This got me thinking. The reason that so many of us were disillusioned with regards to both of the major political parties is because we have been lacking, in this country, any real drive for leadership and any real vision for what this country should be looking to become in the future. That this country this country needs a massive overhaul in how it’s governed. This country needs a proper, out with the old in with the new revolution.

And with Saturday’s result, I’m pretty sure that we got exactly what we were asking for. We got a hung parliament. We got two political parties having to completely rethink their approach to government and the electorate. We got the start of the revolution we so casually were joking about before the polls closed.

Election day saw the outright rejection of the political status quo. A rejection the roots of which can be seen to start spreading in the lead up to the 2007 election.

Back then, we saw Kevin Rudd sweep into power on a message of change and the promise of a different approach to government to that held by the long-standing incumbent Liberal government.

What happened after that euphoric moment is the direct cause of what happened last week.

What we saw happen was Kevin Rudd fail to live up to his political rockstar profile. Lacking in confidence, the government became reactionary. Responding violently to the slightest sniff of dislike in any opinion poll instead of pushing forward on their brave agenda of significant social and political change. The only thing that saved them from outright loathing during this time was that the opposition was struggling to find its way after losing the leader that had been a firm, guiding hand throughout their 11 years in government.

This, however, left Australians with a dilemma. After becoming completely fed-up with the Liberal government, they sought change in a Labor one that failed to deliver. What could they possibly do now?

Well, they spoke loud and they spoke firm. Their message was that they were not happy. In fact, they were so unhappy that The Greens gained such an increase in their vote that they managed to pick up a lower house seat in a general election (a first for the party) with the total result being a hung parliament in which neither of the two major parties gaining enough seats to form a government outright.

This leaves us with three very different possibilities for what can happen inside the House of Representatives. First, the independents and the Greens members side with Labor to form a minority government that’s likely to have a reasonably aligned Senate (come 1 July 2010). Secondly, they could side with the Coalition to form a Liberal/National minority government that would have a less agreeable Senate. Thirdly, no agreement is reached, no government is formed and Australia is forced back to the ballot box to have another go at picking enough people from one side to sit in parliament that they can form a government.

In any of those cases, what we’re going to get is a totally different discourse coming out Canberra than what we’ve been used to. We’re already seeing a change in the discussion moving away from what one side won’t do, to what each side will do. It’s a change in focus that our political system has desperately needed.

The potential onset of a minority government means that for the first time in a long time we’re going to get a government that is perhaps more interested in dealing with actual issues rather than pushing their own agenda. This is something that has been missing from federal politics for quite some time now and is something that I, for one, am more than happy to see return.

This has the potential to be the revolution that we need, and it’d probably work a lot better than our drunken, armed one.

The answer, in short, is that it was a plan and – really – the only plan that had any sort of basis in reality. It doesn’t matter that it probably wouldn’t have worked out; the mere fact that someone turned up here with an idea for what they wanted the CBD to become was enough to get the majority of the population on side.

But how did it get to this point? How did we end up in a situation where we’d be accepting of any proposal, regardless of it’s practicality or potential to achieve its goal?

Well, that line of thinking is the result of a systemic line of failures across a variety of areas within the novocastrian population. Everyone from Newcastle Council to our state and federal politicians to the people themselves have failed to do their part in making sure that our city had the best chance to improve itself, to move beyond our industrial past and prepare itself for the future.

Take a glancing look at Newcastle Council and it’s pretty easy to see how come nothing good ever came out of there. The councillors themselves seem to be incapable of doing anything and the paid council officers are equally useless. The failure of a previous General Manager (who’s name escapes me, but having seen a couple of her internal memos lead me to believe she was mentally disabled in some way), the high staff turnover in recent years and the general lack of a consistent, firm approach to the rejuvenation of the CBD coupled with piss-poor financial management has seen Newcastle Council become something of a lame duck in terms of wielding any sort of political power in this region.

Speaking of lame ducks: Jodi McKay, state member for Newcastle, just for what fucking purpose are you still sucking down precious oxygen? Fuck me. I used to think that Sharon Grierson and Jill Hall were two of the most pathetic parliamentarians in the region but you take the fucking cake. Having entered the state parliament in contentious circumstances at the last state election you have accomplished a grand total of FUCK ALL. In fact, I’d almost dare suggest that we’ve got further backwards under your representation than we have since the bloody earthquake. I don’t have words adequate enough to express my contempt for you, woman. I hope to God the Labor party don’t endorse your candidature again. Would be the first correct decision they’d made in a long time.

With that little bit of outrage out of the way, I’d like to move on….

