Shouts from the desert

At the declaration of polls on Friday, four new candidates appeared. These are:

• Victor Waterson, for One Nation
• Lorraine Markwell, for Family First
• Yusuf Tahir, Independent
• Margherita Tracanelli, for the Climate Change Coalition

This brings the total for this year's election to 13, with a broad range of candidates covering almost the entire political spectrum.

The Prime Minister's spending promises for the coming election are starting to look like the kind of promises that could only come from somebody who has no expectation that he will ever have to keep them. The reckless abandon of his spending spree (in the form of both tax cuts and government expenditure) makes it quite clear that he can no longer be regarded as a safe pair of hands to manage the nation's finances and the economy, nor can he fit into the mould of a fiscal conservative.

David Leyonhjelm is standing for the "Liberty and Democracy Party". At first glance their positions appear to be liberal, but on closer examination they are libertarian. Interestingly while they have listed their free trade policy in their list of policies, they have not listed their "consumer protection" policy. Assuming they follow the usual libertarian line their position would be that consumer protection laws interfere with freedom to contract and should be abolished.

For people who like their politics to involve a mixture of nationalism and socialism (an accurate description despite risking the invocation of Godwin's law) and a hint of repressed racism, the Citizens Electoral Council is standing a candidate in Bennelong this year. "Gavin Spence" is a somewhat unknown quantity, with even the CEC web site declining to give any details on who he is and why we should take him seriously.

After 11 years of being the lead opponent of indigenous reconciliation, a Prime Minister who is desperate in the face of the a reputation-destroying defeat is trying to paint himself as the champion of the indigenous community. How gullible does he think voters are?

A few years ago he claimed to have discovered that there really might be something to global warming after all. Yet his actions since then have been entirely inconsistent with this belief. He claims that he wants to do something about global warming, but has dragged his feet at every opportunity.

A second independent candidate has announced his intention to contest Bennelong this year. Graeme Cordiner is a founding member of the Australian Independents Coalition and is running on a democracy and accountability platform. He wants to establish an Internet based voting system for Bennelong to allow voters to have their say on issues before Parliament, to establish bi-monthly community forums and to hold referenda on "all watershed legislation" - a term that appears to be targetted at things like the WorkChoices package.

Over the past month or so Bennelong voters have been on the receiving end of weekly letters from the Prime Minister. At least most Bennelong voters have been on the receiving end of such letters. You see, apparently the Prime Minister is somewhat miffed at me so he has taken my name off his mailing list. As a result, each week our letterbox gets a letter from the Prime Minister addressed solely to my wife, with my name left out of it. For comparison, a letter from Maxine McKew a week or so ago was addressed to both of us.

Independent candidate for Bennelong, David Allen, has scored a brief write-up on page 5 of the Northern District Times this week. His election platform is apparently not to be elected at all - he told the Northern District Times that he "won't win Bennelong but [he] want[s] a discussion about what's important." The central issue he is pushing appears to be concern about rising foreign debt. He still does not appear to have a web site. The article does not introduce anything new - its main significance is that it confirms he has not dropped out of the race.

In the final season of The West Wing, character Josh Lyman explains to a campaign team that elections are not a fight over the answers &emdash; they are a fight over what the questions will be, and the side that sets the questions wins because the questions will centre around that side's strengths.

Today's candidates forum organised by the Ryde/Epping Grey Power group was attended by candidates from all parties contesting Bennelong but one. No prizes for guessing which candidate did not attend, preferring not to give other candidates better exposure by his own presence and sending former staffer and Member for Lane Cove, Anthony Roberts, in his place.

In attendance were Anthony Roberts, representing the Prime Minister for the Liberals, Lindsay Peters for the Greens, Maxine McKew for the ALP, Peter Goldfinch for the Australian Democrats, and Robyn Peebles for the Christian Democrats.