The big analysis of the first week of the 2025 federal election campaign and an interview with the community independent candidate in Dickson, Ellie Smith.
Thanks Eddy and David for continuing to interview independent candidates. None are running in my electorate this time but I wish all those who put their community before party well.
The major parties continue to neglect most communities and cynically use the public purse to distribute infrastructure spends on marginal seats. We need freedom from the major parties to move forward so that they at least listen to us.
Exactly. I believe., as I said in the podcast that the party system is in an existential crisis. The reasons the parties were formed are mostly anachronistic for a whole range of reasons. It didn’t help that both major parties were captured by neo cons in the late 70s and we’ve had to put up with that failed policy for half a century. But we are no longer in an industrial economy. They’ve basically destroyed an accessible middle class. Yet treat everyone like they have money - by charging for things we either don’t need (private roads and airports etc) or already pay for.
The Greens may be an exception insofar as their formation was later. And they’re not beholden to the new con. But the structures their members may have to work within might render it irrelevant too. Time will tell. The greens may be more agile too.
The far right parties are caught in the old paradigm. Of course they have no legitimacy or very little legitimacy and are arguing against a system that benefitted many of them. DL
Thanks Eddy and David for continuing to interview independent candidates. None are running in my electorate this time but I wish all those who put their community before party well.
The major parties continue to neglect most communities and cynically use the public purse to distribute infrastructure spends on marginal seats. We need freedom from the major parties to move forward so that they at least listen to us.
Exactly. I believe., as I said in the podcast that the party system is in an existential crisis. The reasons the parties were formed are mostly anachronistic for a whole range of reasons. It didn’t help that both major parties were captured by neo cons in the late 70s and we’ve had to put up with that failed policy for half a century. But we are no longer in an industrial economy. They’ve basically destroyed an accessible middle class. Yet treat everyone like they have money - by charging for things we either don’t need (private roads and airports etc) or already pay for.
The Greens may be an exception insofar as their formation was later. And they’re not beholden to the new con. But the structures their members may have to work within might render it irrelevant too. Time will tell. The greens may be more agile too.
The far right parties are caught in the old paradigm. Of course they have no legitimacy or very little legitimacy and are arguing against a system that benefitted many of them. DL