The state government themselves have failed Newcastle as well. The most grievous of which is their failure to see that areas of the lower Hunter are already priming themselves to suffer the same problems that currently plague north-west and south-western Sydney. That is, massive amounts of population growth without being underpinned by improvements to public transport and other critical infrastructure. It’s easy to see how the lack of decent public transport into the CBD, combined with wholly inadequate parking facilities for cars has basically removed any desire people have to visit that area.

Now, you could also suggest that the federal government has also failed Newcastle. But really, the failure at this level rests firmly at the feet of our lazy as fuck representatives in this parliament. But really, this is just anger at the fact that I had no idea who our local MPs were until recently; they’re that irrelevant.

But the single biggest failure, the single entity that’s done the most in holding back the CBD from the redevelopment chances that it most desperately needs are the people themselves. Yes. You heard me. The people of Newcastle are the ones that are most responsible for the current state of the CBD and the current lack of a future that part our city has. Let me explain:

The both the federal and state seats of Newcastle are very, very safely in the hands of the Labor party. The result of which means that we generate absolutely no interest from either Labor or the Liberal party as both do not see a point in bothering. For Labor, they don’t have to lift a finger to see their candidate reelected. For the Liberals, no matter what they do their candidate isn’t going to get elected. People complain, endlessly, about how Newcastle is constantly ignored when it comes to government spending, yet, don’t need to understand that the reason that happens is because 60% of the population are fucking morons when it comes to the ballot box.

The complete lack of realisation among the population that that if we broke away from our safe Labor ways then the money would come flowing in from every level of government. In a heart-beat. We need to learn out to play the political game. At the moment, Newcastle blindly votes in who the Labor party tells them too, and that is just fucking stupid. Absolutely fucking stupid.

What makes it even worse, is that we constantly criticise our MPs for their lack of effort and lack of action. But whinging about them doesn’t do anything when every time it counts these same people are returned to office. Not exactly an intelligent approach, wouldn’t you think?

So, as you can see, the problems that Newcastle has with the failure of the CBD and the current lack of plans to help bring a spark of renewal o the place stem from the failures not only of the government, but also of the people that live here.

Which then begs the next question: how do we fix this?

Yeah. I didn’t think so.

There are a number of problems that would have arisen alongside the GPT proposal should it have ever got any traction. Problems that would have more than likely resulted in us seeing further degradation inside the CBD precinct, rather than the renewal that we’re so desperate to have.

The major problem with the GPT proposal was that it hinged the renewal of the Newcastle CBD solely on that building. At best, this line of thinking is incredibly short-sighted. If it had gone ahead, the GPT shopping centre would have immediately failed to attract a crowd. It would have failed and Newcastle would again be stuck with an area that couldn’t support business, was covered in problems and was generally not a place that you’d want to go and spend time. In other words, we’d rip the city apart only to leave it just as, if not more, broken than it currently is.

And I certainly do not want to see that happen.

For a start, GPT were not going to even being work on building their commercial megalith until there were guarantees in place with regards to the removal of the existing heavy rail corridor. This is a contentious issue in Newcastle already, without it having to be tied to the future of a particular commercial development within the CBD itself.

Further to this, there were no solid, workable plans within the GPT proposal for improving public transport access into the CBD following the removal of the rail line. Given the random, untimely services provided by Newcastle buses the removal of the rail line is just going to drive already small public transport numbers well and truly closer to zero than ever before.

What GPT have also failed to understand is that Newcastle is already heading towards having a glut of large, internalised shopping centres. Charlestown Square is approaching the opening of it’s first stage of renovations, with more to come over the next 18 months. Garden City has already undergone one expansion, with plans to do more soon. Marketown is currently seeing its retail space increase massively as it expands.

What would drive people to want to visit another, similar shopping centre in the middle of the CBD if they can get the same experience much closer to home? The renewal of the CBD has to be grounded in providing an experience that is unique to that area. Building another generic shopping centre is not going to provide that and it will fail as a result. Newcastle just doesn’t have the population base to support another major shopping centre. Especially one that is so far removed from where the vast majority of the population is.

Finally, should the GPT proposal have being built and then failed you can rest assured that GPT won’t be the ones who’d end up losing out. Newcastle would. Newcastle would be left with a massive, useless, ugly scar on the landscape. A scar that would have a high chance of ever being removed. GPT may have lost a couple of million dollars in the venture, but do you think it’d be anything of significance for them? Hell no. They would have come here, destroyed the place, and then packed up and left when it didn’t work out. We just cannot allow that situation to even have a chance of happening.

