the swinging voter

Most elections these days are centered on wooing the swinging voter. These are, after all, the kinds of people who change their vote, so running campaigns that pander to their interests is understandable. The problem is that the kind of issues that are likely to tip their vote one way or the other are not necessarily those that are at the foreground of the national interest. They may be significant, but their importance is overblown. So it is with the current election.

Rearing it's head once again is the 'boat people' debate. I have seen the figures that demonstrate that about 2% of all 'illegals' coming to Australia use this channel. The other 98% come in through the airports. Yet one would think that this paltry figure was actually an all-consuming avalanche bearing down on the fragile Australian hinterland, bringing with it pestilence and a queue-jumping mentality. It's absurd and immoral and at least one of the major political parties should be honest enough to say so. Instead we have a mutual rush to the trenches.

The Government and the Opposition are both wedded to the so-called centre ground where these swingers and aspirationals apparently reside. It's not necessarily a moderate or a rational centre. After all, the middle can be the place of greatest ignorance and prejudice, of poor awareness and shameful apathy. And of course, the centre has shifted over the three decades or so that I have been interested in politics. It further to the right these days. Significantly further.