From what I have seen this may well be the first election in a very long time (or since forever) which is determined by the calibre and qualities of the individual candidates standing in each electorate (or State/Territory, as the case may be).

We have been assured so often that one man (or woman), or one front bench, does not make a government, and on this occasion the 'Party-line' stands in such disarray (on both major sides of the fence) that voters may at last have to follow their instincts and support the candidate who makes the most sense.

With so many parties in the running, anything is possible, but I wonder how many voters will make the effort to get to know the candidates - to sort out the wheat from 'the chaff'?

To those who say Labor voters must have low IQs and short memories I would like to respond with the below facts:

John Howard and the Coalition were responsible for changing federal energy legislation allowing State owned energy utilities to “self-regulate” and charge what they like for electricity.

They changed the competition laws of this country enabling Coles/Wesfarmers and Woolworths to decimate thousands of small businesses and have an absolute duopoly on every consumable item including food, petrol and the kitchen sink.

We can also thank the Coalition for changing the media ownership laws allowing one highly influential person to now control 70% of the print media.

The finger can also be pointed directly at them for creating the structural deficit we currently have in the budget due to an overly generous middle class welfare system ie. Family Tax part A and part B, naively assuming that the GFC or the like will never hit Australia? It is now politically impossible to claw back.

And who can forget Work-Choices. What you need to ask yourselves is, if it had been fully bedded down at the onset of the GFC, where would your jobs, houses and the economy have gone? By the law of the land employers or the banks would not have had to care one hoot let alone two?

And finally we can be eternally grateful to John Howard and the Coalition for introducing the worst social policy in Australian history, the infamous Baby Bonus. Since its inception the statistics of child abuse and neglect in this country have reached abhorrent and unprecedented levels.

As for short memories and Low IQs, I have not forgotten that the GFC was caused by neo-liberalism at its worst and ultimately the Coalition’s end game is to privatise everything including Health and Education.

On that note my vote will always go to the party prepared to implement social policies for the greater good and on this front the Labor Party have always been streets ahead of the Coalition.

It is a difficult choice this election.
Policies are not getting the scrutiny they
deserve, personalities seem to take center stage.
And personalities are not something we're going
to have to live with. It will be the policies.

I guess the choice is - do you vote for the
leader with defective policies and defective
personality - or the leader with only
the defective personality - but excellent policies?

It depends what's more important to you - doesn't it?
And the size of your IQ. And how much you're influenced
by the MSM.

I think the saddest thing about the parties and the leaders is that we as a voting public expect them to change things all the time. I sometimes think that most people would be happy with no change at all, at least if something is working. But I suppose thats the problem with politics. Maybe democracy is just as stupid as the people?

I do find it interesting that at last the lefties have admitted to themselves, publicly, that their chosen leader is a drop kick. The fact is of course, that it is now impossible for them to do otherwise. They have been dragged, kicking & screaming, to the truth, by the man's crazy antics.

Yes I know it must pain them greatly to even start to admit that those telling them this fact for some years were right. Some still cling to the idea that Rudd/Gillard have better policies, they just don't tell us whether that is last weeks policy, this weeks, or next weeks. Perhaps they don't know themselves, unable to keep up with the constant changes.

Many of them are now, or still, denigrating Tony Abbott, as a sop to their conscience, to perhaps minimize the embarrassment this realization brings.

You have to admit it to yourselves folks, 3 of your last 4 leaders were disgusting people, & you knew it, just did not want to admit it. Abbott has highlighted how disgusting they were.

It is time to grow up people. The libs did, when they were silly enough to try first Nelson, then Turnbull. They diced them quickly when they were found wanting. Hell they even resisted the lefty push for Turnbull when the polls told them he would win for them. Unlike the left, they would rather lose, than win with a drop kick.

So this is your challenge. Pick a decent person as a leader. Yes it is hard in an organisation controlled by unions, & academics, where quality is mostly a deficit, but you have to do it, or become irrelevant.

Dear Hasbeen,

Each of us will pick the Party that will deliver
what we think is best for the country. And the
good thing about that is that we can always vote
them out of office if we don't like them in
three years time.

The result will be interesting after Saturday.