I don't remember who said this was a great country ruined by the calibre of its politicians. I first heard it from my father, but it could have been said by anyone about any country, I should imagine, and been equally true.

Australia now has a hung parliament with the balance of power in the hands of five independents. Goodness knows what the heads of the major parties are promising them in the subsequent cat fight to form government, but hopefully they believe it about as much as the electorate believed the promises made during the election: ie not at all, which is the reason so many blank ballot papers hit the boxes this year (voting in Australia is compulsory), and why the independents are in this position now.

In the general scheme of things, it probably won't make much difference who finally stands up there looking smug - although imo one of them already looks so smug that I won't be able to watch if that one wins. Too nauseating. It might affect which section of the community is squeezed the hardest this time around, but either way, with its greedy grasp on power so tenuous, neither party will able to do much. But they'll be able to say they're in power, won't they, and that's what this is all about.

Personally, I'd probably vote for anyone who genuinely put the good of the country before their own political futures, but if they did that, they wouldn't have a political future. They wouldn't get in, because political future/good of the country is often mutually exclusive. Getting in depends on telling people what they want to hear, and to hell with the country. So even if you start out full of idealism, the nifty footwork required to keep you in power long enough to implement your ideals has corrupted them long before you get there.

 And then there's the responsibility. Only the most personally ambitious would want it. Privilege and power, I always thought, carried responsibility, but in politics, your first responsibility is to stay in power, which makes everything else pretty much irrelevant.

Oh Helen, what a cynic you are!