Hugh Manatee writes:

It's almost here Australia - can you feel it: the crisp freshness of revolution in the air, the glaze beginning to fade from the eyes of the downtrodden, a change in the laws of gravity?

No, me either. Consider this - can you even remember how painfully long the Prime Minister made us wait until he announced this election? I think that the Very Clever Politician's plan all along was to wear us down so that we either forget to vote, or do as we're supposed to and become too scared to vote for change.

It's actually my recurring nightmare. I have a mental picture of next Saturday night where all of the following have occurred:

• the Coalition hold every marginal seat that has been promised more than $1 million for unassessed random projects
  
• a heap of voters don't turn out because they figure that everybody else will and also because the outcome is a foregone conclusion
  
• hundreds of thousands of progressively inclined voters who did attend polling booths were prevented from voting because of the new electoral rules.
  

I'm genuinely chewing off fingers with worry over this outcome. Think of the message this would send. The Eureka Stockade was not about workers fighting for their rights, it was about a bunch of fat, boofy home invaders getting shot dead and rightly so. Iraq was not an illegal invasion - the greatest crime - but a natural extension of Australian foreign policy. Climate change - far from being a global catastrophe that is now truly gathering momentum, is actually a real threat to the coal and aluminium sectors and should therefore be completely ignored… apart from the building of a nuclear reactor or twenty.

I also think that we're heading into a valuable period of reflection. As much as we should ask at this time what our vision for this country is, and what waters we might steer, I think it will be a particularly good time to ask ourselves what we want from the media in future.

It seems to me that never before have so many journalists so obviously acted as proxy public relations officials for political parties. Grand ideas such as ethics, impartiality, disclosure, and reporting basic facts have gone out the window.

The amazing journalistic scene this election has been set by the psephologists - analysing and interpreting polling data on their blogs. The Poll Bludger, Possum Comitatus, and Antony Green have done a power of good to make sure that some credible analysis has been available at all times.

As much as some paid writers (for saying "journalists" feels like a stretch) have been keen to say how unpredictable the polls are, my favourite piece lately comes from Possum, who acknowledges that the polls are indeed narrowing, and do indeed point toward a Howard victory… in July 2008.

What do you reckon, readers?


As a netgeist, Hugh Manatee's a regular on the UK's maskofanarchy.blogspot.com, the local www.tasmaniantimes.com, and of course his own blog at http://typingisnotactivism.wordpress.com. As a fleshy human, Hugh edits and writes for Sydney-based web and print media while completing his masters in environmental law. He considers GetUp a real hope for Aussie democracy - far moreso than just ticking a box every X years.