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On the one hand we can't possibly vote for J.W. Howard because he might not serve the full term of the next parliament. What horror if we were to have a change of PM in mid-term. The nation would be brought to its knees. So, how many of us are hesitating to vote Howard for fear that by next Pancake Day Peter Costello might be running the show? None? That many?
On the other hand we can't vote for K.C. Beazley because he once went to a meeting where Telstra was discussed. Cripes! With a bit more digging we might find that Mr B once used a Telstra public phone. Talk about hypocrisy.
Casting an eye over the pork on offer, there doesn't seem a lot to choose between the incumbent and the pretender. On the Tory side - which we will call Capitalist Party I - I can't see much for me in the first baby bonus. I have discussed this with the Spouse, but she refuses even to consider the possibility, whether by natural conception or the in-glass kind. As she didn't actually earn any money, per se and as such, last year - at least not so much as to attract a sizeable tax bill - she reckons that having to look after a little tacker at our age in return for a refund of last year's income tax, spread over the next five years, by which time we will be old aged pensioners like Mr Howard, simply doesn't make sense.
Over in the other camp - Capitalist Party II - we are offered the vague and nebulous Knowledge Nation, a phrase that has about it a smell of electoral death, like Incentivation. It makes you wonder, does it not? Nineteen million world-class, leading-edge, state-of-the-art people, and these two are the best we can come up with?
I know what you're thinking. Out of 280 million Americans the choice came down to George the Smaller or Al Gore. If that's the best that they can do, with more Nobel prize winners per head of population than the rest of the world put together, perhaps we're not doing so badly. But that is small comfort. After all, are we or are we not the Clever Country? (Who thinks up these slogans?)
So here we have two political parties separated only by the fact that one of the leaders will reach retirement age in two years and one once went to a meeting where Telstra was discussed. It's not a lot to go on.
My friend A reckons that we live in the most dangerous times he can remember. Ever. And he is already past retirement age. He is a perspicacious fellow and not given to rhetorical flourishes. His natural inclination, as a captain of commerce, is to vote Capitalist I, and I presume that he will do the same thing this time around. His heart won't be in it.
How sweet it would be if one or other of the parties were to promise indecisiveness. Vacillation. A sort of biblical policy: "Come, let us reason together," as the Lord said to Isaiah.
What we do not need right now is confident, resolute leadership. A little confusion, uncertainty and hesitancy is what is called for, along with some reasoning together. Let the Americans bomb first and think afterwards. They can afford to. We, on the other hand, need to spend some time reflecting on our precarious place in the world and how best we might make the world better without killing anybody to do it. Prudence alone prescribes diffidence.
Anyway, I am going to vote Green. I regret that they are not promising
a baby bonus or even a knowledge nation, but they seem confused, hesitant,
prudent and reasonable enough to suit my way of thinking. And god save
us from strong leaders.
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