It’s election time again.
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No doubt there will be celebrating in the streets. Or maybe not.
Elections don’t exactly ignite the nation with passion at the best of times, and we have so many of them lately, that’s probably understandable.
This will be the third federal election in six years, and if you throw in state elections, it's the fifth election for NSW voters in that same period. Almost one a year.
But, love them or loathe them, elections matter. To a degree, they’re about fiddling with taxes and mundane national housekeeping matters, but more importantly, they’re about philosophies and issues and deciding the type of country we want to be.
They’re about making decisions on living within our means, or not. About addressing sustainability, or not. About border security, the treatment of refugees, marriage equality… the list goes on.
And the list of how people make their voting choices is almost as long.
Some vote based on a political party. They’re the lucky ones. They already have a decision and don’t have to pay attention or think throughout the campaign.
Some base their opinions on what they think of a particular candidate, some on national policies, some on a local candidates stance on particular policies and some on who cares most about the electorate.
It’s dealers choice. You can base your opinion on anything you like, but whatever you decide to base your choice on this weekly blog aims to present as much information as possible about the local candidates and the local campaign to help you decide.
As with previous elections, the Goulburn Post's online coverage will include a weekly "Hume Campaign Diary" and a companion social media piece, "The Hume Chronicles."
The Hume Campaign Diary each week includes a list of what each candidate has done in the last week and will be doing in the week ahead.
Some candidates don't like to advertise what they’ll be doing in advance in case they get ambushed. That’s their call but at the very least we hope to they’ll send us a list of what they did in the week in review so that we can see what they’ve been up to and how hard they are working for our votes.
The Campaign Diary will also include links to all press releases so that even if the print edition can fit them all in, they can be found centrally. The Campaign Diary will also contain sleep-inducing commentary by me – feel free to skip over that.
The Hume Chronicles will typically be uploaded on a Friday and will contains a "storify" of social media postings by/about candidates... so it includes youtube videos, soundcloud audio, twitter, instagram and some facebook postings.
Later in the campaign we will also record three minute videos for each candidate, run numerous features (in print and subsequently online), a few polls and vox pops and the traditional Goulburn Post candidate’s forum somewhere in the next eight weeks.
So far we have four nominees for the seat of Hume: Angus Taylor MP (Libs), Aoife Champion (ALO), Adrian Van der Byl (Christian Democratic party) and Michaela Sherwood (Greens). Will there be more? You (yes I’m talking to YOU) may read this and want to put your hand up as an independent. Why not. There’s a lot to be said for having a go and not just chucking rocks from the cheap seats.
But for most of us, the election isn’t about running it’s about choosing between those who are running. And we’ve got almost two months to make up our minds.
Will it drag or will it fly by? Stay tuned. Eight weeks to go.
Candidate links:
Angus Taylor:
- Website: http://www.angustaylor.com.au/
- Twitter: @angustaylormp
- Facebook: Angustaylor4hume
Aoife Champion:
- Website: www.achampionforhume.com.au
- Twitter: @AoifeChampion
- Facebook: Aoife Champion - Labor for Hume
Adrian Van Der Byl:
- Twitter: @VK2WF
- Facebook: Adrian Van Der Byl - CDP for Hume
Michael Sherwood:
- Website: http://nsw.greens.org.au/person/nsw/michaela-sherwood
- Facebook: Michaela.Sherwood.7