HEY ALL -

Here’s a little letter I just sent to a bunch of my Liberal-voting friends (I’m sure we all have some, poor misguided fools that they are) – you might like to do the same before the weekend.

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So guys, I know you’re probably sick of all the election stuff already over the last month. I also know SOME of you are avowed Liberal supporters, although I’m not sure all of you are – so please don’t take offence at my assumption if I’ve got it wrong in any of your cases !

You’d all be aware of course, that I’m not a big fan of our current PM and his party. That doesn’t mean I hold it against you if YOU are, it just means we’ve got different hopes for this weekend’s outcome. Whichever way you look at it though, it’s going to be a pretty ‘historic’ vote this time ’round, so that’s why I’m writing you all this quick email.

Given the ‘importance’ of this election, I reckon if I can get even one Liberal voter to change their vote (whether it’s putting Labor, the Greens, The Democrats, or the Utter Raving Nutter party first – it doesn’t matter to me, as long as you don’t preference the Libs first or second), I’m doing a ‘good’ thing. Feel free to discard this email if you vehemently disagree with everything I’ve just said – otherwise please hear me out for two seconds.

I don’t know if you guys read the fantastic ‘Opinion Piece’ by Paul Keating in today’s Herald, but I think he’s hit the nail right on the head.The crux of his argument is that we need regime change to find our way back to the principals and values this great country once stood for.

As Keating says, the eleven years we’ve endured under the present regime have seen a tragic errosion in the quality of our public discourse, and the very social fabric that underpins what it means to be ‘Australian’. Howard has not only championed, but actually encouraged a ‘turning inwards’, while seeking to solidify a ‘fortress Australia’ mentality to serve his own ends.

Our reputation overseas has suffered undeniable harm thanks to a whole range of issues such as mandatory detention, Tampa, our participation in the Iraq fiasco, and our refusal to ratify Kyoto. Believe me – I have family and numerous friends overseas – I know what people in other countries say about Aussies these days.

Domestically, we’ve seen the Liberals tear our public health & education systems to tatters, destroy housing affordability, and try to shaft everyone but the ‘big end of town’ with their onerous Work Choices legislation. We’ve heard ‘non-core promises’, ‘one day promises’, and outright lies. Yet perplexingly, the majority of Australians (myself excluded … but hey, you get that) have up till now continued to vote Howard & friends back in.

Now Johnnie has the arrogance to try and tell us that “change for the sake of change itself is meaningless”, and “you can’t change government without changing the country”. I think he’s missed the point.

All the opinion polls aren’t pointing to a Liberal defeat because people want change “for it’s own sake” – they want change because they are whole-heartedly sick of HOWARD, his party, and their inwardly focussed, self-serving policies.

The whole point is that the tide seems to have turned against Howard precisely because the electorate WANTS to “change [our] country”. We’re sick of the fear-mongering, the half-truths and distortions, the grubby little back-room deals which lead to things like the AWB scandal or sending our boys overseas to fight in a “War on Terror” which is ultimately America’s brain-child, and not our own.

We’re sick of a government that funnels money out of our hospitals, our public schools and universities, our welfare system, and our pockets via the GST and fuel excises, then pumps it in ever-increasing fistfuls into privately outsourced ‘detention camps’ which lock up innocent people seeking a better life in our country and the occasional Australian citizen, into Bush’s war machine, into pointless rounds of so-called ‘informational’ advertising designed to convince us we’ve “never had it so good”, into hastily approved (or worse) ‘pork-barrel’ projects to prop up Liberal and National seats, and into the pockets of its mates with their corporate kick-backs and high-income tax breaks.

Granted, there’s *always* a chance Kevin Rudd may turn out to be no better than John Howard in the long haul (although somehow I doubt it), but at least he’s paying lip service to a vision for the future which doesn’t involve more of the same feckless horrors above, which the Liberals have doled out to the people of Australia for the last eleven years.

THAT my friends, is why I’m hoping Kevin 07 comes through this Saturday, and Australia finally gets to see ‘Howard’s End’.

So please guys, as one friend to another I’m urging you to think carefully.

Please make your votes count this Saturday, and join me in letting the Liberals know that (to paraphrase TV’s Big Brother) – “JOHN, IT’S TIME TO LEAVE THE HOUSE” !!!

- Authorised by (your name and suburb go here)