Following the federal election we are looking at the real possibility of having a hung parliament. On Monday morning, following the election, Mark Rodriquez took to the street outside the Noosa Heads post office and asked about 30 people for their opinions. 21 were prepared to give their opinion on the current state of Australian politics. Here are their responses.
Runs 5′18″
21 local views on the election result …so far
August 23rd, 2010 · 2 Comments · Community, Interviews, Podcasts
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Good one Mark. A big variety of opinion there. Personally, I agree with the guy who said the media had a lot to answer for, and I also think in many ways this will be a great opportunity to change political process in this country. I think we’ll end up with a Minority Labor government, if only because I can’t see Mr Rabbit negotiating successfully with anyone, or his party being prepared for real change. Labor has the advantage in that many of their policies are more palatable to the majority of the independents and they are by dint of their ideology, a reformist party. Maybe this is the chance for them to get back to their roots and reinvent themselves. As long as we don’t get a Coalition government, I’d say we got the best result possible.
Out of the 182,379 people enrolled as voters in the Fairfax and Wide Bay electorates, 46,699 either did not vote or cast duds. That’s nearly every fourth person entitled to vote. To me that is the most significant outcome of the election. What does it tell me? That not all the 7,542 dud voters meant to cast duds. That the ballot papers are too complicated. How idiotic to have to number more than 60 names of whom one might know one or two. It tells me also that people are too apathetic to exercise a right for which people are still dying around the world. It tells me that people are so sick and tired of the pollies that they’re not bothering to vote. And it tells me that’s the way the pollies prefer it. I’ll take any bet that only a miniscule number, if any, of the 39,157 non-voters will be fined. How to get more involvement and accurate measure of the people’s will? Start by scrapping preferences, changing the ballot papers and making voting voluntary. Dedicate a number of seats to Aborigines, which works successfully in several countries with minorities. Then the no-shows would really put the wind up the pollies. – Diet Simon, Tewantin