Warning - This may be more of a rant that a considered contribution. It is hard not to despair a little when witnessing the current Australian federal election campaign between Abbot and Gillard.
I would like to have said between the Liberal/National Party coalition and the Australian Labour Party. Even better between the two sets of policies and policy approaches that the two alternatives represent. But unfortunately I cannot.
What is worse is that the individuals seem to be all decent individuals who are in politics for the public good as well as for personal achievement.
Yet the election campaign is full of negative attack ads and trying to capitalise on small scale topical issues and promises rather than any large scale differences in approach.
Some of this may well be due to the poor decisions of the individuals involved - both the public ones and those behind the scenes. But it seems that there also must be factors that we can change that might force some improvement in the future.
Here are some top of the head ideas:
- All new policies and commitments with budgetary consequences to include references to a website document that is simultaneously published which contains both summary and detail (and available to all, including the independent body responsible for reporting back on whether the costings/projections are reasonable)
- No new policies or commitments with budgetary consequences announced in the last week of campaigning
- Political ads be no longer exempted from the "truth in advertising" requirements with fines applied where the time taken to review and require ad withdrawal makes this consequence less relevant
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