Friday 20 August 2010

Election Day

As with anything that bothers me in life, I have brought my thoughts on the Australian election today back to the Rubik's cube. 

In Australia it is a crime not to vote.  While I fully intend to go vote as soon as the polls open in just under an hour, I'm very much feeling like this is a waste of my time. 

Not one party has put information into my mail box actually saying what they plan to do for the country.  Every single flyer has been aimed at criticising and decreditting another political party.  So, am I meant to vote on the people who criticised the best, am I meant to vote for those who didn't clutter my mailbox with political negativity or do I vote for whichever party I used to think would do a good job?  Tough question really. 

Our of those 3 choices the last seems logical, but its worthiness as a strategy is questionable given the newness of the party leaders in both major political parties.

If I think about this situation using the cube it makes me think that it's like twisting various sides of the cube hoping the pieces will land in the correct place without knowing where each piece is heading as you twist a particular face.  Or you could think of it as holding a messed up cube behind your back and trying to solve it while not ever looking at it.  I think most people agree it is highly unlikely you will magically solve the cube by doing this.

Today - I see my vote as an unfortunate attempt to twist the cube blindfolded.  I have not particular idea abot what each possible move will do to the cube, and I'm sure I hardly know the ins and the outs of our country's problems.  Perhaps I should base my decision on the party who I think are the most intelligent/logical because they will have the best chance of solving our national cube!

Summary:
- If you don't look at something and identify it's imperfections and problems, you don't know what you need to solve it.
- If you act without knowing what the result of your actions will be, you are less likely to improve the state of your cube than if you know how your actions will affect each part of the cube.
- If you don't look at the cube and it's problems while fixing it, you likely won't get anywhere.

(c) Arlene Taylor 2010

1 comment:

  1. It has been a very poor campaign from all sides, no one seems to have any policies that they want the public to know about. Strangely enough the most talked about policy has been the National Broadband Network which is a little sad, it would have been good to see more about education or health.
    The ABC website has a good round up of the policies for Labor, Liberals and Greens. When you read through them you realise that Labor and the Liberals have gotten a lot closer together (boat people policies for example), and in some cases gone the other way (Internet filter). The ABC site is here if any readers aren't aware of the policies and want to make an informed vote: http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/policies/

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