Opinion: Groom spared the election campaign

NO babies have been kissed, no teens ­cajoled into selfies, shoppers feel free to go about their business unshaven and in tracksuits. What’s going on in Groom?

AS THE song says: “They’ve been everywhere, man; crossed the deserts bare, man; breathed the mountain air, man; of travel they’ve had their share, man; they’ve been everywhere.’’

Except Groom.

As we enter the last official day of polling, we can reveal that the people of Groom have been quarantined from both Mal and Bill for the entire eight weeks of the 2016 election campaign.

Babies have been spared the confected affection of kisses; teenagers have not been ­cajoled into selfies.

ELECTION: Untested pollies take to the field

Polite shoppers have pursued their objective without risk of appearing unshaven in their tracksuits on nationally televised newscasts awkwardly clasping the hand of a beaming leader whose name, for the life of them, they can’t remember.

Thousands of Queenslanders scattered across the ­interior have also been largely ignored by the two leaders ­during the campaign.

LNP candidate John McVeigh.

Nick Xenophon Team candidate Josie Townsend.

But picturesque Groom on the Darling Downs, which is readily accessible with its own international airport, has been bypassed for one key reason – the people haven’t voted Labor since the nation was created in 1901.

Groom voters were voting conservative even before Groom was born in 1984. They’re so set in their ways, the Coalition takes its political faith for granted, while Labor has largely given up trying to convert them.

The downside is that pork barrels are rarely rolled down the streets and country lanes of the electorate.

But after eight weeks of ­political carpet bombing, the people of Herbert and Capricornia might look yearningly to the Darling Downs as they ponder whether the pluses of predictability might outweigh the minuses.

Originally published as Opinion: Groom spared the election campaign