Aside from the possible fines for not voting, I wanted to know the reason why people were voting for their chosen choice.
Obviously I do estimate there are many who are still yet to form a firm decision, for a few reasons, one of which for me is that the policies of both the major parties are so similar, yet so different, that finding a decision that meets me is not an easy find.
Even one that I can strongly agree with on many issues is hard to come by.
So I thought I’d put the poll out there to a large audience of voters, who seem to have had their hearts set on 50+% Labor for a while now.
The poll asked the question Which is the most important issue or policy that is influencing the vote.
And the available answers were some common ones. IR Laws, Telecommuications, Tax Cuts, Health, Education, Environmnet, and Other.
The results were more predictable than the Melbourne Cup (Efficient was unexpected), the lead started and maintained with IR Laws, currently at 35.4%, which suggests to me that the likely isn’t in favour of WorkChoices, due to the scare campaign, and people believe the scare campaign from the unions that workers as a whole will be disadvantaged under WorkChoices.
This demonstrates at least, that many are being influenced by the scare campaign to me. I don’t see the real harm to many people being done, because of course, they will never be SIGNIFICANTLY disadvantaged, if at all. If anything, WorkChoices is the beginning of promoting a smarter Australia, because to get more $$$, the employees might be encouraged to take up skills courses.
The second was the topic of Environment, following the Global Warming issue mainly, but also would include Nuclear Power, and spending on Solar, and Water problems, etc. The environment wasn’t considered as important, with just 14.7% of the vote.
The third is Other, and that basically contained responses from people with a few other select issues as important issues (apparently, a government controls the economy directly, NOT), and a few other select minor issues, and some indicated that no real issue was best affecting their decision.
The fourth is a bit of a tie, Education and Health rate not so highly to the sample of 178, with just 11.3% for each of them as being the most influential issue for their vote.
Amazingly, Tax Cuts rated very lowly, confirming my post a few weeks back, the government shouldn’t be giving a tax cut, but rather, investing those dollars in infrastructure and doing what it can to ensure our future success. Or perhaps they can spend that $34 billion in tax money in sorting out the miserable state of Child Protection systems?
Telecommunications (this was afterall a Broadband community forum), rated lowest of all, with just 6.8% of voters stating it was a prime issue (not me).
Personally, at the moment, I consider Education an important issue. If we want to be leaders on this planet, we need smarter Australians, we need to stop with the lower levels of education and put a lot of what we can into education, well educated Australians should become good productive members of society, and this has flow on effects through all different chains, such as Crime. A well educated person might not need to resort to petty theft.
Jobs. A well educated person might not be unemployed.
Infrastructure. A well educated person can be used to develop, innovate or implement infrastructure.
Health. A well educated person can become a highly educated medical professional and save lives, and start to lead the world in saving lives.
Environment. A well educated person might solve our power thirst and environmental issues, in an innovative manner.
Education. A well educated person can be reused to educate more people.
Overall, we would be a smarter nation, and overall, we would see a positive lift, in many, many areas, which could indeed change several parts of our nation.
Naturally, that might be radical investment to get that acheivement, but sure enough, putting the dollars into education solves many issues long term. Without educated members of society, you spend a lot of your dollars basically helping them do what the higher educated can do anyway.
The future is in a smarter nation, not in one which focuses majorly on the environment, not one which focuses majorly on IR laws and unions, not one which tries to give back a tax cut, and not one which invests majorly in telecommunications.
Put your dollars into education, and ensure those dollars see a result of highly educated Australians as output.
You really only get out what you put in, so put in educated Australians, and you will get back a smarter nation nearly capable of solving many of the issues that would have required big spending to start with.
I still have no idea what both major parties expect to acheive by giving $30 billion back to taxpayers. They need that money. If not directly now, indirectly in the future. Put it away and get some interest off it to help pay for some of the promises. Help fund innovation. Help fund infrastructure improvement. Help fund research and development.
What are the people going to do with it? Not a lot of good from what I can gather. I don’t see much examples of Australians living a life of poverty either.
Anyway, as for me, still undecided, but by far I think Education is where the dollars need to go and remain for the long term.
Enjoy!