Voting for a better deal for our region

I'm sick of us getting the short end of the stick because the Sunshine Coast traditionally has safe, conservative seats.

Ashley Robinson. Picture: Patrick Woods

I am currently on leave and thought I would share this with you from just three years ago.

Nothing much has changed, which is pretty bloody sad - although if you believe Fairfax's Ted O'Brien and Fisher's Andrew Wallace, they would disagree.

But the problem isn't those two. It is definitely their masters.

So if something bad happens this election, we have the two major parties to blame and ourselves.

Today is the end of a rather annoying few weeks leading up to an election that in my view is the most uninspiring political campaign by all parties in my voting career.

That is just over four decades and I think this has been the most boring yet enlightening election ever.

The boring comment is self-explanatory.

The enlightening part is a little deeper or, more to the point, deeper in the sense that it is a very, very shallow bloody pool that they have all been playing in.

It has never been clearer to me that politics these days is mostly about federal politicians keeping or getting a job rather than hard decisions and leadership.

It is about saying nothing but saying something.

It is about nodding heads in agreement with whoever is the most important party person in the room and it is about tricking, deceiving or pandering to the voters so they think they are getting something better from the left side or right side of politics.

Who is to blame for all this? Well, it's a bit like the supermarket duopoly. Sadly, we don't have to look far: just into the mirror.

We are the problem. Whether it be gullibility or apathy, they both end in Y and that is probably why.

My voting upbringing sprung from my dad voting for the Country Party (Nationals), so I have voted that way all my life, apart from two exceptions.

I was initially inspired by Bob Hawke in the federal election and Wayne Goss in the state election and voted for them as I thought I could see something special in both of them.

I have to admit, I did vote Greens a couple of times when I couldn't bring myself to vote for Peter Slipper. But most of the time, I have sucked it up and voted LNP.

So let me look at the two bookends singing nearly the same tune this time around: Ted and Andrew Wallace.

I cannot bring myself to criticise either one, to say they are reading out of the LNP playbook etc.

No I won't say any of that. Just this ... as far as I am concerned, this is the LNP's last chance with me in a federal election.

If they are re-elected and we continue to get two-fifths of bugger all because we are safe seats, I am going to look towards independents, the other mob or anything that will turn this area into a marginal electorate so we can maximise the pork barrelling at the next election.

Currently, apart from a couple of exceptions, we are an area that keeps taking one for the team for the greater good of the nation.

Boys, if you get in - and with all due respect to your opponents, I imagine you will - the ball is well and truly in your court.

Sure, be LNP but try putting Sunshine Coast in front of those letters, not behind somewhere.

Vote wisely today. But I am not sure what that means.

Originally published as Voting for a better deal for our region