When I was a kid in the Australian country town of Childers, I used to take a walk up the street after school with my friends and we used to ignore the politicians who’d be there spouting their pleas and supplications for people’s votes.  It was strange listening to politics, being a 13 year old kid interested only in camping and fishing.  I was not even interested in girls yet, well I was, but I couldn’t let on to anyone.  One day my next door neighbor and I were walking uptown, which is actually downtown in America, but that discussion is for another day.  We stopped to listen to a politician who was railing against the incumbent member and telling everyone how he and his party could do a much better job.  We stood there listening for about 30 minutes, during which time we nudged each other each time he said something smart and nodded that he sounded honest. 

            Now before I go into details of what the man said I should explain the political parties in Australia.  Firstly, the main Conservative party in Australian politics is called The Australian Liberal Party.  Don’t think for a second that they are in any way liberal in policy though.  The name stems from the early days of the federation when the party advocated liberal trade and business policies against the parties which advocated protectionist trade policies.  They are pretty much like the Republicans in USA.  The other side of politics in Australia is mainly controlled by the Australian Labor Party which is a trade union influenced liberal socialist thinking party.  They advocate larger government, national health schemes, and government sponsored programs, and basically align themselves with the Democrat side of Politics in the USA.

            That evening I mentioned to my family that I had heard what Mr. Politician of the Liberal Party was saying in his campaign, and that it sounded good.  Well, you could have heard a pin drop, which, truth be told, was like the lull before the storm.  We were a family of workers and that’s all we would ever be and workers voted for the Labor Party and didn’t even listen to the “Liberal Party liars”.  For the next hour or so my older brother berated and railed at me about the virtues of the labor candidate and how good things “happened” when labor was in power, and that the conservatives just wanted to “rape” the country.