I hope he wasn't joking

Despite my previous post, I find myself still reading and writing letters to the Age. Here's a letter I wrote in response to the Peter Garrett 'GAFFE' and the subsequent political milage seized upon by the Liberals:

I hope he wasn’t joking

The campaign shock this week, a politician indicates that decisions made once they gain office will be different than the promises they make in their campaign. Well that comes as a real surprise! Honestly, how naive do they think the voters are? After eleven years out of office, and with a right wing conservative Liberal Government to beat, the ‘me too’ campaign is, in my opinion, the only way Labor can get elected. They need to not push ‘Middle Australia’ too far, too fast and need to appeal to enough of them to get power back. But Howard and his cronies jumping on Peter Garrett this week after his supposed GAFFE just made the outgoing Government seem even more pathetic to me. You see there are quite a few voters out there, myself included, who are desperately hoping that Labor will ‘change it all’ once in power, and frankly are staking our vote on it! We have lamented life under Howard’s lack of social policy and social conscience for long enough. We want our country to be about more than interest rates and border security, white nationalism and self-interest. We want this time of unprecedented prosperity in Australia to also be a time of unprecedented hospitality, generosity, social responsibility and justice. Garrett’s comments were dismissed as a joke, but I hope he wasn’t joking. I just wish the Labor Party had enough faith in the voters to address us directly rather than through off handed comments to radio presenters.