I want so desperately not to care. I wish I could look at politics and feel “this doesn’t affect me” like so many other normal people.
I care who wins the election. I care about health policy. I care about education policy. I care about environmental policy and transport policy. I care that millions of Australians – mostly Indigenous – live in poverty. I care that there are children who can’t read. I care that commited couples who want to get married can’t.
But what angers me the most is that each passing day of this election campaign I seem to care less and less.
With each day that goes by I feel more anger, that passes into dispair that passes into apathy. My disillusionment with politics is almost complete, my apathy almost final. Election campaign 2010 was the culprit; the final nail in the coffin of my passion for politics.
I guess it was naive of me, and I should have listened to the people who were much older than me when they tried to warn me. But I genuinely believed that government could be a force for the betterment of society. I believed that passionate people could show leadership and inspire a country to make itself better. Use the tools of government to make life for all people in Australia fairer and more equitable. My optimism shown to be completely foolish by the 2010 election campaign.
It was pretty tragic to see a sitting Prime Minister outed by his own party before the end of his first term. Rudd had lost his ability to sell, and there was no doubt that was causing problems. But I suspect Rudd was being frustrated from within: bad advice and wavering internal support for his policy positions would have made his job very difficult. The whole affair was made all the more tragic when he went public earlier this week to defend his achievements. Kevin Rudd made the most concise and convincing attack on Tony Abbott that has been made for the entire campaign. His appearance on Late Night Live filled me with something akin to joy. Finally someone from the ALP was articulating what needed to be said.
But it was short lived. The media turned his appearance into a soap opera. A will they/won’t they saga between Gillard and Rudd designed to play out in prime time news bulletins.
And all once again seemed hopelessly lost.
The media. To the pack of journalists (sic) who get paid to follow the candidates around, it’s not about you. It was never about you. The tax payers fund your junket. Politicians might occasionally not answer your questions. Sometimes they might run a little late, change their plans at the last minute and sometimes you might not get a policy document in advance. This may inconvenience you a little bit, you may have to work a little bit harder before filing. You may even get tired from standing up all day. Deal with it. Politicians aren’t there to make your job easy. They are trying to get reelected and sometimes journalistic scrutiny isn’t what they want.
So when you do get to ask them questions, you should scrutinize their policy. The tax-payer doesn’t fund your Australia wide travel so you can ask questions about why Tim isn’t campaigning with Julia, your there to ask questions of their policy, after all one of these people will be the leader of the country.
When Tony Abbott says. “Stop the taxes” you ask “What taxes? How will you recover the money?” when he says “Stop the waste,” you ask “To what waste are your referring, Tony? How much money is being ‘wasted’ and how do you propose we stop it?” and when he says “Stop the boats” you ask him “How do we stop the boats and why should we stop them?”
When they announce a policy you don’t ask them why their boyfriend isn’t there, you ask them about the policy.
Don’t complain about how this campaign has been dominated by distractions then report only on the distractions. You shouldn’t be making it harder for politicians to talk about issues. You should make it harder for them to be distracted from the issues.
Mark Latham is not an issue. Tim Mathieson is not an issue. Cabinet discussions are not an issue. The calluses on your feet are not an issue. Your boredom with the campaign is not an issue. Julia Gillard’s earlobes are not an issue and nor is what the Internet thinks of them.
Journalists of the press pack, editors, news directors and media moguls: political discourse in this country is broken and it’s all your fault.
So yes, Gillard is pretty uninspiring. Yes, Tony Abbott just scares me. The ALP and the Liberal Party look more and more alike. But that’s not it.
I think I lost faith in politics because of the media. Because ultimately, if anyone was in a position to raise political discoure in this country, it is the media. The media asks the questions. The media reports the news. All political discourse is mediated, the media can raise the level of this discourse.
I want to make this country better. I want those who are disadvantaged to be helped. I want those who do not have rights given rights. I want preserve the planet on which I live. But it’s all starting to feel a little hopeless. The whole system just isn’t working.
I’m not really angry, I’m not even surprised anymore. I’m just disappointed. I thought it could be different.