Ineligible to vote

So here’s this week’s joke. I get an email asking me to take part in a survey. If I complete it I will earn $1. Ooh I wonder, what might I spend my hard earned dollar on – maybe an onion or a carrot might be nice.  

My answers to the first few questions will determine my eligibility.

I click my residential state, my age, my gender, and get to question 4: What medical conditions do you have? 

 I answer: None of the above.

Result: I am not eligible to take part in the survey. 

And poof, there go my dreams of a fresh new vegetable.

In the meantime I watched the presidential public forum broadcast between Krudd and Blabbot  until my eyeballs popped out and my brain exploded through my ears, and I switched over to Spicks and Specks. At least the answers there were fun and entertaining – as were the questions. And there was no wavy line that went predictably up and down to record whether I liked what I was hearing regardless of whether anyone was actually speaking at the time - or what they said.

I am still befuddled by how you can promise to create more jobs while announcing you will take your trusty little hatchet to the public service where real people, do daily grind, at the behest of politicians and managers with ever-changing new vision and are now told thanks for nothing, you’re just a bludger,  and join the dole queue. Should have got a job at the Cadbury factory.

Equally I wonder if I will get my relationship voucher, given I am not engaged, married, one of a gay couple or in a de facto relationship. And if I do get it, will it pay my rego to a Hash House Harrier event where all my worries fade away with a bit of dribbly conversation, a glass of bubbles, and a load of sheep dung?

At least the magpies are firing at the moment.

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Art Work of the Week

Go you Pie boys!

Tea with Daisy

Zip it

I’ve gone off the election with is suppository of knowledge, its Daggy dad statements, baby kissing, factory swanning, creation of new countries and reinventions of Judaism. 

 But I do like The Roast. I can get a snappy take on the day’s events with a good smattering of ironic joviality without the turgid trawling over minutiae from the regular media.  

Does that mean I am becoming one of the Twitterati with an attention span of 140 characters?

A fresh approach is always good and they say everything comes back, but it comes back different. So I have a suggestion. Could we cover the election through a series of Dorothy Dix letters?

Here are a couple to start: 

Dear Dorothy

 I am thinking of planning and overseas holiday and have run in to trouble.

 I have been trying to find the airline that flies into Islam, but agents look at me in confusion and the Virgin  and Qantas sites just crash and can’t answer the question.

Signed

Please explain

xxxxx

 One Nation Candidate :)

Dear Dorothy

 Can you tell me the six points of our Liberal party six point plan for fixing Australia. I seem to have forgotten them.

Signed

Bunny in the headlights

Liberal Candidate, Greenway

Dear Dorothy

I can't understand why the nation is not fascinated with my Titanic vision, and won't come on board. The electorate is decidedly icy. Can you help me swim against the tide?

Signed

Looking forward, looking back

Palmer United Party

Dear Dorothy

If I continue to say Stop the Boats will it become a self-fulfilling policy? I have expanded my repertoire to include: And the Boats will stop, and promised to cut the number of arrivals to three shortly after my imminent election. Should I be nervous?

Signed

Sex appeal in speedos

Liberal Annointed

Dear Dorothy

Is it negative to be positive?

Gotta zip

Signed

Ever the optimist

Labor Hopeful

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This week's art work

Depends on your perspective 

Small rocks. Acrylic, thread and fishing flies on paper

Nobody has polled me either, still....

So, we come to the end of another week of living in the electorate of Greenway, and the end of another disappointing week in terms of pollies visiting our house. Total count still equals zero. They seem to have deserted the local area, even Mr Diaz was last seen ‘campaigning’ in the Penrith area. Poor fellow, still doesn’t appear to have come to terms with the other five points.

I feel a bit sorry for our local Greens candidate, I followed his Twitter account, and within one day his account was hacked and it started sending spam messages to his followers. Not a good start to engaging with the voters.

Michelle Rowland has sent a petition about not selling off local services, not sure how that relates to her policies or what she would do if she was elected, maybe she’s done the calculations and is starting to lobby the libs for our local services now rather than having to do so in a few weeks time? By contrast the M2 and local roads have had gigantic billboards installed that are plastered with Kevin Rudd’s face and election promises. This year more than ever it’s a presidential style campaign – not too many showings of the local candidates, but a big focus on the leader. And I guess after Mr Diaz’s go at campaigning, it might not be a bad idea to just focus on the leader...Yes, let’s focus on the leaders shall we..

