If I were elected to office …

I would erect at every entrance to parliament house in Canberra a giant statue of Michael Leunig’s Mr Curly (and his ducks of course), in celebration of optimism, simplicity, whimsy, beauty and the fragility of nature. This would be a constant reminder to every MP and every visitor that there is more to serving the Australian public than budgets, bureaucracy and the bottom line.

For a less dollar-driven parliament, vote 1. Me.

The Michael Leunig Website

[This content was originally posted to Google Buzz, #48]

If I were elected to office …

I’d change Australia Day from 26th January to 27th May. Why? Because 26th January marks the day when European settlers claimed this land under the fiction that it was uninhabited by people. 27th May marks the date in 1967 when the Australian people overwhelmingly voted “Yes” in the constitutional amendment referendum, changing the constitution to recognise the Aboriginal people of this land.

For a national day that respects all Australians, Vote 1. Me.

Fact sheets – National Archives of Australia

Sam Hilton 29 Jul 2010: – okay. you’ve got my vote Lachlan.

[This content was originally posted to Google Buzz, #47]

If I were elected to office …

I’d abolish the state governments and have just two tiers of government, national and local, and thus eliminate a lot of the duplication, bureaucracy, and inconsistent laws around the nation. Actually, this change would take more than being elected to office, it would require me to be a divinely appointed emperor with supreme power.

So pray for No1 divine intervention for Me.

[This content was originally posted to Google Buzz, #46]

Yesterday, the Federal Minister for Sport Kate Ellis was in town promising to do something about fighting childhood obesity by offering $140,000 for feasibility studies for the construction of soccer fields in the region. A start, I suppose, but …

If I were elected to office …

I’d ban the advertising of junk food to kids during children’s TV programming. It has been called for for many years but no government has had the guts to take on the advertisers and commercial TV networks in this manner.

Regulating the promotion of harmful addictions? Just get on with it and do it. Vote 1. Me.

[This content was originally posted to Google Buzz, #45]

If I were elected to office …

I’d honour Australia’s commitment to the UN treaties prohibiting torture, and do something about that notorious torturer of the Australian people, MasterChef.

To this end I would take all the participants of MasterChef (presenters, judges, contestants, producers) and lock them in a room and play an endless loop^* of MasterChef to them with all its hyper-mega-ultra over-dramatic superlativisation of the most mundane circumstances, with all its vapid flashbacks, flash forwards and replays, with all its tedious drawn out manufactured ‘suspense’, with all its ridiculous claptrap appraisals of food, with all its crass musical overlay – I’d play it all back to them endlessly until their stomachs churn with retch-inducing convulsions and they promise to never ever ever be involved in the production of such lazy, tired and unimaginative TV ever again.

Vote 1 for me, while I go and chill down.

^*Technically, there has been so many hours of this bilious tripe produced that I wouldn’t need to loop it at all.

[This content was originally posted to Google Buzz, #40]