.30 pm on election day you will likely breeze in and out in minutes. These voters obviously wanted it over. They wanted the pain to end. They wanted to be able to tune out with a clear conscience. Who could blame them?
In the background, as I type, the opposition health spokeswoman, Catherine King, is warning against the “privatisation” of the new Australian School Vaccination Register. “Such highly sensitive personal data should not be in the hands of for-profit companies,” she has declared.
So, when they’ve finished their royal commission into the banks, a Shorten Labor government is going to nationalise insurance, is that it? Thank God I’ve already cast my vote.
Hi everyone – if you’d like to hear more from WA CDP Senate candidate, Mark Imisides, then he’s written a guest post here:
https://themarcusreview.com/2016/06/23/guest-post-cdp-senate-candidate-dr-mark-imisides/
Christian,
I too have already voted, which is a pity as just last night I received a robocall from a former Senator trying to regain the seat she lost at the last Senate election. She wanted me to join a Forum as she really, really wanted to hear my opinion and views on a range of subjects. I rudely hung up at this point, which was wrong as I could have heard something worthwhile (however unlikely that is) that I have never heard before . So, why did I hang up?
I was an active member of the Party for 31 years. In the last few years I joined two ‘policy forums’ covering seven policy areas. I spent many, many dozens of valuable days researching and preparing policy papers and analyses and personally presented two in face to face forums with the rest being ‘considered’ by das Fuehrer Bunker staff. On only one occasion (after lengthy harassment of my betters) did I receive an official reply: ‘Thank you for your views, but they do not support our stated Party policy on this matter.’ So there! The Royal Elite has spoken and we are not going to consider anything you say, so get back to being the cannon-fodder that is your role in life and all that is expected of you. No influence in 31 years, so I resigned. That process took two years and many attempts as they need the numbers, even if you are a non-paying, inactive dead ‘member’ …
Now that there is a potentially disastrous election at hand they want to hear what I think … well, at least until 6.00pm on 2 July.
Fool me for 31 years and that is my fault, fooling me again at election time just isn’t going to happen. I have already cast my vote – and my former party is low in the Reps and not at all in my below the line votes for the Senate. Less Government through Balkanisation seems an improvement over political elites having the power to do what they like. Just ask me about Dangerous Dan & the CFA!
So, dear Party, if you really want my opinion, call again as this time I have noted 17 points and am ready for you with both barrels loaded for bear … One of us will enjoy the Forum, for a while anyway.