I was a young Labor member in my late teens, volunteering at elections and spruiking the word amongst all I knew. But like many, after the twin GST disasters – the tax and the Good Ship Tampa – derailed the party in 2001 and the Crean years descended, I began voting Socialist Alliance or Greens, and lost all hope that I would ever see a party I supported in power again.
My main political beliefs now could be summed up as follows (in no particular order of importance to me):
• Government investment in infrastructure and regulation of industry;
• Deficit is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it creates jobs;
• Universal, free healthcare and education;
• Equal rights for same sex couples;
• An Australian republic, and get the damn Union Jack OFF our flag;
• Absolute separation of church and state;
• Refugees are not queue jumpers, usually they are coming from places where there’s no queue to jump; they should be out in the community and their kids should be going to school and playing in the park;
• Troops out of Iraq NOW;
• Say sorry…and work out a treaty;
• Social security payments should be above the poverty line;
• Change the national anthem to “Paranoid Android” by Radiohead.
(Okay, okay the last one is a joke…mostly).
But I’m not a left wing nut. I’m widely read, and I have studied tertiary economics, politics and industrial relations, so I do know of which I speak. On top of which, I know many people who have battled mental and physical illness, unemployment, and lack of opportunity; people who are deeply in love, have been for years, and will never be legally recognised as a couple; people who are poor and hopeless, in the original sense of the word, through no fault of their own. I have seen for too long and too often the suffering caused by the Howard government.
Things have to change. Please cow Mark Latham can be elected and change them.
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