We are in the middle of a Federal Election. An important one. Although they are all important because you give politicians authority to govern our country, spend our money, and make decisions that affect our lives and well-being.
My comments are founded on my observations of the behaviour of various candidates. What they say and what they do!
I know, from experience, how waterfalls of verbal nonsense can cloak the truth.
I know how political parties try to sneak into Government by blowing smoke around the place.
I know how they use the seductive siren songs of 'a better life, a better future, a fair go, more for everyone’. And, the oldest of all the political lures – the glittering, shabby bauble of ‘you can trust us’.
So, lets begin with comments by local ALP candidates regarding the health system in Queensland.
They attempt to shift blame the shocking mess onto the Federal Government, claiming, as always, that it is Scott Morrison who has brought about the problem.
The truth is, and the ALP will not like this, but the truth is, that all matters of health and hospitals are the responsibility of State Governments.
State Governments receive their share of the Federal GST and other sources of Federal finance. It is the clear responsibility of the State Governments to manage the finance correctly.
In Queensland, the State Labour Government is responsible for health and hospitals, not Scott Morisson!
The truth, one of the local ALP candidates, in this Federal Election, has worked in the Queensland Health Department.
That candidate wanders about the place making comments, on local media and in public places, that the Federal Government is causing the health problems in Queensland. That candidate, predictably, has not mentioned the Labor Party's promise to build a hospital of sorts on Bribie Island!
Why not?
If the Labor Party is so good at health matters, logic tells you that they would claim every win they could get…but they don't.
And they don't because they have not been able to find a way to blame it on Scott Morrison. That candidate knows the truth, and that candidate is cloaking the reality.
If a candidate, in a Federal Election, knowingly cloaks the truth about important matters such as health – you may well think about whether they deserve your vote or not?
And, what infuriates these candidates is that no matter how much shouting, posturing, arm-waving or other noisy nonsense they create – the truth remains, on the table, unblemished and irrefutable.
It is the truth!
On a national level, Mr Albanese, the Leader of the Federal Opposition, found out that you cannot mumble your way around the truth. You cannot blather your way around the truth. You have to know and speak the truth.
Mr Albanese was never an economic advisor to the Hawke Government. He claimed he was! But he worked for Tom Uren, who was not even in Hawke's Cabinet.
If you want to be Australia's Prime Minister, why would you make up stuff about yourself? Surely you must know that what you claim will be checked and re-checked and the truth established.
The answer to that question is that you either don't care for the facts or think that the truth does not matter!
Either way, a man who thinks like that cannot be our Prime Minister!
It is not only the Labor Party that has trouble with the truth during elections. The Coalition has not delivered on commitments to overhaul the tax system, despite having years to do so. They say obstruction in the Senate, etc. And yes, that may be true. But a determination from Government can drag all the lolloping, self-interested Senators along certain roads.
That has not happened. And that is a pity.
I turn to a party that is scaring people about interest rates becoming so high on their mortgages that they will lose their houses. The idea is to scare them enough so that they will cast their vote for the party that says they will save your house, and, along the way, offer you freedom, freedom, freedom!
This is simply not the truth.
The truth is that Governments cannot control interest rates, in an open banking system, such as the one we have in Australia. They cannot do that, and implying that they can is not the truth.
Government can influence interest rates, but they cannot control them in a free banking system.
When it comes to freedom, well, what can you say? Is anyone deluded enough to believe that one party can deliver freedom, freedom, freedom!
What on Earth are they talking about?
Presumably they are referring to the restrictions placed on movement during the pandemic scourge at its worst moments.
Management of a pandemic in a community is a test of all our institutions. No one place on Earth has escaped this scourge, and no one has all the answers.
But Australia has done well enough. We are the envy of many countries for the way in which we have managed this pandemic and protected our employment and our communities. So offering the community 'freedom’ seems like the tub-thumping sideshow nonsense of the 1930s, where we were invited to watch giant fleas ride cockroaches!
And, speaking of tub-thumping sideshow nonsense – we have also seen the nasty little bits of paper thrown by the local Labor candidate about pensioners losing their ability to spend their own money.
Another scare tactic, smacking of desperation. Not true! No basis, in fact, but used anyway because it might work?
The central thrust of my comments is that, in a Federal Election, the voters deserve the bloody truth!
It also seems that I have focused on the Labor Party. Well, you can draw your own conclusions about that. I have not seen any nasty little bits of paper scaring pensioners thrown out there by the Coalition. They may exist, but I have not seen them.
I have not seen any outrageous claims made by the One Nation Party. They, in their assessment, point out the deficiencies of the current Government and those of the Opposition. I have looked carefully at what they say. I can't entirely agree with all of it – and that is fair enough, but they have made no blatantly untruthful claims on balance.
The right to cast a free vote in a democratic election is precious. Why that is so and why it is worth protecting is the subject another day.
But I can say that the right to vote in a free election is a matter over which people will sacrifice their lives and have!!
Think carefully about your vote. Do not give it to one party because 'that is what you have always done’. There is more to it than that!
Please do not waste it by voting for 'Hooray Henry's’ who have nothing to offer but words and scare tactics – your vote counts.
How many times, in recent elections, have we seen elections come down to one or more votes?
It is a privilege to have a free vote!
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