My experiences at the ballot box today
Today I voted for the first time in my country's elections. There were five names on the house of reps ballot and 13 on the senate one. And while I spent a few minutes thinking about who I would rather have in power, I knew all along that what I voted was irrelevent, that I knew before voting that even if there was a change in the elected officials it would have no effect on my life.
I am one of the forgotten people. As a young man with no children, moderately wealthy parents and in the dying days of my university education, there isn't a party in the land that offers a credible good deal for me. Not for me the baby bonus, not for me the childcare copayments, not for me the tax cuts, not for me the improvement of the public health system. Instead both major parties have failed me in nearly every respect. It doesn't help either that the seat I live in is as safe as any in Australia and that there aren't enough senate seats to make bribes likely.
As I meandered into my local primary school to vote for the first time it struck me how pointless the whole exercise is. Nothing is going to change because of my vote, even if the government does change. Both parties have roughly the same foreign policy, both have the same attitudes to health, education and welfare (limit funding increases and watch inflation tear them apart), both have the same outdated view of society.
To rephrase Ford, "Politics is bunk."