Family Who?
November 22nd 2006 02:36
Political ads are annoying at the best of times, but the latest campaign by Family First, in the lead up to the Victorian election, really takes the cake. In one of these ads a young woman tells us not to vote for the “extreme” Greens because “it’d be chaos”. Another ad depicts an angry looking man, snarling that he wants to vote for someone “who’ll put my family first”. Presumably the late night version includes some choice expletives. Yet I feel I know the Greens better than I do Family First. In the lead up to this Saturday’s election in Victoria, four of Family First’s last five media releases have been generalising pot-shots at the Greens.
One such attack tells us that “The extreme Greens want to take us back to the days of riding horseback”. I wonder if they would be aware of the opinion of Sir Winston Churchill who described the switch from horseback to the motor car as one of the great calamities of modern times. Family First has long campaigned for lower petrol prices and generally supported the unabated use of the car. So why do they even bother having a link to a so-called “environmental policy” on their web site?
I won’t be voting for the Greens, but if Family First think they’ll win my vote – or sympathy – by attacking that party, they’re wrong. They should focus on telling us what their own policies are and how they will improve Victoria. Or is that once they’ve told us they’ll ban pokies and lower the cost of petrol, they are fresh out of ideas?
Family First seem to have gone for a catchy and superficially appealing name, and not much else. After two years I still don’t think I really know what Steve Fielding stands for. He’s all for the family, but what about families that don’t look like his? What if you don’t have kids? What if you’re gay? What if you’re not Christian? Perhaps his party should be called the Middle-Class, Christian Families First.
I won’t be voting for the Greens, but if Family First think they’ll win my vote – or sympathy – by attacking that party, they’re wrong. They should focus on telling us what their own policies are and how they will improve Victoria. Or is that once they’ve told us they’ll ban pokies and lower the cost of petrol, they are fresh out of ideas?
Family First seem to have gone for a catchy and superficially appealing name, and not much else. After two years I still don’t think I really know what Steve Fielding stands for. He’s all for the family, but what about families that don’t look like his? What if you don’t have kids? What if you’re gay? What if you’re not Christian? Perhaps his party should be called the Middle-Class, Christian Families First.
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