Hung Parliament

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein.

I still don't have a problem with our hung parliament. Minority government has given us bang for our buck and we  might even have decided that learning is a good thing. We are starting to distinguish between fact and misinformation. We are starting to discern between well thought out , considered responses and propaganda. We are starting to wake up to agenda hijacking, bullying, inequity, disrespect and what is important. We finally are working out when things are skewed and when things are balanced and we can actually articulate what the problems, irrelevancies and blocks are if we are finding ourselves in a shambles. Some would argue we are always in a shambles. Not so. The media still goes down that stuff and nonsense path of over reporting some things in a sensationalisitc way rather than offering a balanced diet of well thought out pieces. And we don't think we have a problem with being 70% Murdoch owned? We haven't woken up to that just yet. There are signs, though. We are saturated by yadda , yadda, yadda so we are starting to turn to things and people who offer us hope and well thought out, interesting information. We don't want things over analaysed all the time. We don't want to know every inconsequential minute detail of  something and have it repeated ad nauseam . We are over fake narrative. We like to get information. We like to hear the different input by well credentialled , believable , credible people. There are reasons why we have separation of state, church and justice and we have recently embarked upon exploring those issues. Politicians are elected from within society so it is fair and reasonable to assume they will reflect us and our lifestyle. They will reflect our strengths and our weaknesses. We learnt this week that some things are above politics and we are exploring whether we need to keep justice, religion and state separate and how we might do that. Have we thought about how we can do that? Before it was a matter of protocol. In this day and age boundaries are broken, boundaries are knocked down and we have to decide whether we want to put them back up or not.  So our hung parliament has covered a lot of interesting ground since it started and it has all been brought before us. We have all been involved and had feelings and opinions about the issues. We haven't left it to Daddy to tell us what to do and we haven't shrugged our shoulders and thought someone else can just work it out, and as long as it doesn't affect us , we'll let them get on with it. We are part of the discussions. The very thought of having a high speed train in Australia brought some fantastic people onto talkback radio with all sorts of insights. The sorts of things we are dealing with are not able to be fixed with an easy answer , a slapped up policy or a bit of a tickle and a tweak. We are having to think hard and long and then think again and change our minds. The live meat export is a classic. What do we do? We can't just tell another country how to kill our cattle. We cannot just leave our farmers in the lurch. We can't just shrug our shoulders and say it's not our problem. At this stage I think we'd like to see the live export trade go unless we can in some way help or influence the humane killing of our animals. We'd prefer to kill them here and then export them. Some of that is because we are so far removed from the food chain we just cannot stomach animals being killed full stop. It was great to hear one of our politicians, who is actually a sheep farmer, come and talk to us about this ---over dinner! This is the first time we have been involved. We have been learning about how to discuss everything in a more complex and rational fashion. We have heard from all sorts of politicians and I know more politicians now thanks to our media and our hung parliament. We can see for ourselves when there is broader coverage of events the sorts of people who are helping to shape our nation. It means for the first time in a long, long time we are able to know what kind of people we have in parliament. I like that. Somedays I get desperate but I have to say more often than not I am enjoying having a nation which is talking about everything. Everything.