There was a by-election yesterday

and I consider myself fortunate I did not have to vote in it. This has nothing to do with the mud-slinging which was going on between the two candidates put forward by the major parties. What really worries me is the more than twenty percent of people who voted for the Greens.  I wonder how many of these people have actually read the Greens manifesto.

Manifesto is particularly apt in this case. The Greens are what I have heard described as a "watermelon" party. They are green on the outside and red on the inside. They are a party with communist like policies. The policies often sound wonderful but, if you really think about them, they won't work. Communism doesn't work. 

This is not about people being rich or poor or equal in all things. It is about what will actually work and allow everyone to eat. The Greens are all for making sure there is more public housing. That may well be a good thing in itself. They are also about increasing the size of the population by bringing in more refugees. The problem is that we already have a housing issue and other issues. We brought in 528,000 people last year - into a country which has a major housing issue. We have made the situation worse not better. We don't have the land for housing, the infrastructure like roads and power and sewage are not there. The materials to build houses are in very short supply and the prices have gone up so far that they are becoming unaffordable. 

The Greens say this is not an economic issue. They simply say that taxes, especially taxes on "big business" have to rise. At the same time as they are saying this they are endeavouring to stop all mining and make sure that nobody builds houses on areas that "belong" to "First Australians". They cheered recently when the greater part of a small remote town was "returned" to the local aboriginal community - without the people who lived there even being consulted. 

Their policies are full of contradictions and economic impossibilities and yet people will vote for them. They vote for them because they keep being portrayed as "saviours" of the environment, as the only party which has the plans to halt "global warming".  The major parties are worried but they won't condemn them too hard because they know that people will still believe they are nice, friendly, warm and cuddly tree huggers who have the answer to our environmental woes.

It is time we taught people to read party policies and the economic consequences of the same.