Last week we went down to the Lawn Bowling Club to hear from our local Parliamentary candidates. That’s our local MP Mark Mitchell speaking, and his wife filming it on her phone. It’s wonderfully small town still.

They were all pretty good, some better than others. It wasn’t an actual debate (not that the actual debates are really debates either), but there was a bit of back and forth. I found myself itching to challenge some of the policies they presented.

The election is in a few weeks. The two ‘major’ parties are both way down in the polls, each hovering in the high 20s. So, it will be another coalition government. There’s a young party called Opportunity that is shaping up to be the kingmaker. They claim they’re prepared to work with either side.

Personally, we’re sure we don’t want the right-leaning group to get back in. I’m in favor of some of the economic things they promised last time, but they haven’t delivered on those. And they’ve so aggressively prosecuted the culture war issues, kowtowed to the fossil fuel, tobacco, and liquor industries, and just generally been sour and backward-looking, that there’s no way I could support them.

It’s an especially difficult and miserable time to be in politics, I think, and the coalition arrangements likely assure policy stalemate on many issues. So, my expectations are low for the ability of the next government to actually do much. Maybe that’s the best possible outcome…