I think it was a very dark day for politics generally in Australia – the female side of things is not relevant except that historically men (who generally run the back rooms and are the power-brokers) put a women up to run the show when they can’t find a credible male. Thatcher, Keneally, Bligh are all examples of this. They are not expected to save the show really but if they do well that’s a bonus.
This seems to me to be more about grubby deals to try to hang on to power rather than an honest attempt to run the country better – if they spent as much time in running the country and consulting with the right people at the right time as they do in plotting to keep power, wouldn’t the world be a wonderful place?
The media has played a disgraceful role in the lead-up to this. The Sydney Morning Herald has seemed to run a hate campaign against the State and Federal Labor and has taken every opportunity to whip up frenzy around leadership speculation and poor performances on selected issues – building education revolution, roof insulation, and completely disregarding amazing achievements like financial management, health reform, tax reform.
I think Kevin Rudd was given a mandate by the people to make change and yet he was thwarted at every turn by the Senate and the procession of opposition leaders (except Malcolm Turnbull – I still fancy him as being a good prime minister). What this does is disenfranchise voters who thought they had done the right thing and said what they wanted and yet are thwarted by an unelected bunch of party power brokers.
Young voters – eg my 17 and 20 year old sons – are completely uninterested in any of this as they see it as being irrelevant to them – just a bunch of old fuddy-duddys who are over-paid and over-empowered (a bit like football players really!).
If we, as a country, are not careful, the federal government will turn into an impotent government because the whole system on which it is based is out-dated, unrepresentative and therefore irrelevant.
So what should happen? I think the representative system is failing our modern way of life and people (male and female) who are in the system are just fighting about power and not fighting for our country and the people who can’t fight for themselves. That’s why you are a politician – to help people who can’t help themselves!
Sorry for the rant but it makes me very angry that all people are focusing on is the female aspect which is completely irrelevant – it is the system that has failed and has been failing for some time.
And lastly – what about the loss of Lindsay Tanner? I have always fancied him as a person of high integrity and extremely well-spoken. I am pleased in some ways to see that he is not involved in any of yesterday’s grubby politics and will walk away but not pleased in other ways that the country has lost the skill and thinking of such a person.
Graham West – State Labor Minister for Jails etc – resigned recently and said that he was so frustrated by politics and that he felt he could achieve way more outside of politics than he could by staying. If that’s not an indictment of how the present government system is failing the people it was put there to support, then I don’t know what is.
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