Deal-making, not good policy, key to modern politics

About every second person in the voting queue agrees that Anthony Albanese deserves to lose, but Peter Dutton, for reasons never explained, doesn’t deserve to win (“An abysmal campaign of national self-harm”, 29/4).

It’s a depressing double bind, which will be sacrificing the nation to unthinking votes for the proverbial drover’s dog.

Preferential voting means the election is beyond the control of the queue. The real bad news is that the queue will be unwittingly voting for the political “dark triad” of socialist Labor, economically illiterate Greens, and independents of dubious values and calibre.

Albanese may not be “not up to the job”, and voters get that, but they will install an even worse alternative. Peter Dutton is, in fact, the least worst option in a forced choice, but his campaign of a plethora of minor bribes spelled the killer timidity of matching it, not driving it.

Doing deals, not good policy, will be the future parliamentary brawl of the day, pleasing media whom Chris Uhlmann has correctly blamed as major contributors to our accelerating political decline (“Gotcha media kills politics of big ideas”, 26-27/4). Greg Sheridan and David Pearl (“Coalition has failed itself, and voters, on Labor’s tax disgrace”, 29/4) have summarised how the Coalition has collapsed on the election frontline of defence and taxation.

Dutton has only emitted a delayed bleat about the proposed vicious, annual tax on unrealised superannuation profits. This anti-capitalist spite will progress under the radar like bracket creep, enabling Labor to tax more and spend more.

This will further punish Middle Australia, which has usually voted for Coalition conservative stability and economic nous.

Betty Cockman, Dongara, WA

Labor leaders are quite predictable, spending their first term creating the cost-of-living crisis, and come election time they tell us how they are going to fix the problem they deliberately created, while spending our money like drunken sailors, with many more exalted promises.

If they get a three-year term, they will continue their spending spree, putting the nation into dire financial strife with billions more in debt. Then the LNP is voted in to clean up the mess and get the nation out of debt, but to do this will require a lot of cutbacks and belt-tightening.

Eventually the voters get annoyed at the strict saving procedures that are required and they vote the spendthrifts back in, thus restarting the cycle of waste and poor government all over again.

This is the repetitive voting pattern of thoughtless voting analysis and how the government works in Australia. We have lived through several prime ministers and seen this cycle being repeated.

G. May, Forestdale, Qld

It has been interesting to note that in this federal election, more and more people refer to voting for either Anthony Albanese or Peter Dutton.

The fact is that if you don’t live in either of their electorates you won’t be voting for them. You will be voting for a local candidate who may or may not represent a particular political party. It is then the party who elects a leader.

It is a shame that elections now seem to be a battle of personalities, rather than a battle of ideas and policies.

At the last federal election, the ALP effectively turned the voting exercise into a referendum on Scott Morrison, which proved to be successful. Little wonder that it appears to be using the same tactic, this time with Peter Dutton being the “baddie”.

John Yared, Wynnum, Qld

The ALP appears to be a lay-down misere to triumph in the coming election – at the very least, as a minority government.

This is counterintuitive. Could it be that it is not the opposition that is not fit for purpose, but the electorate?

Terry Birchley, Bundaberg, Qld

Never in my 36-plus years living in this great country have I seen a major political party run such a devious election campaign as the Australian Labor Party has done during the current one.

While Labor looks likely to win the election, Anthony Albanese and his colleagues have no reason whatsoever to be proud of how this is being accomplished.

The Coalition must accept responsibility for not rebutting Labor’s numerous lies.

Charles Shavitz, Brisbane