The state election campaign

has now officially begun. The Premier has been to see the Governor and we now have until 19th March to make up our minds - unless we vote early or put in a postal vote.

What we now have to endure is a continuing election campaign which will become increasingly full of "promises which cannot be kept". Both major parties will promise extraordinary things in their attempt to form the next government. The independent candidates will make all sorts of bizarre commitments they cannot possibly hope to keep too.

I have already reached the point where I am simply throwing the election material from all parties into the bin. I am not even reading it. Instead I have gone to their websites. I have read their policies - some of which are very strange indeed - and I will now try to listen intelligently to their voices as they try and tell me this or that or something else. It will be hard because I am already more than irritated by their corflutes. They are littering the stobie poles which carry the lines which bring the electricity which allows them to pollute the airwaves with neatly avoided answers to questions. A photograph saying "vote (1) for me" does nothing to help me make up my mind.

I wonder what would happen if we ran elections rather differently? What if we told everyone who wanted to be a candidate they could no longer have corflutes? What if we also told them that they could put just one piece of election material in our letter boxes? What if we said they would have just one chance to publicly debate the issues? What if we banned all "how to vote" material at election booths? I would so love not to have to prowl past saying, "I know how I am going to vote thank you."

My guess is that we would be just as well informed. We might even be better informed. We might actually learn more from less material. It might be written more carefully, less sensationally. It might actually attempt to educate us about what the candidates and the parties really stand for. 

And we will have to do this all over again for a federal election a little later in the year....