Voting Independent! It seemed a good idea at the time!

The Blowfly was amused during the week to hear that the polling in Tony Windsor’s seat of New England and Rob Oakeshott’s seat of Lyne was not so encouraging. In fact it was downright discouraging and at least Rob Oakeshott is probably a goner!

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of someone who has voted for an Independent for the first time and see how it looks and feels.

Your parents probably discussed their political views around the kitchen table and you absorbed the vibrations of either the left or the right. And also the left or the right of the left or the right.

“In Menzies’ day”, your father would’ve said, and you simply absorbed his thinking without too much analysis because it wasn’t really encouraged.

One fine day, if you are in New England or Lyne, you become aware that there is an Independent presenting himself as a candidate.

You scratch your head because this causes you to start thinking-----and that hasn’t happened for a while!

You conclude that this is a pretty good idea because, frankly, the political system now stinks and you can’t really work out the differences between the 2 parties. Graham Richardson is starting to turn on his own party and Malcolm Fraser is turning on his. Politics is not like it used to be!

And the Nationals are hopeless. They don’t really know the depths of your despair in the bush and they always do the bidding of the Liberals.

And the Labor Party are a pack of mongrels who don’t know a thing about the problems of the bush either.

You weigh up the pros and cons of voting for an Independent and after 2 minutes of deep consideration and a few middies you experience a rush of blood to the head.

For the first time you decide to vote for an Independent.

Election day comes and your Independent wins. You are ecstatic that you can now look your candidate in the eye and say that you voted for him.

Not that you ever look him in the eye much. You don’t really mix in his circles.

Then you start to have some misgivings.

A hung Parliament occurs and for the first time in your lifetime Independents hold the balance of power. Their moment has arrived!

Unfortunately a little too much thinking seems to be going into this exercise. Certainly more than you are used to! Or expected!

Then shit really happens!

Rob Oakeshott makes his 17 minute speech and suddenly you realise that these 2 bastards have done you in the eye.

You don’t really appreciate that the only thing that your Independents are concerned about is what is good for your electorate.

These blokes are taking their role far too seriously for your liking and how can they support a carbon tax? Tony Abbott says the sky will fall in if a carbon tax comes in and he was one of John Howard’s favourites so he must be a good guy.

12 months later the phone rings and someone from a polling company asks you a number of questions.

Are we really surprised at the polling?