It means nothing when the government says that the opposition will be "soft on China". Note that the opposition doesn't respond to such nonsense. The other silly comment is that China wants a Labor government, from people who don't even know - or care - what Australia wants! If we don't have bipartisanship on Australia's security, then we are even more rooted than I think we are. I believe that we do have bipartisanship, irrespective of what I think of Labor on other matters.

And, I'll say this, as a ridgy didge conservative: anyone who thinks that the Morrison government deserves to be re-elected is daft. Scott Morrison has been an illiberal, void-of-principle disaster. He is the one with the 'el presidente' complex; he is the one who should take the blame. I don’t think he is the 'psycho' one of his Liberal colleagues called him, but she was right about him being an 'awful, awful man'. Even the conservative commentators like Andrew Bolt, Janet Albrechtsen etc are well over him. I would go as far as to say that Paul Murray is the only one left the conservative stable to think Morrison is a good bet.

Rache

Do you really think that the head of ASIO would be party to a "timed announcement" contribution to electioneering?

I would trust the head of ASIO.
And at the moment - prior to an upcoming
election all sorts of political tricks
are being played and will continue to be
played. It will only get worse as the
election draws near. The best that we can
do is stick to our principles and turn a
deaf ear to all the games that will continue
to be played out.

We need to look at what's going to be offered
in the way of policies and make our decisions
accordingly. Also we already should know
our politicians by their past actions and we can
make judgements accordingly. None of them are
really "new kids on the block." Their records
speak for themselves.

As the old adage goes - you can put lipstick on
a pig - it still remains a pig. Or -
you can't polish a turd (unless it's a resin -
solidified). But I guess you can sprinkle
glitter on it.

"Also we already should know
our politicians by their past actions and we can
make judgements accordingly".

Yes. That means, for me anyway, that we need a clean sweep or, at least, very few of those now there left in a job. Not very likely, I realise, and some people are happy with what we have - amazingly. Maybe a hung parliament might straighten out a few 'born-to-rule' types?

A clean sweep sounds like a good idea.

Foxy if you are thinking of voting on announced policies, here are a couple of statements you should keep in mind.

I am a Fiscal conservative, &
There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.

Believe Labor policy announcements at out peril.

Dear Hassie,

I know it's going to be hard to sift through it all.
Politicians make a lot of promises as we know.
And who can we really trust?

We need to weigh things up and be careful that's for
sure.