You know, anyone who reads this blog would think I am a perennial whinger.  I like to think I am a fairly positive person but I just have an ability to see when things will fall to pieces when others believe everything will just work out fine.  To me it seems perfectly obvious when this is due to happen, and scarily I am right about 95% of the time.  When I can see that is about to happen with my work, I labour mightily to ensure it doesn’t happen.  Basically it’s a case of sheer force of will that makes it work.  And I give myself about a 95% success rate there too.  But to be blunt it pisses me off when I see the blatantly obvious and others cannot.  Unfortunately it happens a lot.

And that brings me back to the last Federal election.  Yeah, you saw that coming didn’t you?

The incumbents were thoroughly on the nose for many reasons.  Some of them were actually real, but most of them were garbage invented by the Opposition.  Whose job is no longer to ensure effective policy, keep the bastards honest, or suggest intelligent alternative policy.  No, the role of the Opposition is to act like a bunch of badly behaved schoolchildren.  About Year 2 or 3 at best.  And can I say that the last Opposition were very, very good at that new role.  A new role I find abhorrent I will also add.  And now both sides excel at it.  Race to the bottom, etc.

So, that Opposition dragged down a Government that had some strengths and some glaring weaknesses on the basis of “you cannot trust them” due to some astonishing backstabbing and some sheer stupidity from the Labor Party.  Did the ALP deserve to lose solely on the basis of policy?  I’d say probably not.  Did they deserve to lose for sheer stupidity in their internal squabbling.  Probably.  But did the Coalition deserve to win on policy?  Absolutely not.  Did they have any policy longer than 3 words?  Stop the boats.  No carbon tax.  I switched off so much to their campaign of repugnancy I couldn’t tell you if there were more.

But now we have that Coalition government.  And to be up front I will say that I have never voted for them in my life and generally do not agree with their conservative policies.  I certainly don’t go for their pro-business bullshit.  Or pro-mining or pro-wealthy stances either.  Yet despite not getting a Budget through, not doing anything at all that I would call progressive, they are not totally on the polling nose.  How the hell is this possible?  Because they stopped the boats and we are all just xenophobes frightened of the amount of refugees we get in a year being what Italy get in a bad week?  I hope not.

No opposition.  Pure and simple.

We will see over the coming months a landslide of Labor fightbacks at State level.  But I predict at this point in time that the Coalition will win the next Federal election.  Due to having no credible options.  I still won’t vote for them.  But my vote in a blue-ribbon rusted on National seat is effectively meaningless in the House of Representatives anyway.  The Senate is a different animal altogether.  But with the highly unreliable Palmer United Party quite capable of doing more backflips than Nadia Comanici ever did I would say they are capable of anything and everything simultaneously.

And today I see the USA and China have both made highly significant greenhouse gas emissions statements.  Our Mr Hunt said something like we are always ready to discuss post 2020 abatement programs, or some such nonsense.  5% drop by 2020 is what we are aiming at here.  The Yanks just said 26-28% drop by 2025.  Yep, we look like dicks again.

So what do I want? I would like the Coalition to bring out an actual Climate Change Policy that doesn’t hand my taxes over to people who already have enough to pay for adjustments to their own poor decisions.  I would like the Coalition to have a proper Science agenda.  I would like Labor to man the frig up and actually be an Opposition.  Have a bit of fire in the belly.  Come up with some actual policy that shows differentiation and gives the electoral public some real options at the ballot box.  I’d like the Greens to actually try and talk to Shorten and Co and say “look, we are not your enemy here – we can work with you guys” and coordinate some policy between them.  I would like Clive Palmer to say one thing and then DO THAT THING.  And I would like to be able to walk into a polling booth at some time in the future and not look at the paper I am about to write on and just sigh.

Just that last bit alone would be a political tidal wave I’d love to ride.  I’m not holding my breath though.