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Earlier this week, a Quadrant reader from North Sydney dropped a despairing note in the editor’s private mailbox. Now that voting is well underway to see who will replace Joe Hockey, it seems safe to publish it without fear of the accusation that this site might be engaging in naked (or even semi-clothed!) partisanship:
I have voted Liberal since 1974 when it became clear that Whitlam’s mob talked a good game but were no better than a rabble. I endured Malcolm Fraser controlling both houses and not cutting taxes. I kept voting Liberal as John Howard boosted middle-class welfare, although it must be said on balance that there was more good about the man than bad. Then Malcolm Turnbull became Opposition leader and, with grave misgivings, I still supported the Libs. With Rudd and Gillard in government, let me just say that I would have supported the Libs even if their leader was an amoeba.
Today I can’t say that. In terms of trust, honesty, integrity and core beliefs, amoebas represent a higher life form.
For the two years of Abbott’s prime ministership, Turnbull and his allies white-anted their own party and, with the complicity of his “friends” in the media (who aren’t his friends at all, as he will discover when the election is called), staged his coup before the WA by-election could refute the charge that Abbott would lose the next general election. I won’t mince words: Turnbull gives me the shivers, like a snake or spider crawling over your leg. The pompous arrogance of the man pollutes my TV every time his smug, self-satisfied mug appears.
So this time, for the first time in four decades, I won’t be putting the Liberal candidate at #1. In fact, just to teach Turnbull and his plotters a lesson, the Libs will be at the very bottom of the heap.
And do you know what? I will feel just great doing it.
It will be interesting to see how many other North Sydney voters of conservative bent share those same sympathies and intentions.
If you plan to follow tonight’s counting of votes, the link below leads to the Australian Electoral Commission’s website.
