It was originally going to be Top 5 highlights of the 2019 federal election campaign.
But the more you think about it the more it becomes obvious there haven’t been any highlights – quite the opposite, there have been lowlights galore.
And if the first casualty of war is truth the first casualties of an increasingly presidential election campaign are local candidates.
Which is a shame because there’s bound to be many cases where voters aren’t keen on the national leader but quite like their local candidate and are happy to vote for him or her.
But it is a strange system we have and it needs to be changed so we can vote both for the party we want to govern us for the next three years as well as the local candidate who we believe we can trust the most to look after our interests in Canberra.
Three year terms is something also that should be chucked away and replaced with four year terms in line with state governments and local councils.
I may be wrong, but I don’t recall a commitment from anybody – no, not even Big Clive – to push for reforms that would improve our democracy.
Pre-poll is another rort these days and either we toughen up who’s allowed to vote early and why or just go the whole hog and let everyone vote early for four weeks.
And now, drum roll please, the Top 5 lowlights of the election campaign:
Number 1. The Mother of Invention story bagging Bill Shorten, by a country mile. Interestingly most people missed the real agenda here, which was creating notoriety and publicity for a dying news platform, print. It’s getting more shrill by the day, but it’s an exercise in futility – a bit like flogging a dead horse.
Number 2. Egging the PM. I can understand throwing rotten tomatoes, but never, ever wasting a good egg this way.
Number 3. The fellow who seems to have lost his job because he complained to Bill Shorten about his taxes going up under a Labor Government. No fair go there.
Number 4. All those candidates who had to pull out when they were sprung with something naughty they’d said before.
Number 5. Finding out Scott Morrison speaks broken English, to wit: “It is my vision for this country as your Prime Minister to keep the Promise of Australia to all Australians.’’ I get a headache every time I attempt to work out what this means.
The election lowlight for me is the seismic shift by the Liberal Party towards far right wing extremism – and their phoney pretence that they still represent voters in the moderate centre.
They no longer do. They prefer Hanson and Palmer to Turnbull.
On the Macarthur ballot paper, three candidates are on the left, four are on the extreme right and there is no moderate candidate in the middle to vote for. So I feel disenchanted and disenfranchised.
My only choice is to turn up, get a ballot paper and vote for none of them.