Yawn!

Firstly I usually find my mind drifting into a day dream, when our politicans make their promises and speeches. Mainly because I do not beleive what they are saying in the first place.

Peter Garrett may have let the cat out of the bag when he allegedly spoke in jest. Politicans promise us one thing and then do another.

Do I beleive Howard? NO!
Do I beleive Rudd? NO!

Usually I vote for the party least likely chances to win, so when I want to bag the winner later I'm not a hypocrit and honestly claim; "I didn't vote for them." So I tend to vote for an independent or minor party.

There was an article which showed how the present government has restricted freedom of information and hence freedom of speech. There are other details which have flown below the radar, such as how this federal government secretly aimed to reduce the entitlements of war veterans.

Having seen and read about how people who should have be eligible for center-link payments are denied these payments, helps explain much of the budget surplus.

What is the aim of making center link payments difficult to get for those in real need?

You’re right Mark. The whole campaign is terribly booooor…ring!!

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“Do I beleive Howard? NO! Do I beleive Rudd? NO! Usually I vote for the party least likely chances to win, so when I want to bag the winner later I'm not a hypocrit”

James, how can you vote for anyone that you don’t believe? No offence, but doesn’t that automatically make you a hypocrite?

Isn’t the very purpose of democratic voting to show our support for someone we ….well, support?

I absolutely hate the notion of voting for the lesser of two undesirables. SURELY if you feel like that, you must vote for one of the minor candidates or for no candidate!

"Isn’t the very purpose of democratic voting to show our support for someone we ….well, support?"

To quote Churchill "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried before".

While in theory, we would like to be voting for someone who we... well, support, in reality, we need to compromise. Personally, there aren't any parties who trully represent my views on things and I end up voting for the lesser of all the various evils. That isn't an endorsement of what's on offer, but rather me choosing the side where I'm compromising the least.

It's a shame too.

And so the author is right - for those of us who are apathetic in terms of what's (politically) on offer, the election is boring because we don't have someone we truly barrack for, and instead just have those who we don't want to win.

This article signifies a huge dollop of complacency and defeatism dressed up with boring cliches and Shakespearean pomposity that in its logic encourages more of what it complains about.
This is an incredibly significant election: although some of its features on display in the commercial media are predictable, shallow and narrow, the struggle at the electorate level is being fought with great passion and nuance, by party activists and also by non party campaigners. For example, the Your Rights At Work Campaign balances in favour of a Rudd government, obviously,but expects a lot more of Rudd than he currently offers in correcting the abhorrent Workchoices regime. It gave birth to the possibility that Howard could be defeated when despair reigned among those who wanted that to happen. Another example, the dynamic emergence of the Get Up phenomenon, educating, agitating and campaigning on a range of issues and once again not on major party lines. And another: the broad range of environmental groups that articulate what a growing majority want a government to do to start repairing our planet.
What is at stake is the possibility of a continuing, probbaly accelerated, drift under a Howard - Costello regime to more management of the economy for the benefit of the filthy rich, more lies about just about everything to do with economic and government performance, the likely repeat of AWB type fiascoes, more events that exhibit the racist, shamefully opportunist and narrow minded ideology behind Tampa and Dr Habeeb, more promotion of private schools at the expense of public schools, more 'reforms' of industrial laws that give more power to employers to dominate the lives of Australia's working families. One could go on.
The extra parliamentary social movements that are out there engaging in the electoral process represent the real possibilities for the democratic, fair and progressive development of Australian society, including in how it relates to our near and distant neighbours. Australia needs more people joining them not lazy and narrow views about how boring it all is.

Later on this month I will go to my local school and exercise my democratic right to vote, and I will mark in my choices as a proud, free Australian citizen who has just triumphed over the inertia of ennui instilled by well groomed, well spun, talking heads clad in inevitable dark suits and power ties.
Where I happen to live there is actually no contest for the seat, so my vote is not worth a pinch of poop anyway, except where it has already been traded away in smoke filled rooms where preferences (plus favours and IOU's) are traded.
Do I sound cynical? Big deal! As I once read somewhere, a cynic is something that an optimist calls a realist. So I think that instead of being bored with the predictable shenanigans of this interminable election campaign I have had a sence of cynical realism forced upon me by optimistic political behaviour.

I have satellite tv so I can choose whether I am bored to death by David Speers and co or watch whatever I feel like.

The campaigns are controlled because that is what works because the pollies want some measure of control over their message.

I note the media moan about it but inevitably feed it by characterising any form of meaningful debate as dissent.