I have just returned from an ALP (Australian Labor Party) branch meeting in Frankston. With such anti-labor legisaltion recently past by federal parliament the main topic of discussion was a local town planning and development issue. Isn't it always the case, in any campaign, local issues can trump federal issues. People are more concerned about some residential area being rezoned light commercial so some white goods shops and such can be built near a major intersection.
So troubled is the issue that a local councillor was maligned even though he wasn't present to answer.
Here's me, concerned about some of the major issues affecting our nation and all my fellow members are hot under the collar about something that is to my eyes at least, a fate accomplie. We have the AWB (Australian Wheat Board) having severe memory problems about the redirection of UN money to Saddam Hussein and our elustrious 10 years now PM no longer saying that the evil refugee/asylum seekers threw their children overboard, but rather, they deliberately sank the boat! Military sources even contradicted him on that as well. What is it about this man that makes him believe such things when eye witnesses say the contrary?
WE are fighting in two foreign wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) when we used to do humanitarian work with our military. Australian are targets in Bali and elsewhere, and the Federal Government seeks to curtail centuries old rights we have in order to catch terrorists, when all the evidence points to old fashioned good police work turns up the evidence, not the detention without trial, arrests without warrant etc.
Let's say I am very dissapointed and I can't wait for the Federal Election to begin in earnest.
