{"id":11880,"date":"2015-09-09T09:14:35","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T13:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=11880"},"modified":"2015-09-23T10:31:18","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T14:31:18","slug":"politics-as-usual-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-5\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Federal election is now a full month down, with about a month-and-a-half to go.
\nSpeaking for myself, I think it has been fairly sedate to date: one debate that was not much of a debate, canned speeches and announcements at various campaign stops \u2013 with 10 second sound bites dutifully reported on the evening news.
\nBut nothing that reaches out and grabs the electorate, shaking them to pay attention.
\nI suspect things will change rather rapidly this week.
\nThe campaign trail will start heating up as folks return to work after the summer and start paying attention (well, maybe) to what is being said by the leaders-to-be.
\nSo far, I haven\u2019t seen much in the way of true \u201cplatforms\u201d per se from all of the parties. Some have released more than others, and some have provided a relative dearth of information on what they would or wouldn\u2019t do if elected.
\nSome have costed out programs and proposals, some \u2013 being as charitable as possible \u2013 do not. I will leave it to you to decide of whom I am speaking lest I be accused of shilling for one party.
\nSo, I wait in anticipation to see what will be released by the major parties in the coming weeks that will address the serious issues facing our country: economy, environment, education, health. I am sure we will see some interesting ideas put forward by all of the parties (and of course some crackpot stuff too. It wouldn\u2019t be fun if we had nothing to criticize now, would it?).
\nEven fringe parties have at least one good idea that warrants consideration. It doesn\u2019t warrant a vote, mind you. One idea does not a leader make.
\nBut, it does make one think: what happens to all the great ideas once the election is over, the votes have been counted and the winner declared? Do they just wither and die? For the most part \u2013 unless they are co-opted, rejigged and then presented as new policy by the \u201cwinning\u201d party \u2013 the answer would be a resounding yes.
\nAnd why? Because that\u2019s the nature of politics. No party in their right mind \u2013 in the midst of an election \u2013 would say their opponent\u2019s idea is a good one. It necessarily leads to the question, \u201cthen why the heck should I vote for you?\u201d
\nBipartisanship, regardless of how wonderful and noble it sounds, is not a winning strategy. It does not fit with the adversarial nature of the current parliamentary system. Our system is not collaborative. It is combative. Except in the rarest circumstances, the winner takes all approach to governing is not conducive to folks from across the aisles getting together to work \u2013 jointly \u2013 on a solution to the nation\u2019s issues.
\nIf you can\u2019t take credit then why do it? If it isn\u2019t their idea, then it isn\u2019t going to happen.
\nYes, all MPs elected to the House of Commons are there to represent their constituents, but they do so within the context of their party\u2019s platform and policies. The particular policy of the opposition may make the most sense, but I would bet that the party of governance would be loath to say so.
\nUnless it is a free vote (and there are precious few of those), MPs will be whipped into voting with the party, regardless of whether they think it\u2019s the best idea or not.
\nSorry if that sounds cynical but that\u2019s reality. It\u2019s politics as usual.
\nUntil next week, stay informed, stay involved because this is \u2013 after all \u2013 Our Town.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas The Federal election is now a full month down, with about a month-and-a-half to go. Speaking for myself, I think it has been fairly sedate to date: one debate that was not much of a debate, canned speeches and announcements at various campaign stops \u2013 with 10 second sound bites dutifully reported […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-35C","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-02 03:15:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}