Speak from heart

Very soon we will have both state and federal candidates knocking on our doors and filling our letterboxes, but will we elect a representative who will actually represent us?

The dilemma we face in an adversarial style parliament that is party based, is that almost invariably the candidates will represent their parties' views over and above those of the people in the electorate.

It would make our selection much easier if candidates spoke from the heart rather than from prepared scripts or down party lines. If they said what they thought, not what they thought we’d like to hear, if they then voted on issues based on what their electorate wanted and needed and if they were willing to go against their party’s stance accordingly, we would have more faith in the people we elect.

Our representatives are elected to make decisions based on our behalf, yet we are rarely told what our representative has said in the party room and why a vote was cast in the way it was.

There may be valid reasons but we are never told what they are. Once a person is elected, the accountability to the electorate seems to mean little.

A perfect example was the ludicrous situation last year when the electorate was asked to give a formal opinion on an issue and 62 per cent said that same sex couples should be entitled to legally marry, yet our elected representative cast his vote in parliament contrary to what the electorate chose.

It is important that we know how the candidates will cast their votes on major issues such as climate change, the economy, infrastructure, asylum seekers, indigenous recognition, migration, energy, taxation, law and order, wages, national debt, education, the environment etc. But that won’t happen.

The glossy pamphlets, political slogans and party-political ideology will be trotted out and we will be left with the same confusion that many of us face in the voting booth, “Which one is the least worst?”

Greg Tuck, Warragul