general election time (again)

the more humdrum an election seems the more mature a nation's politics are. the less excitement the better. governance is a staid business requiring nice judgment. it's not the place for inflamed passions or rabble-rousing. thankfully oz has no populist crackpots like howard dean or pat buchanan or hugo chavez.

both the parties standing are centrist and competent, so the country will be well governed whoever wins the election. as the incumbent government (centre-right) has been in power for 11 years i'm disposed toward a change (centre-left). it's never a good thing in a two-party system for one party to be frozen out of government for long periods. (that happened in 1972 and disaster ensued.) it's important both parties have some adminstrative experience at cabinet level.

my only qualm about a labour victory concerns the sticky business of racism. the labour party is forever trying to endow aborigines with rights (prerogatives, to be exact), peculiar to them, and denied to all other australians. this won't do. let's have no apartheid here, please.

meanwhile the attack ads have been fun. though they're still a long way short of lee attwater's standard of excellence. has any campaign been as much fun as the 1988 u.s. presidential race? not in my memory.