Ring Partners

5/8/2010

We interrupt this program…

I am cutting into the series about angry customers and throwing a few thoughts into the Australian federal election. International readers might find the questions further down more relevant to your local scene.

I was with a couple of Gen Y persons the other day and the subject of the federal election breezed by. One of them snorted, “Well I’ll be drawing a line through my ballot paper. Neither Gillard or Abbot do it for me. Waste of time.”

I thought, that’s what you get when political parties let their proceedings fall into the hands of image makers rather than policy makers. You make Australians think they are voting directly for their Prime Minister just as voters in the US vote for their President.

Ahoy there ship mates. History ought to be telling you that if you thought like this 3 years ago and you thought you were voting for “President” Rudd you’ve got to wonder how you unvoted for him. So where is he? The party – not us – threw him out with the old fries and now we have Ronald McDonald’s sister heading up the government. And “President John Howard” lost his personal seat so he couldn’t even sit in parliament and then Would-Be President Malcolm “J’aime la république” Turbull got turfed out – by his party, not us – and now Would-be President Bud(gies) Abbot is centre stage without his chubby little pal Costello.

When will we get it, that it’s all spin, smoke, mirrors and old fries invented by the back room money grubbers?

Here’s what I did. I formulated some questions for the local candidates and asked them to call me so I could ask them personally what they stood for and what I could count on them for. At the time of starting to type this line they hadn’t rung back but by the time I finished it, Liberal candidate for Adelaide Luke Westley did. I put the questions to him, he answered them passionately and so he gets my postal vote. Adelaidians. He said you can quiz him yourself: luke.westley@saliberal.org. Phone:08 8394 0255

My questions:
What’s your 100 year plan and vision?
What’s your 50 year plan and vision?

What are you going to do to
> get efficient alternate power to coal and gas
> speed up the path to non fossil fuel dependent cars
> get vehicles older than 10 years off the road – as in Singapore
> adopt existing technology to capture and recycle the carbon dioxide before it gets in the chimney.

How are you planning to get more water back into the aquifers and then getting it out for good use?

What’s your plan for wasting less money on people and programs in Australia eg
> the insulation fiasco,
> $900 for Chinese TVs and
> school halls
> over employment of know-nothings and do-nothings in Govt departments

and instead
> investing more money to wipe out 3rd world debt and disease.
> doubling tax deductions for poverty reductions.
> getting each state to adopt a poor country or region and get it functioning.
> getting Australia to adopt a country or a medical cause and wipe out something horrible in a couple of years

> What plans do you have for our becoming a nation of Character?

By the way, my candidate sounded great on the phone. I think that was half his battle won. So how do your own employees sound? There is a complete and comprehensive treatment of this topic on Great Phone Skills CDs and e-Book You will learn a lot about managing face to face encounters as well as on the phone.

My Kick in the Pants for You: Make elections about what you really want, not what the TV, newspaper, ad agencies and back room tricksters tell you to want.

Cheers
Colin Pearce
Raconteur

Disclaimer: All kicks in the pants have been tested on the author personally and although not guaranteed to produce instant results have generally proved painful in the short term and effective in the long term. No animals were used in the experiments.

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