Election time!

Aussie politics intrigue me yet again…  this Saturday, Australians (if registered) have to vote in the Federal Election and it promises to be one of the closest yet.  So, this is how I, an American, view this election.

First of all, the Australian government is Parliamentary, so the weirdest thing about it to me is that the nation’s leader is not elected by the people.  The Prime Minister is determined by the party who gets the most seats in House of Representatives, that person would have been the leader of their party.  Sorry, but, that’s just crap!  I consider myself middle of the road politically, and I would prefer to vote for the leader of the nation instead of having to support a bunch of yabbos in one party just to get my preferred leader to become PM.

And, just to twist things around even more… Just because you’ve been voted in as PM, you can still get kicked out by your own party.  Case in point:  Kevin Rudd was PM as recently as two months ago, but, because he wasn’t popular with most of the powerbrokers in the Labor party, and they were convinced that they wouldn’t be the controlling party at the next election, they convinced his Deputy Prime Minister (kinda like Vice President) to run against him in an inter-party election.  So, that means, Julia Gillard became the new PM without being voted for by the people… wait… I;m confused… who voted her in again?

And now, we’re in the middle of what’s being called the most boring election yet.  No one is really impressed with Julia Gillard, cause really, how much can you really believe in a leader that was quite willing to stab her own boss in the back.  And then there’s the Opposition’s candidate, Tony Abbott.

Ah… Tony Abbott,  I wonder how closely he may be related to George W. Bush, cause wow, someone just needs to duct tape his mouth shut.  Here’s a guy who readily admits to not being a “tech head” but yet has the best plan for the National Broadband plan.  His government would have the best economic plan and yet wasn’t even at the conference to unveil it.  His old boss even said on TV (ages ago) that Abbott didn’t have the best sense of economics.  Plus, he always wears budgie smugglers (speedos), which is not cool.  At all.

Scary…

Then we have rest of the circus performers:

• the Labor candidate that said it was a father’s own fault, when questioned about getting a better health system in place by said father, for not getting his disabled son sooner to a specialist cause the family had already been waiting over a year on the waiting list and could not afford to go private
• the ex-convict (of both Australia and Denmark) that is running for a political seat.  He figures as an ex-bikie who had gone through two different penal systems, and the Danish one being the better one, he was best suited for prison reform.  Fair enough
• Queensland’s own Premier, Anna Bligh, is soooo unpopular, Julia Gillard hardly had her on the campaign trail
• Julia Gillard had to resort to having/begging Kevin Rudd to go the campaign trail for the Labor cause Queenslanders took it a bit personal that she kicked him to the curb

There is so much more, but, I’m starting to confuse myself, so I know you must be