Federal Election How to Vote

After a disastrous six year term in office, my five decade long support for the Liberal Party of Australia is finally extinguished.

In 2013 I could not vote for them because of one man: Tony Abbott.

Three years later, with Turnbull as PM I felt there was hope of a centrist government, one which would govern for the sensible centre. It was not to be. Turnbull bent over backwards to accommodate the right wing radicals but they toppled him anyway.

Now my disenfranchisement is complete - it is now not just one Liberal MP I cannot vote for - it is the whole bloody lot of them. 

I will not support the Liberal Party again until the Liberal Party becomes a liberal party again.

The party has abandoned the centre and concentrated on the far right, where supporters flirt with the Trumpist policies of ultra-conservative Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party, fostering division, inequality, homophobia, white supremacism, anti gun control, anti-vaccination, anti-immigration, pro-coal, anti-science, religious piety, increased-tariffs and isolationist policies etc. - not to mention the unleashing of Senator Fraser Anning on Australia.

This is the twilight zone, where fascists and nazies do their dirty work, without needing to reveal that they are fascists and nazies. Where supporters become the tools of fascists and nazies without realising it. Where extremist shock jocks promote fascist and nazie policies, whilst dressing them up as "common sense".

Where are the leaders with principles? Where are the statesmen who will rise above these muck-spreaders?  The answer is: no longer in the Liberal Party, where they even write letters of support for a convicted paedophile.

As Peter Hartcher said in this Fairfax article:

Preoccupied with its so-called "base", it forgot that it cannot win an election without a much bigger structure. Mistaking Murdoch for the mainstream and Alan Jones for the man in the street, it narrowcast and forgot to broadcast. Enjoying the ease of talking to the minority that already agreed with it, the government neglected the millions that did not.

And this:

It was a Liberal minister, Kelly O'Dwyer, who complained to her colleagues in November that the voters now saw the Liberal Party as "homophobic, anti-women climate change deniers". 

The ALP has moved to grab the centre ground which the Liberal Party vacated - and it will likely win them the election. However, they are  an untrustworthy bunch who will - as they always have - destroy the economy with reckless spending. Always full of ideas (both good and bad) but always without a care about the financial consequences of rushing to implement them all.

The Greens are just Labor on steroids. 

So, as in last month's NSW state election, I will be left to scour the candidates for capable centrist independents with sensible policies. I doubt I will find one on my House of Representatives ballot paper here in Macarthur - and who knows what I will find on another ridiculous metre wide NSW Senate ballot paper.....