SOL

I have never been a member of any party. I have not written speeches for anyone other than myself. Neither have I actively campaigned for anyone.

I am an electrical engineer and as those of my ilk, am required to draw conclusions from the facts available, which is very different from the left whingers who appear to form an opinion and then cherry pick the facts that support their argument and ignore all others.

"...electrical engineer" -- "predictable scrutineer", whatever....

And those of his ilk are required to draw conclusions according to their partisan political leanings, and from the "Daring Big Boy's Book of Childish Epithets" (Juliar, Krudd, Dudd, Whine, whinger, etc).

That, folks, is the Shadow Minister Show!

Dear SM,

Pot-kettle?

Isn't politics fun?

As Dennis Pryor points out:

"Especially PIGO - Politics of the Inner Glow.

Because politicians want to be admired and loved they
indulge in actions and words which can have no
conceivable effect but which makes them feel a watm
inner glow that they are fine people with firm but
compassionate moral values" - like Mr Abbott's
bycycle ride for "charity". (the bill came later).

"PIGO is the perfect form of politics: it costs little
and fools some of the people some of the time. It is
much practised by certain pollies whose spiritual home
is in self-righteous opposition."

Another fun feature of politics is of course -
Gallup polls (from the name of a pioneer of this illusion).

"They're based on the principle of asking a representative
sample of the populace for their opinions, for example,
on which of the two politicians they would vote for; which
they rated higher in leadership qualities, honesty,
capability and the like. The results from this sample
are then taken as representative of the community as a whole.
The more obvious deficiences of this method are that it depends
on how you ask the questions, on whether the sample is
reliable and whether the people asking the questions are honest."

"Above all polling is based on the quaint notion that people
tell the truth, a notion contrary to the life experience of
everyone."

"Thus polling is a means of giving mathematical respectability to
a collection of anecdotal evidence."

"Pollsters have no anxiety about accuracy of their political results."

"At the 1987 election the final figures on the day before the
election gave Labor a lead varying between 2% and 14%."

"Faced with any error in election forecasts polsters have a
repertoire of excuses: the result was within the range of
plus or minus 2% which we allow for polling errors: the
swing was inconsistent in different electorates; the
electors changed their minds on the day of the poll."

And so it goes.

As much as I am not a fan of Mr Rudd the bottom line at this election is voting for the policies you least disagree with and hopefully a few good ones in the mix. Mr Rudd's rise to PM again made me seriously consider preferencing Libs for the first time in a very long time, even if the preferences for the majors will be close to bottom.

The topics that changed my mind were the unaffordable PPL scheme, obfuscation around policy costings and the blah blah blah that went with it. Also the lack of duty of care to the environment that we all depend on, failure to address foreign investment caps particularly on agricultural lands etc. The ALP and LNP are both remiss on any issues relating to food security, development and protection of agriculture (as opposed to mining)environment and free trade mythology.

It is a shame it has to be down to the better of two evils.

Voters have the opportunity to vote minor parties and good idependents FIRST in the Senate and Lower House. If enough people show their dissatisfaction with the two majors and reflect this in their votes maybe the political landscape will change for the better. If we keep voting the same tweedledum or tweedledee nothing will change.

I feel the same way Pelican, as I too am loath to admit I am leaning towards the Coalition for the first time in years too.

I am just trying not to think about Abbott as PM, but rather what I think are the policies most important to my family.

Of course, one can never be sure the policies will ever pan out either.
If they don't, then Shadow Minister will be the first to let us know...

Suse
I am still pondering the preference issues. With respect to SM, I don't think his/her analysis is the best litmus test of Coaliton policies. They will all be perfect. :)