For those of you not familiar with my political beliefs, I am not aligned to any party. I have voted Labor, Liberal, Green and independents in my life. So I don’t think I can be accused of being a political stooge.
That said, I really feel the need to say something about the state of politics in Canberra. The venom, name-calling and poisonous atmosphere that’s come out of federal Parliament in recent months is absolutely astounding.
Sure, Canberra has always been a place of debate and name-calling, but I’ve never seen it sink to the levels it has in the last 12 months.
In my opinion, both leaders are as bad as each other.
On one hand Julia Gillard, who I was prepared to give a chance when she knocked out Kevin Rudd over a year ago, has turned into a right-wing spinmaster, prepared to say and do anything to try and dig herself out of the mess she has created for herself. This is a Labor woman who wants to send asylum seekers to Malaysia, a country which canes people and jails homosexuals.
Moving over to the Coalition, Tony Abbott is only winning in the polls because of Labor’s incompetence. All I ever see from Abbott is negativity and political game-playing, with nothing positive to add to debate in this country.
And just as an aside, wouldn’t it be nice if both leaders would stop being photographed every second day on construction sites wearing hard hats! There is much more to this country than factory floors.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could have leaders and Parliament working together on solutions we could be proud of?
Maybe I’m dreaming, but surely anything is better than the mess we have at the moment.
INFO: By Geoff Field. Hear Geoff each afternoon on 2DAY-FM and visit www.geofffield.com.au
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Tony Abbott has single handedly turned me off construction workers for life, his hard hat prancing has forever besmirched that fantasy in my mind.