Counting the score

As amusing as it might be to score the government on its first year, it only serves to add to the general paranoia that ministers must feel. Is that a good thing? Probably not. It is rather, as I say, cruelly entertaining.
Governments need to be scrutinised rather than rated, but we see inevitably that Rudd is rated 8/10, Gillard 9/10, Garrett 6/10 (and dubbed the 'Minister for Nothing' )(The Weekend Oz). What does it mean? Nothing really, it is one person's impression and is akin to the 30 second grab, a not too sophisticated analysis of  complex issues; designed not so much to illuminate as to provoke discussion and not necessarily constructive discussion.
People will probably split along party lines (listen to Matt and Dave and the Two Chrises if you don't believe me...but I am sure you do), but this sort of stuff serves to seek short term results for what are obviously long term issues.
I personally think that there is much to be said for fixed governmental terms in a stable democracy like our own, so that although we can be amused by short term ratings we can actually appreciate that governments aren't going to have to pander to the need to amuse the fickle electorate when there is a long term job to be done.

The goose and the gander

You have to laugh (I suppose it is to be expected) that when Chris Pyne announced his candidacy for the deputy leadership of the Liberal Part (here) he said "The new Liberal Party that starts today can't try and defend for the next three years the last 11-and-a-half years, that is the mistake that oppositions often make,"
Umm excuse me, but isn't this the same Liberal Party that has spent the last decade trying to make the ALP account for the previous decade.
I think this wore a bit thin in the recent campaign. there were (after all) voters at last Saturday's election who would not have been alive when Bob Hawke first became PM in 1983!

Ohh the joy

One of the great delights living in a marginal electorate is watching the panic that is besetting the candidates. Our sitting representative, Dr Invisible, here in Boothby is a quiet man; perhaps a little maligned; and essentially a backbencher who will never be anything else

This comes as something of a shock to us who have been used for generations to living in an electorate with fairly high profile members over the last fifty years all members of the Liberal Party..Sir John McLeay, his son John, Steele Hall and now the good Doctor Southcott. I actually think he is somewhat maligned. He is a backbencher. But what's wrong with that. He does seem to work quietly for a few local causes. No one seems to quite know if he has actually achieved much, but I suspect thta there are individuals who would recognise that he has helped them with their pension problems. His local media profile suggests that he has focussed on areas that are actually State and Local government responsibility like road crossings and traffic management. Why has he done this? Because as a backbencher he has to face the reality that his electors don't actually think that he per se can do anything about climate change or the economy. He may be able to advantage local schools, or get the train re-routed..or at least bring a little pressure to bear.
But he has been more or less invisible.
So it is remarkable that I have seen him six times in the last three weeks. Last time in the local coffee shop only yesterday. My colleague and I had just been bemoaning his blandness.
He duly rocked up with his two Young Liberal apparatchiks. Same ones as last election. Same ones who posed in the public meetings for the last elections to ask embarassing questions about drug policy of the Greens.
Any way dear old Andrew looked bewildered. All this campaigning a bit too much for him!
Not so young Mr Pyne, the more precariously threatened memer for Sturt. He is an arrogant little pup, but in a likeable sort of way. Though you sort of want to smack him every now and then.
He appeared (quite legitimately) at last week's commissioning at Glen Osmond of the new Rector. He informed us in his welcome to Fr Simon that St Saviour's was a polling booth "And usually quite a good one for me" . The assembled Tory Party loved it. Though no doubt Cheeky Chris like many of us wondered if he would be there next time!
And I do warn you with regard to a prior post that invites you to examine yourself with the intent of discovering who you should vote for (here); that yesterday I tried really hard to answer the questions in as conservative a way as possible. The first time it told me that I was best suited to vote for the Labor Party.
So I tried even harder, even having to overcome internal revulsion to say that I completely and utterly agreed that coroporate taxes were too high and that internal terrorism laws weren't strict enough.
Still it told me (but with a slightly reduced compatibility) that I should vote for the Labor Party.
I did warn you that it was a Trotskyite plot!
Or does it actually mean that the ALP is now almost as far right as you can go.
Perhaps I should just try and work it out for myself, rather than rely on what others tell me.
I have never felt so undecided before an election.
So, Andrew, if you are reading this my vote is yours to buy. (Father is now rolling in his grave!)