I asked my friend's little daughter what she wanted to be when she grows up.
She said she wanted to be Prime Minister some day.
Both her parents, Labor supporters, were standing there,
so I asked her,"If you were Prime Minister what would be the first thing you would do?"
She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all those poor people on benefits."
Her parents beamed, and said, "Welcome to the Labor Party!"
"That's a worthy goal!" I told her, and continued,
"But you don't have to wait until you're Prime Minister to do that.
You can come over to my house, mow the lawn, pull weeds, sweep my drive and I'll pay you $25. Then I'll take you over to that homeless chap who hangs out in front of the store. You can give him the $25 to use toward food."
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked,
"Why doesn't the homeless man come over and do the work himself and you can just pay him the $25?"
I smiled and said, "Welcome to the Liberal Party."
Her parents still aren't speaking to me.

Gday...

a very basic, but not inaccurate, explanation of 'political persuasion'  

Personally, back in my teens I had the 'social' attitude displayed by the young girl in the 'story' as my family was very poor - even by the standards of the 1950s/1960s - and we struggled to have any sort of existence ... and I got tired of suffering the jibes and humiliation of being 'disadvantaged' from those who were not 'in our boat'. I believed that there should be a more equitable distribution of wealth. Labor-leaner?

However, by the time I was in my mid-30s, after putting myself through night-school, working three jobs to get enough money to put a deposit on a block of land and then build a home etc etc, I began to lean more strongly to the credo that one gets out of life what one puts in ... hard work, discipline and tenacity rewards. Liberal-leaner?

These days I am a fervent independent as, whilst I believe that we, as a community, MUST do what we can for those who GENUINELY are disadvantaged, (Labor-leaner) the opportunity to better oneself is always there - given hard work, discipline, tenacity (and probably luck ) (Liberal-leaner?).

But the problem these days is that those who are representing the major parties are too far removed from - or no longer remember - what it was like to not have 'advantage'. Some rare exceptions on both sides I guess, but speaking generally - self-interest is the major motivator of our elected officials.

Again, thanks for posting that 'story' ... I doubt we will ever have a government elected that will be able to achieve 'betterment for all' ... as the expression 'tarred with the same brush' indicates, I cannot support either side of what has degenerated to what we call politics.

And all of that is further complicated by the general apathy of the voting public - so we quite probably get the politicians we deserve  

Cheers - come the revolution - John

Probably the reason I've never voted and never will John...

I spose I've been a swinger most of my life but really,, it makes me sick when I see SOME of these people in parliment and the way they use our money for themselves like a bottomless pit of cash. Pension for life etc.   No company in the world does that for their workers. Look at Joe Hockey as a student leading campus to lobby the government to pay Uni fees. Then 25 years later as the man holding the purse strings he tries to take the money FROM the students. Then he decides to leave parliament and is entitled to his taxpayer funded pension but at the same time lands a job as the ambassador to the USA which attracts a huge salary. So he double dips.   Remember he is the guy that told ordinary working Aussies that the times of entitlements were over and no pensions , or lower pensions for you.

Better be careful with this one. It may get shut down...

Hi all,
Thanks for your input but I think I'll close this now.  In our experience, political discussions don't end well.  Thanks for your understanding.