Week n-1 Election update.

The media seem to be in a frenzy over past Leaders rather than saying anything about policies.  Possibly because while policy is rare, former Leaders (possibly too many of them) are all over the place.  Lets run through a few:
  • Big Mal the First (aka Mr Fraser): usually has a different adjective, which is one way of distinguishing him from Big Mal the second (Mr Meninga, who only scores the higher number because he is younger). On this occasion Mal 1's comment that the mad Monk is not ready to be PM shows that he has some good ideas!
  • Harry Potter (sorry, I mean Kevin Rudd): the ongoing soap opera.  Hopefully will sort out the Queenslanders now he has got the shyte surgically removed from his liver.
  • Mark Latham: seems to be going all out to prove how lucky we were that he didn't win the election.
  • El comadreja (I am sorry to mix a masculine article with a feminine word but calling him a female just isn't right). I was really pleased to see the image appear in the on-line SMH: if that doesn't scare the electorate nothing will.
Well, possibly one thing might.  The Australian today ran a story about the three Independents holding the balance of power in a hung Parliament.  The concept of Bob Katter from Cape Yorke holding anything is enough to make me think of emigrating to somewhere sensible.  And, compared to somewhere run by Bob Katter, Afghanistan, Iraq and PNG would all seem sensible.

At the local level I have heard that the Greens can't afford to get their leaflets delivered by Australia Post so are seeking volunteers.  This has been worked ouut out 3 weeks into the campaign.  At least they don't rush into things!  Our letterbox has benefited from offerings by both the ALP and the Liberals:
  • the ALP offered a nice brochure with people from around the electorate saying what a good job Mike Kelly has done;
  • the Liberals had a shopping list of things Mr Gizzard will do (most of which appeared to be, traditionally, State Government responsibilities.  A more cynical person than myself might have replaced 'will' with 'might'!
I have just done my second shift of pre-poll how to vote work.  There seemed to be a bit more activity than last week, possibly reflecting people realising that there is an actually an election happening.  There seemed to be a few more folk taking just Coalition cards, which is a worry.  As usual the other people were very pleasant, with one exception.  The exception was some woman working for the Coalition who turned up after an hour and a half (replacing a very pleasant guy - also from Carwoola). 
  • She immediately went to complain about something to do with Mike kelly.  She didn't say what to me, and the AEC guy she spoke to said nothing to me either.  Since she ostentatiously went outside, perhaps she was complaining about my tee-shirt?
  • Her next move was to complain bitterly about the positioning of the table with the Greens material. It had stolen her position.  She stormed back outside screeching about 'dirty tricks" Que?
  • When she left about 40 minutes later she gave another mouthful of venom to the charming lady from the Greens so I went after her and suggested that she shouldn't abuse the woman as she hadn't set the table up, and her predecessors had been quite happy with the arrangement.   She then pulled herself up to her full 1.5m (in this case height, but it was close to her diameter also) and yelled at me that it was 'her position'.  I suggested that I could give her some advice about a suitable position (missionary being in my mind) and went back in to talk about kangaroos with her follow-up.

What an aggressive, rude, stupid pain.

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