Thursday, March 29, 2012

Democracy Rule 1a #auspol

Why do you think it is that a large proportion of Australian's are more interested in sport than in politics?

It strikes me as *weird* that Australian's can spend hours and hours watching football but they will only spend moments thinking about and participating in our democracy.

Our democracy is so poorly considered that we worry about it once every three or four years. And then we usually just vote how our parents voted a decade previously.

But football is so valued that we head off to the local match every Saturday, we wear the team colours and wave the team flag from our car window, we insist that our children learn the rules and play all the grades up until they become obese at 16 or so. We shed tears at the funerals of football greats and prop up the club bar with our mates until midnight.

And then we have the gall to blame our politicians for the state of our polity.

So here is the rule - I call it the Democracy Rule 1a.

You value sport over politics - no worries mate? You can watch it and play it and talk about it all day on polling day. Don't bother heading over to the polling booth because you won't get in. You won't be accepted if you fail the simple test at the gate that demonstrates that you have some basic knowledge and are engaged with the political process.

A simple test that has half a dozen questions like "What is a half Senate election"? Sorry - ain't no questions about football at that gate Virginia.

If football is your passion and your religion - that's cool. The rest of us will vote on your behalf.

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