Well, today we have to vote in our State Election in Queensland. I’ve had a look at the candidates in my electorate and they don’t inspire any sort of confidence in me at all. All appear to be career politicians as opposed to someone who is genuinely interested in doing something for society rather than themselves.

What is with this Government…they always schedule something that is mandatory when I have far more important things to do…like reloading and developing accurate handloads for my rifles. It’s driving me crazy.

I’ve had two grandsons visiting from Mt Isa (about 1800km NW of me) and SWMBO took this opportunity for them to assist me with rebuilding a gate (making two gates out of one) and mounting it in place…it turned out to be a bigger job than we expected. It’s still not finished as I have to go over all the “tac” welds on the steel frame. I’m a self taught welder meaning I’m a pretty crap welder (literally), so welding all these joints (about 15 of them) is not going to be easy. Oh well, if nothing else I’ll get plenty of practice at welding. Did I mention I want to do some reloading. This weekend is not looking good for me reloading wise.

Well, sitting here scratching my butt thinking about it won’t get things done…but first up is going to vote for someone who doesn’t, on face value, look like they will be of any useful value to the community. I suppose it really comes down to trying to pick the best of a bad bunch and hope the rest of the community does the same. Then, depending on the weather (can’t weld in the rain), I just might get a little time to do some reloading.

We vote on the 5th of November. At least we may have someone that might give a sh$t about the people.

Vince, do you have term limits there for politicians? I think that is something we really need here. We have so many "politicians" who have spent their entire lives as a drain on the taxpayers.

Bushmaster wrote:

We vote on the 5th of November. At least we may have someone that might give a sh$t about the people.

Don’t hold your breath mate…politicians these days are in it for the money…the people are secondary. When in Office, the focus of most politicians is on getting re-elected at the end of their time.

“Punkin” wrote:

Vince, do you have term limits there for politicians? I think that is something we really need here. We have so many "politicians" who have spent their entire lives as a drain on the taxpayers.

No term limits mate, other than the term of their time when elected…usually 4 years. They can then throw their hat back into the ring for re-election. If the community they served are happy with them them they may be re-elected. There is no limit to the number of times they can be elected. The other thing they must achieve is Party selection for their particular Electorate. Without that official Party support, they are technically an Independent candidate.

We have a Two Party Preferred system with two major Parties…Labor Party and Liberal National Party. Apart from that there are a heap of minor Parties and Independent candidates, with The Greens, One Nation and The Katter Party (Bob Katter is a long time politician in our Far North West) and they can “give” their Preferences to one of the major Parties in exchange for support from them on particular interests.

Our Federal election has two voting sheets, one for the electorate and one for the overall Federal Government. The first one may have only 4 or 5 candidates to be numbered in the order the voter wants. The second one is a bit of a nightmare. The second one has two sections…above the line where you can vote only for a Party (you must number a certain number of Parties in the order you want) and below the line where EVERY candidate is recorded according to their Party. All candidates for a particular Party are shown together. For example there may be a “Pumpkin Slingers Party” whose stand is making throwing pumpkins from air cannons a legal activity. Every person who is a member of that Party would be recorded together in a list. On the last election we had 194 candidates (from memory) from which to choose (boy, were there some crazy and obscure candidates and “Parties”). There is a minimum number of candidates you must select if you choose “below the line”. The Tally Room must hate me because I number every single Candidate in the order I want them. People are intimidated by the sheer number of candidates below the line, or they are lazy, so they choose to vote above the line, which is what the major Parties hope for I believe…it makes things easier for them to be elected.

I don’t believe in this Preference system because it allows your vote to be manipulated by the major Parties. There was a case in our Federal Senate election a couple of years ago where a candidate (a bloody good honest man and ex Army General) polled many more votes than his nearest opponent. They then started “sharing” out Preferences. He ended up loosing by many “preference” votes. Totally wrong, but that’s our system. I firmly believe it should be one vote per person and no Preferences to be “given” by a candidate to another Party. I am also opposed to the Two Party System. If a candidate polls more votes than others in his electorate, then he has the seat and sits in Parliament…regardless of his agenda or Party affiliation.

I hate election time, but I firmly believe if you don’t make an honest vote the way you want, then you have no right to whinge after the election. For this reason I’ll always vote genuinely and with my head…not my heart like many do. There are millions of people out here who support a particular Party…they are die-hard staunch Party supporters (like Republican or Democrat) and will always vote for the Party, not the candidate.

Vince, that party-system should be forbiten. Every party has some non-elected people in or behind the top that are pulling the strings. Why not simple let people elect people and let the ones with the highest number of votes come together and govern the state or the city?

Do they ask members of a jury what politycal party they support? Those 12 are also elected and will make sometimes difficult decisions...

I agree Aloys, but the system was worked out by, and put in place by politicians.. They no doubt designed it to be beneficial to themselves.