So, why did such a flawed idea end up with such popular support in Newcastle? Well, that’s where the local, state and federal governments have failed us miserably. And that is a rant for another day.

I know hat for you, poor people out their in ‘Old Media World’, the prospect of being able to get vox pop from the comfort of your desk must seem akin to the messiah walking among us but please. Please stop pleasuring yourself every time you manage to work Twitter into a story or find out that something has happened on the internet instead of the real world.

I’ve seen the wankfest over Twitter happen too many times now, and I really wish you’d either get with the program and start using it in a manner that adds, rather than detracts for your already failing businesses or just go on your way, doing your own thing and leaving us the fuck alone.

The simple fact of the matter is that the internet has pretty much now become a ubiquitous part of our everyday lives. It shouldn’t continue to be reported as something amazing and new that we’ve supposedly never heard of before. It shouldn’t be amazing that people are using and it certainly shouldn’t be amazing that politicians and businesses are using it to get in touch with these people in order to further their own agendas.

So please, newspapers/television, for the love of god:

STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT THE INTERNET LIKE IT’S FUCKING MAGICAL.

From the lack of any policy to the barrage of negative attack ads to the completely forgetting that an election should be about what will happen as opposed to what has happened. All of it is entirely our fault and the result of last night’s election were exactly what we should have got.

In short; we got exactly what we had coming.

The only reason that we ended up in such a no-win situation is because we, the voting public, have been refusing to engage our brains enough to see what has been happening over the last 3 years. Instead we let the media run off and pursue their own agendas instead of merely being there to report the facts and ask the tough questions of both our government and the opposition. Instead of information we got week after week of banging on about the negative messages of both parties, a lot of the fear-mongering and a general level of discourse that centred around issues that would be more at home in the pages of Woman’s Day rather than our entire national media.

Our own sheer laziness is where we can rest the blame of the shameful institution that is our current parliamentary situation, Instead of demanding foresight we allowed ourselves to be scared by reports of the terrorist boat people and how they were going to overrun by turning up in their thousands every single day. Instead of forcing a discussion of policy we decided it was better to have a debate about the debate on having a debate.

Take a good look at yourself Australia. Take a long, hard look. This is your fault. Not Tony’s, not Julia’s. Yours. The parliament exists to serve the people, and this is what the people wanted. Live with it.

Even those technology evangelists, who’s voices really ought to be the ones that should be convincing the public at large about the benefits of the NBN, seem to be missing the point. They get caught up in the technical side and the technical merits of the NBN. Something that the average voter just doesn’t give two shits about.

To me, the problem seems to be that both the Labor party and the commentators seem to think that the majority of the voting public are surgeons, CEOs of large corporations or research scientists because it’s the benefits that those groups will receive from the NBN that seems to be getting most of the air time.

This argument makes it very easy for critics to attack the cost and style of the NBN program because its proponents fail, constantly, to address the immediate benefits that consumers will get from the network’s construction. They then make their second mistake, which is to fail to encourage people to think about what the NBN could be used for beyond what we currently consider “normal” internet use.

So, when the Coalition get up and say they can provide an incremental update on existing service levels for a fraction of the NBN’s $43billion price, then it becomes quite easy to see just how people that do not live and breathe the connected world that we do would be inclined to see the NBN as somewhat frivolous.

Making the case that the NBN has medical, business and educational benefits is all well and good, but he vast majority of the Australian population are not surgeons, CEOs or educators. With that in mind, you have to go about convincing Joe Public that he wants a fibre optic line from the world into his house. And that is the argument that no one is making.

What a lot of people who comment on this sort of thing seem to be forgetting is, that when it comes to government spending, we, the Australian people, are complete and utter tight-wads unless we can see what the direct benefit to us will be from any government project.

This becomes more important when opponents of the plan point, quite rightly too, that the big benefit talking-points, like remote surgical procedures, are already taking place in hospitals around the country. Even this morning, during an announcement about the commencement of the second stage of construction in Townsville, Julia Gillard was out trumpeting more of the health benefits that the NBN will deliver. Again, she is not giving the majority of voters a reason for supporting the construction of this important program.

What the supporters of the NBN should be doing is heavily promoting the reasons that an average, wage-earning family would have for the NBN. And that argument, simply, is entertainment.

For most people, the benefits of the NBN aren’t about talking to your relatives overseas or getting in touch with a doctor at stupid AM. The benefits for those people come from how the NBN is pretty much going to replace all the current ways that they consume entertainment as we head into the future.

