By Warren Nunn
2 The confusion | 3 The tension | 4 My vote | 5 Policy problems | 6 Handouts | 7 The needy | 8 Too much? | 9 The truth? | 10 The dissenters | 11 Intolerance | 12 Few decide
No 5: Previously I reflected on the reasons I had supported Labor.
Difficulties with Labor policies
Without going into specifics, there were a number of policy approaches I could not agree with. However, that did not mean I automatically voted for the Coalition. I just could not bring myself to do that.
I had never actually studied Labor’s foreign policy, for example, and considered whether I was happy with it.
I do not disagree with every Labor policy. Likewise with the Coalition and some other parties. But there are some areas that conflict with my philosophy that make it almost impossible to support either major party.
I considered some independents but was never really satisfied with that. I became so disillusioned that I gave up and wasted my ballot like a spoilt child as a way of saying that there was no-one out there who would properly represent me.
In the past several years with the spectre of both the ALP and then the Coalition replacing their leaders for reasons only they could properly explain, that only drove me further away from the major parties. But how could I be more disconnected than I already was?
So where did that leave me for this Federal election? After much soul-searching and thought, I cast a valid ballot for the first time in about 20 years.
It came down to what I thought would be the “least worst” for Australia.
Either way I considered that both major parties were the least worst mostly on the basis that, in my lifetime, Australia has only ever had either a Coalition or Labor Government.
It was not a matter of being happy with an ALP win over a Coalition win; it was accepting that what the electorate wanted; that’s what I, too, would have to accept.
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