THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE
Election day is 29 August. The Secret Harbour by-election is hotting up.
Labor has been spreading gifts around the electorate and running plenty of photo opportunities with their candidate front and centre. They do not want to lose this seat. The Liberals are trying to make noise — a few visits, and a $30 million push for the Karnup train station. Federal Liberals are in town too, so the photos will be coming. I do not see them making much impact. People want change, and One Nation is what is on offer.
This region is middle class: trades and hands-on workers, and a lot of retirees. Talking to retirees, they do not much like Pauline — which is probably why One Nation has just put up a seniors policy. The tradies are with them.
A lot of people want Labor out. Look at the inaction: energy costs, cost of living, drugs, mental health, suicide, immigration. People are suffering and what they get back is silence and shiny distractions from the real issues. The Liberals have not offered much either, and dropping net zero has cost them voters.
So One Nation looks like the choice. The problem is that it is the illusion of choice.
All three parties land in the same place on the questions that decide our direction. Look at where they sit on AUKUS, and on Israel. The loss of sovereignty governs everything downstream of it — they can spin the issues and the fixes all they like, but our allegiances set the frame, and we are further into vassal-state territory than we have ever been.
Independents and small parties are the path back. What they can converge on is a common policy of Australian neutrality and independence: a defence plan built around this continent, and a united, peace-oriented Asia-Pacific approach rather than someone else’s appetite for division and America-first. Alongside truth, integrity and accountability — which is what people actually want.
People can see that government’s focus has shifted from them to international policy. They can see it has lost its mandate to seek the best for its own citizens. Our leaders, and the groups making decisions out of sight, have forgotten who they represent.
The memo attached sets out our policy on transparency: reversing the drift into secrecy and demanding truth, integrity and accountability at every level of government. How a democracy is supposed to work for the people.