We need to be telling these people that the NBN is what is going to replace the current TV and radio broadcasts when they enjoy today which will all, eventually, cease transmission (my guess is around 20 years, but that’s another discussion) in the near future. We need to be making the argument that if the NBN does not reach completion then the Australia people are not going to be able to easily access the amount and variety of entertainment programming that they do now.

While a lot of people promoting the NBN from the “we are the internet people” perspective have no interest in sport. They have to realise that generally Australia has a massive interest in sport. The NBN gives those people a chance to be able to indulge their love of a sport in ways that have never been available to them before. The least of which is freeing them from the shackles that the FTA broadcasters have been keeping them in for years now.

We should be telling that the NBN will have the potential to offer any movie, streamed, in high definition, straight to their TV at the drop of a hat. We should be telling them that on-demand TV programming, best served over the NBN, is the only way they they’re going to have true choice and freedom of content when it comes to sitting down in front of the telly at the end of a long day at work. This is what people are wanting. This is what we should be telling them the NBN is the only way they’re going to get it.

Finally, can we stop banging on about the idea of telecommuting as another great benefit of the NBN? Personally, I have a healthy separation between my work and my home. I have a policy of not letting the problems of one affect the other. I don’t take my personal problems into the office and I certainly don’t take work home with me at the end of the day. I’m sure that I’m not alone in that though. What I hate is this constant suggesting that telecommuting is something that could all move to just because we’re going to a technology that makes it possible. There’s a lot to be said for physical, along side mental, separation between work and rest of one’s life.

We (being the internet loving people) all agree that the NBN is a vital project that is key to bringing our nation into the digital first world. But not everyone thinks like us. Not everyone understands just what the NBN is capable of delivering. We have to look beyond what is usually trumpeted as the reasons for such a project and instead focus on the things that actually matter to those many people that exist outside our usual circle of thinking. If we do that then we have nothing to worry about in terms of the NBN being canceled by the next government. If we do this then popular opinion will make sure that we get what we need.

To start with, I am largely sick of my iPhone 3G[S]. I contribute this feeling to a combination of both the device itself and my carrier, Optus. These days I pretty much only use my iPhone for Twitter when I’m out and about and to listen to podcasts when I’m in the car. There’s possibly the sending of less than 100 SMS messages in a month and less than 5 phone made using the “phone” functions (Yes, iPhones have them too). Not to mention that every time I actually have to rely on it having enough battery to last any reasonable amount of time, it just fails. So, generally it’s just “meh”.

But, I want the internet everywhere…you know, because that’s the sort of person I am.

What I discovered, over lunch on Friday, is that it’s a rather expensive exercise if I were to cancel by current Optus contract and pick-up a prepaid Telstra SIM. We’re talking about $950 expensive.

What you can probably see, because you’re all awfully intelligent people, is that I could get a 3G iPad for $800 then I’d have at least 6 months of Telstra service before I’d catch up to the cost of switching the iPhone.

The problem here, however, is that I do not particularly want an iPad. There’s a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, I do want out of the Apple iTunes environment. Although I realise that Android still has their own problems, the direction that Apple is taking with iTunes is something that I do not agree with and am no longer willing to subject myself too. Secondly, if I was going to carry something around everywhere I’d want it to fit in my pocket.

Further to that, if I bought an iPad I’d probably end up carrying it around in a bag or some sort. But if I was going to start carrying a bad everywhere, I’d just put my MacBook Pro in it with a 3G USB modem and use that instead. After all, it’s a proper laptop with a physical keyboard that I’m comfortable with doing large amounts of typing on.

So, smart people, what do I do?

Not just because you couldn’t do it under the old system (of course you could, I’m certainly not saying anything to the contrary), but by allowing enrolment to occur online has made the process so much simpler.

Think about it. Pretty much every 17 year old worth their salt can get their hands on a fake ID and – from what I’ve seen in the three elections I’ve voted in so far – bouncers outside of pubs check Ids harder than any electoral worker.

So it’s certainly not going to be hard to come up with a convincing enough set of identities to visit a couple of polling booths on election day, is it now?

At least the old analog system required a reasonable amount of effort and was a fairly time consuming process.

But this also has further, far more disturbing, consequences for our electoral system, in my view.

One you enable on part of the system to shift from it’s previous analog base to an online one, how long is it going to be before the cries of “we can enrol online, why can’t we vote there too?” are going to star echoing across the country.

Seriously, you really want that? How about no.

This isn’t just about the technical side of it, or whether it’s right or wrong for our society to be going down this path. This is about “the internet” still on it’s high-horse about how fucking awesome they are that they use this medium constantly and how everyone who doesn’t think like them is a complete, backwards, incestuous moron.

