Silly Season Again...

from the editors desk...

Politicians absolutely fascinate me! Yes, I realise I seriously need to 'get a life!' LOL! I am sure that many of them are extremely caring people, who really are putting their hand up for the job because they feel they have a civic duty, but gee, some of them, I really wonder? They tell us so earnestly how much they 'care' about their community, how hard they will work for us, basically, 'They will be there to REPRESENT us'! Well, that is what we get around election time, after they are in, that often changes doesn't it?

I think that in a Democracy, majority is supposed to rule? IE If a majority of your electorate are concerned about a particular issue, then it is your 'responsibility' as their elected representative to do just that, represent them! Unfortunately for some reason, it seems to be that party politics are more important, and this is where I get concerned, I don't remember voting in the faceless people in Grey Suits who run these parties? So why should what they decide be more important then the electorate? In an ideal world wouldn't it be wonderful if we didn't have political parties? I mean if it really was a true democracy where every elected representative had an even vote, if all these people truly did 'care' about their civic duty then surely they could be grown up enough to work together, vote in leaders from who they think are worthy of higher positions, working as a unit to further the interests of the whole country, state or region etc... I know I am dreaming, it would be more like the Roman Senate with the biggest ego's getting out the biggest knives LOL! It is a pleasant thought though...

At least the State Election has taken the internal bickering of our own council out of the media spotlight, thankfully, it was starting to get embarrassing! One article in The Noosa Journal in particular really took my attention "Pig-headed, stubborn, immature! Councillor blasts mayor", not the silly name calling or anything like that, I think we started to get a tad immune to that sort of language, but further down the article was interesting. There was a reference to Mr Hungerford "The army reserve officer wants the ``Noosa-style'' open, general committee meetings scrapped in favour of controversial, closed Maroochy-style agenda delivery meetings". Let's ignore the obvious slap at Noosa, but look at the rest of the comment. What is wrong with 'open' committee meetings? Are we, the electorate, not supposed to know what is being discussed, only our futures, so guess not really important???? (Yes, once again that is sarcasm you can hear dripping there). If our rates are paying someone to work on our behalf, I want to know what they are working on, what they are voting on, how they are representing me, and I don't think that is too much to ask for. As the article went on to quote "This would help remove councillors from what he said was the "pressure cooker'' of public gaze.", call me naive, but ummm if you are being paid by the 'public' to represent the 'public', surely the odd 'gaze' is justified?

Enough on our Local Pollies and some of their primary school behaviour, time for us all to vote tomorrow for the middle school pollies! Again... It doesn't seem to matter if it is Federal, State or Local, the same name calling, blitz of Advertisements, and my favorites heading down the to the football, all the billboards. They all seem to tell us how different they are, but not really many of them stand out? One thing has been a bit different this time round, normally we get a barrage from ALL of them, this time, it seems to be more of a focus on particular 'stars' only?

As you all know, every time an election is called, I email all the Candidates to request info to put up onsite. A double check is done once the ballot closes so that we don't miss any. We can see the stats onsite and know how popular it is for people to be able to compare the candidates in their particular electorate, check out any press releases they have put out etc., only a few did not send their info in (after 2 requests), so obviously the over 95,000 predominantly Sunshine Coast locals we have checking out the site was not worth their time to bother supplying information to? (2009 State Election Sunshine Coast Candidates) I am 'hoping' this was just because maybe they have staff that just overlooked the requests, but, the cynical side of me gets very concerned, not that they may not particularly consider our site very important, that doesn't bother me, but that they may not consider the visitors to our site important. If you are standing to represent your electorate then surely any 'community' sites are just as important as disseminating information to as multi-national companies? I would have thought that every vote counted?

Whoever you vote for, please make it count, at least if you have voted, you then have a right to complain if you don't like what happens in your Government! Good Luck to all the Candidates, please prove my cynical assertions wrong and represent us well!

cheers
Noely
Community Co-ordinator

Permanent Link: Silly Season Again...
Publish Date: 20 Mar 09