Can I push this polling?

While the morning was trying to climb above the zero degree mark,  I was motoring down the Highway for an early morning start at my part-time job where my workmates speak tweet and I speak encyclopaedic. I sometimes think I am the bike riding, power station loving character on New Tricks.

I was daydreaming about the 30+ temperatures and humidity I will experience in Hanoi next week but was abruptly bought back to reality by my Radio National driving companion. Craig Emerson was in the spotlight making it plain that he had no book of protocols from which he was speaking, and if the listener wanted they could bring their camera around to his side of the desk and check it out. Oh, such fascinating pollie comedy so early in the morning!

His point was about polls. His claim: everyone does polls – news polls, social polls, lobby group polls, factional polls, secret polls…so the list went on. And while he didn’t quote: the only poll that counts is the one at the voting booth on election day, he couldn't miss the golden opportunity  to reference cutting to the bone and citing events in Queensland as indicative of what might happen should Labor be unsuccessful at the poll that counts.

Now, I’ve been doing research lately and developing and analysing survey results is becoming a specialty. So I thought it might be a good idea to develop my own poll and send it out – since nobody polls me - ever (sic. the name of this blog!). 

Here are some sample questions:

1. Have you or a member of your family past or present come to Australia as a result of famine, political persecution, war, or because you/they were sentenced for the term of your/their natural life?

                                    Yes                         No

         If Yes: you are a refugee and you may need to invest in a lifebuoy

         If No: you may need to check ancestry.com

2. Would you prefer our future Prime Minister to be:

a: a redhead

b: a budgie smuggler

        If a) you may have to buy an I love Pauline shirt from your local fish and chip shop

        If b) you may want to start filling out your NZ citizenship application now.

3. What are your priorities for the nation?

         a) Subsidising multi-nationals so they can eventually close their production in Australia when  it              becomes non-profitable to continue.

         b) Ensuring that you personally help each politician get elected in September as you don’t like to see Aussies lose their jobs. Who cares about the public servants who are out to lunch.

        c) Reducing wages so that big mining companies can make bigger profits. Gina we love you.

        d) Rolling back and repealing any laws made in the last 40 years so that we are once again that grand and glorious society so wonderfully depicted in Mad Men .

       e) Guaranteeing funding for political parties so that they can promote themselves for nine months before every election. Give me more Bob Katter.

       f) Seeing more of Tom Waterhouse on TV because he knows what you want.

       g) Government take-over of the media because we all know that only government knows what is good for us to see and hear.

       h) Returning to teaching the three R’s because children can’t read or write or spell or add or calculate or do anything worth while really. And for that matter, get rid of calculators, mobile phones  and computers too.

       i) Cutting even more funding to universities because they just encourage dissenters and time wasters – get a real job.

       j) Introducing even more gruesome adds on TV that show people dying, wheezing, gasping, being trapped in coffins, or having nicotine squeezed out of their essential organs, so that even though you are a non-smoker you need to be constantly reminded about your own mortality.  

     k) Returning respect for the clergy. Heaven knows they have earned it.

     l) Cutting down all camphor laurel trees and floating them adrift since they are illegal arrivals and need to be severed before they kill all the pigeons in Lismore.

OK, that last choice is silly, but I swear someone made that argument to me in a letter once when they were writing to complain about the proliferation of such trees in school yards in Northern NSW.

When I have all my questions sorted - and I take your point that 12 options is just too many in Question 3 - I’ll give you the link to Survey Monkey and you can fill it in. 

Do you think my careful analysis and report on the data will get front page coverage in the national press?

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Art Work of the Week

I looked for something to go with todays theme and the best I could do was a a painting that is made up of squares...just like my tick boxes will look when my survey is finished!

Carol's rocks. Assemblage of  small acrylic paintings on canvas (detail)