The problem this self-righteous group has is that they’re still the minority. The vast minority. And being a condescending, patronising bunch of pricks certainly isn’t going to help them turn people to their line of thinking.

It’s an attitude that I’m condemned before, but one that doesn’t seem to be abating. Which is sad because, like anything, it has the potential to be irreversibly damaging of the consequences of actions are not properly considered.

Most importantly, however, we’re going to have to accept that there’s a lot of things that we would like the government to build for us that we simply cannot afford to have. Rationalising the decision not to build something that seems important with economics does seem like something of a cop out, but there’s a couple of very good reasons as to why it’s an important consideration when it comes to government spending.

The first problem seems to be the disconnect with the money governments spend and just where it comes from. I’m the first to admit that I dislike the amount of income tax I pay each year but I also realise that without doing that then there’s no way for the government to provide facilities and services that we come to rely on.

So, if you want the government to spend billions upon billions of dollars on a new project, that has never been placed in a budget paper for funding then you have to realise that this money needs to come from somewhere. And for a government that means raising taxation levels.

Secondly what people seem to forget is that businesses exist to make money and to provide a return to shareholders for the investment in the money making enterprise. So in order for them to want to deliver a service they have to see that it is going to provide a reasonable rate of return within a given period of time. This rate of return is always higher and wanted quicker than what any government would be looking for from their investment.

So, what happens when a business builds and controls an infrastructure project? Look no further than the Sydney Airport rail link. Hideously expensive to use, hopelessly under-patronised and accomplished none of it’s original goals about reducing congestion and parking. All-in-all it has been a pretty dismal failure and something of a waste of time and effort.

So. Infrastructure. What are our problems with it and how does this relate back to how they’re funded?

Funny you should ask.

Given one of the major issues in the current election is immigration, it’s somewhat ironic that our current lack of advanced infrastructure projects is linked intrinsically to our population and, more specifically, where that population is located.

In this country we have a lifestyle that is remarkably different from that of many other major international cities. Our smaller population and large total landmass means that we do not come close to having the population densities of some other major international centres. The nature of our country and our urban development has created a style of living that is unique in the world.

There are, however, some drawbacks. The main one being that having such a spread out population means that it’s very hard to build effective mass transit systems that can provide an excellent service for an affordable cost. There just aren’t enough people paying taxes to be able to able to fund the construction of expensive systems with public money and if you let a private company make that investment instead then the cost to use it would be astronomical.

We pay a price for our (generally) high standard of living and (frankly) reasonable costs of living. That price is that we do not have a large tax base that can easily absorb the cost of large investments and we don’t have the volume of traffic to make it a viable business if it were to be done privately.

This is why we’re never going to have a high-speed east coast rail link between Melbourne and Sydney. It’s why Newcastle is never going to get anything more than the current bus system.

It sucks. It really does. But think about it. We still pay some of the highest taxation levels in the developed world; do you want to pay more? Do you want to have to take out a second mortgage just to catch the train to Melbourne? Australia is a great place to live. But that lifestyle comes at a cost. And this has to be realised.

What happened, in the before times, was that John Howard introduced a law that closed the electoral rolls at 8pm on the day the writs for an election were issued. What this meant was that everyone who had turned 18 since the previous election and had forgotten to enrol would be unable to once the writs had been issued.

The cynical people out there would suggest that, at the time, this was an attempt to limit the opportunities for younger people to enrol because they’d most likely vote against the Coalition. History would show that it did bugger all in stopping the landslide that was the 2007 election.

“But,” I hear you ask, “what does this have to do with people being stupid?” Well, basically I don’t see how, now, 4 years later that we’re seeing this legislation as a stymying of a persons right to vote.

Enrolling to vote is not hard, it is not a challenge and it is something that you just have to do. Everyone knows this and, yet, they do not – and getting all up in arms and blaming the former government for these people not being on the roll is just excusing lazy behaviour.

While it is important that who are entitled to vote are given every chance to do so, there is also responsibility on those same people to do the right thin and make sure that their enrolment is complete. Filling out the form is not hard and there’s, frankly, no excuse for not having it done on or before your 18^th birthday – you know, when you’re supposed to have done it.

The attitude that the blame for people not being on the electoral roll lays with someone other than themselves is an absurd one. Everyone knows they need to enrol. Everyone knows when it needs to be done. Everyone knows.

The complete lack of personal responsibility in this country is absolutely astounding. Take control of your lives people. They’re yours, not anyone else’s. If you make a mistake, fix it rather than casting around for someone to blame. If you need to do something, do it rather that spout conspiracy theories about others trying to stop you. Man up, Australia.