Last night I turned on my tv, to sky news John Howard was flying to Canberra. This morning my eyes have been transfixed on the news since 6am waiting for this moment: the fight of Howard's life!

Time to see howard drive down the road and begin this election.

Who are you supporting? why?

Jason. 

I think I'll be supporting the Greens, which ultimately means I'll be supporting Labor. The Greens are dealing with climate change far more directly than either major party is willing to, and I share with them the sense of urgenecy when it comes to this problem. To be brutally honest, I'm not aware of how unachievable the aims of the Greens might be, or how detrimental they'd be to our economy (of the selected readings I've done, and I emphasise the word 'selected', the concept of Green power is not necessarily synonymous with economic judgement day). However, that's not really what minor parties end up achieving. They bring to the floor particular issues, then the power-brokers fight it out over what actually occurs. So I'm probably voting Greens so, hopefully, the major parties will adopt slightly more Green policies, and I can settle for a comfortable middle ground. It's not a perfect strategy, but this is far from a perfect system. As for the major battle between Rudd and Howard, I'm guessing Rudd is going to more accurately represent my particular perspectives on health, IR and education, and thus I have no choice but to guess for Rudd.

P.S. I'm willing to forgo all the aforementioned reasoning if a leading candidate commits to making a single policy speech without using the phrase "working families". If they can do that, they've got my vote!

And wasn't the SKY coverage hilarious? They spent hours with one camera pointing at an empty podium in Parliament House, just waiting... and waiting... and waiting. And another on the road to Yarralumba, watching Canberra couples walk their dogs on a Sunday morning.

I have got to say that I'm worried when people say that they are going to vote for the greens because of one particular issue like climate change. Please have a read of all of the greens policies at http://greens.org.au/election/policy.php . It might make you reconsider. I believe that climate change is an important issue but I would still not vote for the greens because I don't agree with the majority of the Greens policies.

Going with the Greens.  While I don't agree with all their policies, at least with a vote for them I know there is no chance of those policies actually coming in full.  I guess it's sort of a covert ALP vote.  What can I say other than I really, really don't want to have to put a one next to ALP because I'm still very concerned they'll sell me out the moment it becomes necessary to stay in power.  Also given that it was ALP preferences that got Family First in the senate with a tiny number of the votes I'm going to have a go at using the preference system to tell them it is not ok to bargain away my senate votes like that.