Tory Shepherd: Here’s where the parties stand, so make a choice

ANALYSIS: IT’S cold. Overcast. It feels as though we’ve been talking about how long this election campaign is for even longer than the actual campaign has lasted.

• Relive the final day of campaigning
• Interactive map: Where to vote in South Australia

IT’S cold. Overcast. It feels as though we’ve been talking about how long this election campaign is for even longer than the actual campaign has lasted.

It was 55 days, for those crazy enough to have kept count. Time to fire up. Your vote is one in hundreds of thousands, but it does matter. Sometimes, seats come down to a handful of votes; sometimes Senate spots are decided by minuscule decisions.

However, the Australian Electoral Commission worked out that 6 per cent of votes at the last election didn’t count because they were informal.

That’s sometimes because people don’t fill out the ballots correctly. But it’s also often because people scribble stuff on them in protest; I’m reliably informed that crude pictures of male genitalia are a popular way to make an informal vote.

Fine. But don’t complain about the system if you don’t intend to play your part in it.

Obviously the question then is: which party is better? Who will deliver the better outcome for Australians?

If there was an easy answer to that, we wouldn’t need elections. We’d have agreed long ago to some sort of benevolent dictator model. Your job today is to make the best possible estimate based on the available evidence. Here are the pitches in a nutshell:

The Coalition says it will create “jobs and growth”. A main driver is the escalating tax cuts to companies. If you encourage companies to invest, they will expand and create opportunities and jobs. The water will rise, taking all boats with it.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is also emphasising stability over change; he is betting that Australians have had enough prime ministerial changes of late and could use some continuity.

It’s true that Brexit — UK’s shock exit from the European Union — has had a ripple effect around the world.

It’s also true that the Coalition has signed an unprecedented number of free trade deals, opening up Australia to the world.

It’s almost peripheral, but the Coalition also pledges to have a plebiscite on same-sex marriage by the end of the year, and that they will effectively tackle climate change. It is important to note that they have absolutely no plans to privatise Medicare.

Labor is more focused on health and education. It will spend more in those areas than the Coalition but will also send the nation into deeper debt when they do so. It is pitching “100 positive policies”, many of which are about schools, childcare, and healthcare.

Here, it is important to note they are on a unity ticket with the Coalition on border security — neither side will risk boats crashing on our shores again.

The third force here in SA is, of course, the Nick Xenophon Team. NXT’s focus is on jobs and manufacturing — there are a broad range of policies on their website, but make no mistake — the NXT appeal lies in being “not-the-others”.

The Greens hardly need explaining; as the two majors head for the centre, they remain the left option, although under new leader Richard di Natale, they are more mainstream than they have ever been.

Then there are the rats and mice, who will not amount to much.

Today, there are no right or wrong votes. There are only thoughtful votes or wasted opportunities.

Originally published as Tory Shepherd: Here’s where the parties stand, so make a choice