Shouts from the desert

The New South Wales Liberals are in the news again for having amazingly backslided in an election period where everything that could have gone wrong for the ALP has gone wrong for the ALP. I suspect that a lot of this represents inflated support for the Liberals in earlier periods by people who believed they might pull out all stops at the election and come out with something worth listening to, however this campaign is marked by extraordinary voter apathy, and apathy tends to favour the incumbent.

It is of no help that the New South Wales Division of the Liberal Party has a reputation for being controlled by people who want to use the power of Parliament to tell other people how to live their lives &emdash; or else! That each person has the right to live their life as they see fit provided they are not harming others in doing so is an elementary truth that much of the Liberal Party in New South Wales seems unable to understand.

With the paternalistic and religious right Uglies of the New South Wales Liberals in their ascendancy, it has to give people serious pause when they consider Liberal Policies in this month's election. For every policy that comes out, even if it seems like a good idea, voters are inevitably going to think to themselves "yes, but can I live with the paternalistic baggage that comes with the Liberals".

For me the answer continues to be "no", especially in Epping where the Liberal candidate is one of the far right. The Nicole Campbell, the ALP candidate, seems to be of a similar opinion regarding Greg Smith's palatability to the voters of Epping, and is hilighting his right-wing affiliations.