virgin voters: tintin versus the speedo warrior

This article first appeared in the University of Canberra Students’ Association magazine, CUrio.

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I remember on every Election Day, many, many years ago, mum and dad would put our dog on the lead and drag my siblings and me down to the local school where we would be forced to sit around for half an hour while the parents had brochures shoved in their faces before voting.

As a child you never really understand what an election is. You don’t play a huge role in the voting process, apart from holding the dog while your parents go inside and put the slip of paper in the big box. It was always hush-hush and dad said that ‘sex, religion and politics’ were three things never to be discussed in public.

It wasn’t until I got older and started to understand politics and the way that they ran the country that I took a keen interest in the political process. I helped hand out brochures in the 2007 election and made the added effort to encourage my classmates to get enrolled and play a part in the voting process.

It was not until I went to university and studied politics that I truly started to hate it. I couldn’t figure out if it was actually studying politics that made me hate it or if it was the people that were running our country at the time that made me hate it. But after time, I figured it out.

Since 2007, a bunch of backstabbing politicians wanted the top job because they couldn’t seem to work together as a unified a party to run our country. We have seen leaders in our community take sides like children might tend to do in the schoolyard, people who were voted in as a result of their own communities belief in their ability to run our country have quit or have been sent to the back bench or bullied out of their own party. Not to mention the scandals around fraud, taxpayer funded prostitution and illegal trips overseas for “business purposes”. Whoever thought that giving three quarters of the country $950 was a good idea is clearly an idiot after new figures show that almost $100 million in unclaimed cheques failed to make their way into the economy and the ones that did went for a shopping spree in Dan Murphy’s for alcohol and cigarettes or Harvey Norman for a giant TV. Not to mention the fact that Kevin Rudd, an oversized and older version of Tintin, is reportedly belittling his staff, needs some serious anger management classes, is bad with decisions and is freakishly calm in public might all be considered a “slight” contradiction.

Then on the other side we have Tony Abbott, who appears to be holding the Liberals fort quite well, armed with speedos and bad lycra pants. He is gaining popularity over Kevin Rudd but his past views on abortion have not done wonders for his reputation around women, despite having a happy marriage, three daughters and a female deputy Prime Minister. I have this overwhelming fear that the same thing that happened to Rudd might just occur with the Liberal Party. We see Bishop sitting happy as Larry next to Abbott, but is she waiting for him to fall in the popularity ranks and make that quick jump at him last minute to steal the top job right from underneath him, just like Gillard did? Not to mention that everyone’s favorite millionaire Malcolm Turnbull is making landslides in the polls showing that the Liberals would win by a mile if he were leader. Will this cause a rift in the Liberal Party and will we see the exact same thing happen to the Liberals as we have seen happen to the Labor Party? I don’t know if I can go through it again. I’m politically exhausted.

I’ve forever been learning about the left and right divide and how each party believes in spending its cash and running the economy but I am struggling to see how each party is sticking to its traditional values. I am seeing more or less the same policies from each party and the Greens just can’t make their mind up. Labor wants to tax cigarettes but the Liberals say that might cause a raise in the cost of living. FYI, smoking is not a cost of living. We see both sides fighting over stopping the boats but I can never figure out exactly what they are trying to do and what is actually the better way of stopping people smugglers – each policy appears to be the same. The Liberals want to introduce the best paid parental leave scheme ever, but Tony Abbott is still a woman hater. The Liberals want to scrap the carbon tax but so does the ALP. Does this mean no one cares about the environment?

My conclusion is that in this election, our next leader will either be an older replica of Tintin or a man who runs around in budgie smugglers, which leaves us with little to the imagination.

Whilst I usually stick to my guns at elections and vote the way I usually do, I think this election I will be keeping a close eye on our independent members who will hopefully keep both parties on their toes.

I could sit here and bag out politicians all day but there is one message that politicians are honestly trying to get out there and that is to get involved in the voting process, whether you vote for them or not! We are so lucky to live in a country where voting is something we are free to do and I encourage everyone to get enrolled and exercise this right that millions of people worldwide are not able to do. While you may think that your vote doesn’t count and one vote won’t make a difference, if 30 thousand young people do the same as you that could truly make a difference.

VirginVoters.com.au – the voice of first time voters – is a user-generated social media commentary by first-time voters and young Australians on the 2013 Federal Election.