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Polling Place Stories

The Wife and I escaped to the gorgeous Hunter Valley this weekend, sans sprogs. 48 hours of guzzling wine and sleeping in, only interrupted briefly by our Civic Duty.

The charming town of Branxton was the site of the closest polling place to our B&B. On the way in, we got the usual barrage of propoganda by the various parties. You wouldn’t know it from looking at the eventual outcome from the votes cast in Branxton, but there was quite a diverse range of the political spectrum represented outside the polling place. I wonder how the old dear representing the Fred Nile party would feel to know that her entire day of leafletting resulted in only 24 votes (one of which was presumably hers)?

Anyway it got me wondering what the various party representatives do in the quieter moments. A healthy bit of sledging? Peeing in each other’s water bottles? Full-on Biffo?

It turns out that my mother-in-law was once a member of the Labor party and spent some time handing out how-to-vote cards. She ignored all the other parties and they ignored her. Boring! Surely there are some more interesting stories of unparliamentary conduct at the democratic coalface? crackbrainsnorkel.com has one - any others?

Don’t be dissin’ the BS

J got to personally issue a “shame, liar shame” to the rodent himself. After that bit of theatre, and in the slow hours in the late afternoon, the Liberal how-to-voter got talking to J & the Green. He said that he thought the whole campaign by the Liberals had been “Dishonest and negative” and that he’d voted Liberal out of habit, rather than choice…

Fear the robot hoardes of John Howard.