Take your pick

I THINK over the past couple of weeks I’ve made my feelings pretty clear with regards to the upcoming election: Don’t vote if you want to send a message to our representatives over their complete and utter inability to represent us in any meaningful way. So what to do?

The best choice is to simply not vote, but I understand that this option invites a rather large and unacceptable fine.

A donkey vote signals you are either a complete moron or you just don’t give a stuff, except of course about incurring the said fine.

So if you feel you have to turn out then write, very clearly at the top of the paper: “None of the below”.

I’m sure that despite my best efforts to encourage civil disobedience and anarchy some will still feel compelled to go through the motions, making a cursory effort to comply with their civic duties. To help these poor souls out, here is my quick guide to tomorrow’s election.

You can immediately forget anyone who represents the Greens. They basically are anoraks and wear cardigans.

They are great at foreseeing problems and remarkably, have almost no solutions to any of them. Ask them about mortgage stress, casualisation of the workforce, wage theft and their eyes will glaze over as they defend themselves with “but what about the environment”.

If you want to waste your vote and are totally impractical with no grounding in reality, this is the way to go.

Similarly, anyone that has Animal Justice Party, Shooters Fishers and Farmers and Victorian Socialists next to their names should be avoided at all costs.

The first two parties need to get a life and the last, the Socialists, need to be reminded that “you lost” back in the day and your policies are no more acceptable or realistic today than they were in the ’50s and early ’60s.

In Lara we have John Eren, Minister for Sport, sitting on a huge margin and he will obviously win.

The Liberals, after deciding not to field candidates in safe Labor seats throughout the state, finally handed the poisoned chalice to Melissa Di Pasquale just two weeks ago.

Poor thing, but why don’t we look at it as a learning curve for her?

John’s achievements over the past couple of years are laudable and I fully expect him to be in the Guinness Book of Records this time next year as the Selfie King of the Asia Pacific.

Those expecting the minister to look after the disadvantaged areas of the north are still hopeful and waiting of course.

Geelong Ward has three “interesting” candidates.

Christine Couzens’ claim to fame is that she was caught out lying to the Addy over safeinjecting rooms, comments she emailed to the paper but later denied she said them.

Outside of that I can’t really think of anything she might have done to improve the amenities of her electorate.

Freya Fidge has the distinction of being the first candidate in history to refuse debating her policies for the future with the other candidates. Perhaps she doesn’t have any.

Darryn Lyons, our own miniTrump. Love him or hate him, there’s nothing in-between.

Depending where you sit he’s either a self-promoting, selfabsorbed narcissist, who’s only interest is self-aggrandisement or, a go-getter who put Geelong on the map.

Interestingly the Liberal Party didn’t go to any great lengths to recruit a previously self-declared Liberal (Darryn) so why would you. He continually denies he was a significant contributor to the sacking of the toxic council and attempts to rewrite history in his favour by blaming everyone else for his failures.

His latest faux par on Twitter asking if Richard Marles is gay, merely reinforces that he’s Trump’s mini-me, given to irrational foot-in-mouth outbursts with barely a thought to reality or the truth. Vote for him at your own peril.

South Barwon has Andrew Katos, Liberal, and Darren Cheesem an for Labor. Andrew is the only politician I know who is still approachable and still a normal concerned person, even after being elected.

Despite representing the forces of evil he is a shoo-in and quite rightly so.

Cheeseman is just a Labor Party hack more concerned with advancing himself in the party than representing us. He chose the wrong side in the RuddGillard debacle and couldn’t hang on to Corangamite at the federal level. Waste of a vote.

That leaves the Bellarine with Lisa Neville, Labor, and Brian McKiterick for the Libs. Not much of a contest here as Lisa hasn’t done much wrong in her portfolio as Police Minister.

Like all Labor incumbents probably hasn’t done that much for the electorate either but hey, no one’s perfect. Brian, 40 years service in the police and twice mayor of the Surf Coast, but not a huge profile.

There you go, the only honest appraisal you’ll see this week and the best reason in the world not to vote.