Mr Creepy, as I am affectionately now calling him, received a tweet from me this week suggesting he should stop kissing random women. What’s wrong with a handshake good man! Being creepy is not having a dad moment. A dad moment is when you’re driving past the cemetery and your father says “look, that must be the most popular place in town, everyone’s dying to get in”, or when asked what’s on telly tonight he would once say “by the looks of it a pot plant and a book”. As a side note, it is a shame now days that that joke shows your age, there’s not much room on the top of your average flat screen telly for anything substantial. That’s why we have ensured at our place there are two smurfs, gargamel, a black pirate duck and a black sheep. That way when asked “what’s on telly tonight”, my partner can say a “black sheep”, I can groan, roll my eyes, and an Australian tradition can be upheld! But I digress into a post for another day about the loss of history and tradition from the Australian culture, or do I...

Speaking of those who live in the sentimental past, in the mail yesterday was the CD and promotional material for Clive Palmer’s party the Palmer United Party (or pup as I like to call it). On the CD are two speeches and his TV ads, but also a weird 15 minute quasi documentary on Clive’s building of the Titanic II. I’d have been more impressed with some dinosaurs on the CD, but the Titanic II story was certainly a new twist on sharing a vision of Australia with the local electorate.  I guess you have to look backwards to look forwards, or something, I didn’t quite see what metaphor he was trying to draw. As I said, dinosaurs would have probably illustrated it better for me. Clive admits he follows the liberal party politics, but he also has a cunningly numbered six point plan. What struck me most about the plan was his thinking on asylum seekers. Here was a man who at least appeared to have thought about the humanity of seeking asylum and was proposing a different, and more compassionate solution. It may not be entirely workable, but the idea of the fast processing of claims, keeping families together and not locking people up who have had a terrible time of it already is more closely aligned to my values than either the current cruel Liberal or Labor parties policies.

However, my misfortune of living in this electorate means I need to really consider my vote. Sure, voting for Clive might be fun, or a bit of a lark. A vote for the Shooters and Fishers might send a signal to Canberra, but I really doubt it.  I am left considering my options still for both the Senate and the House of Reps....but in reality, I know who I will probably end up voting for, it’s just that I probably won’t like it very much.

We have to talk (about) Kevin

I’ve just got back from a fortnight in Vietnam. 

During my trip Singapore airport asked me to rate the cleanliness of their toilets. I just had to jab the appropriate smiley face. Vietnam hotels wanted feedback about whether their staff have served my every need. 

But I still haven’t been polled about my political convictions nor my choice for the upcoming (whenever Kevin calls it) Australian election.

So in the increasingly mistaken idea that someone in the universe is interested in what I think (even if some weeks my most numerous followers are in Romania), here I go again.

 We need to talk, Kevin.

I have only met you once in person, and you were polite, courteous, interested in what was going on at the school you visited, and seemed to connect with the kids and staff. Now that may be politics, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.

I have friends who are public servants and who have nightmare tales about working under your former leadership regime. 

So here is my advice given those two direct experiences:

1. Don’t micro-manage. There are excellent people in the world who can do their job without being watched every minute, or without having to provided inordinate amounts of detailed briefings for no real purpose. Be clear about what you want and let people get on with the job.

2. If you want to work 24/7 then that’s fine. But don’t expect your public servants to do the same thing. Expecting people to be on deck before 7am to provide responses to media items is just unnecessary and absolutely disrespectful. People have families and need to be able to balance the demands of their work with the demands of their children, spouses, partners, parents etc.

By the same token don’t create accountability  and deadlines that required working in to the wee hours of the night either. This is not fair, nor reasonable. 

3. Find advisers who have some life experience, brains and education and will provide real advice about what’s going on out here instead of responding to polls that obviously don’t reach the whole population – ever (have I told you nobody polls me). Look up praxis.

4.Don’t let advisers and staff groom you with blandness to the point of disappearance.

5. I’m over ‘cut to the bone’ and I’ll soon be over ‘negative’ as well. The media may like catch cries – advisers may tell you if you repeat the same message over and over so that it is ingrained in the psyche, but I say forget the tired and trite and talk to us like we are intelligent people who understand complicated English.

6. Don’t resort to abuse – you are a leader – you set the tone. There is a time for spitting the dummy- rarely- and then it should happen with intelligence and wit (sic Paul Keating).

7. Drive policy change with backbone, conviction and sound rationale that doesn’t change in an ad hoc response to unpopular comment.

8. And finally, (and again, I can’t believe I am citing Mark Latham) it’s time to do something about the factional and sub-factional Labour system that determines candidacy and policy direction. I appreciate this is a big one and that you are not God.

There’s a lot riding on you Kevin. What have you got to lose?

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No art work this week - have been too busy enjoying the sights of Vietnam.