We Have No Idea

[icyfroth]

We don't know who we want as PM anymore - and this isn't good

And if the Don't Knows were to team up with "Someone Else" they would be an unbeatable duo on both sides of the house.

The low regard our current leaders experience is hardly breaking news. Since Kevin Rudd's popularity went south in early 2010 no leader has managed to secure majority approval from the voting public.

We already know that both Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten are labouring with disapproval rates much higher than their approval ratings.

Entire Article Here

It's a wasteland.

[iapetus_rocks]

And if everyone were to mark their ballot papers "None of the above" then maybe something would have to change.

We vote for these politicians in the full knowledge that they are  untrustworthy at best and corrupt at worst, and knowing this, we still vote for them (well I don't), so maybe that says something about us.

[iapetus_rocks]

I think we are prepared to accept too little from our politicians.

We say to ourselves "We have to vote for someone, so I might as well vote for the pollie/party which is the least worst."

I see it differently. If none of the politicians or their political parties appears to me to be honest enough or trustworthy enough then I do not vote for the least worst of them and I don't vote for them because "otherwise my vote is wasted".

My vote is wasted if I vote for a party whose politicians have proven to be self-interested trough-guzzlers, time and time again.

My vote is wasted if I vote for one party of trough-guzzlers only to keep out another party whose feeding habits are identical.

 My vote is truly wasted if I consider the politicians to be untrustworthy and corrupt and yet I vote for them anyway.

My vote is wasted if I vote purely from self interest, knowing that while the party I vote for may be good for me personally, it is bad for Australia and the majority of Australians.

 In this latter case, if we vote for them anyway, then how are we any different to them?

Your obligation under the law is to turn up to the ballot booth and have your name signed off when you receive your ballot papers. What you do with those papers after that is a matter for your own conscience.

[iapetus_rocks]

Our politicians' wages are  amongst the highest in the world.

Oh, if we pay peanuts, we get monkeys?

Well, if we cast pearls before swine, and they guzzle them up while sh**ting on everyone else, is that a good alternative?

Maybe we should massively reduce politicians' salaries so that only those who want the job because of a serious desire to serve Australia would be attracted to the position.

As Bob would say: Discuss.

[electric*mayhem*band]

Ditto in the UK. The basic annual salary for an MP from 1 April 2014 is £67,060.  MPs also receive expenses (often fiddled) to cover the costs of running an office, employing staff, having somewhere to live in London and in their constituency, and travelling between Parliament and their constituency. 

And they've just been awarded another rise, of which they have no control over. (IPSA). Many have said they will donate this to charity. Yeah, right they will. And another horse drawn hansom cab rolls past.

[baybizz]

It could be worse.  From the UK, I am not familiar with the finer details of the Australian voting system, but at least we don't have to decide who to give the keys  to the kingdom to for the next fixed term of four or five years, as in presidential systems.  I distrust all presidents - too much all or nothing power in the hands of one person. A prime minister is accountable to a parliament, and can be removed by parliament if he/she oversteps the line.  That very fact is usually enough to stop prime ministers from getting too many delusions of grandeur (i.e. acting like a president):

www.community.ebay.com/soapbox/political-discussion-please/22359586#M297753