Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about the election. No, I am not going to grumble about the blandness of Sunday night’s Presidential debate where the man with the blue tie and the man with the red tie seemed incapable of answering questions in any detail or without abusing the other tie. I am not going to go there.
I want to grumble about the visual pollution of those core flute election posters which an army of party volunteers put on stobie poles and fences the moment the election is called. The posters are a product of PR firms who are paid a small fortune to get the magic mix of colour, font and image, and members who have no real say on anything important in their centralised and media driven parties compete to put them up in the most visible locations – or least above the other candidates’ posters. Such is the local electoral contest.
But what do these election posters really tell us? The Liberal and Labor posters tell us nothing other than the name of their local candidate. But if we are to elect these people to represent our local community, surely we need to know more about them than simply whether they play for the blue team or the red team?
Lacking the brand power of the major parties, the smaller players have slogans on their posters. The Greens urge us to vote Green if we care, the Christians will save our nation, and Family First has “strong values”. But I am not sure what I should care about, what the threat to the nation is, or what values are strong.
And so we are left with the smiling visages of politicians looking down at us from light poles all over Adelaide. Presumably the posters are supposed to reference other political propaganda or remind us of candidates we have seen or heard elsewhere, or is it that we might just vote for someone because of the way they look?
I want to see election posters that talk about addressing homelessness and housing stress, about raising income support payments to the poorest people in society and funding services to vulnerable and disadvantaged people – and about using taxes and government policy to make a fairer society. When I see those posters, I will know there is a real election contest.
But until then, I am Greg, and I am grumbling.
This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at: https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-2/
First Published: 13 August 2013
