A letter to Julia Gillard
Dear Julia,
I saw you on the 7.30 report this evening and I am compelled to write to you.
I have been sitting on the fence about who to vote for in this election. Quite frankly politics do not excite me and politicians even less so. Though I must admit that one of my proudest moments of being an Australian was when you were sworn in.
My heart is red (I love people) but my blood is blue and my natural affinity is towards the values that led to the formation of the Liberal party. Sadly they seem to have forgotten what being liberal means.
I firmly believe in our core values of giving someone a fair-go but think "moving forward" we need to lose the she'll be right mate attitude. In that respect what you did to Kevin Rudd was possibly the only thing you could do to steer the ship as we seemed to be going nowhere, if you had stuck your head in the sand and kept saying "She'll be right" you would not have done the right thing by Australia.
I honestly do not believe that you purposely set out to "shaft" KRudd and that you are a treacherous power hungry woman that cannot be trusted. I do worry however that in any political arena, there exist powerful shadowy "big wigs" that might have done the deals and the powerbroking so that no blood was spilt in the spill. My hope is that you do "shaft" these people once you get elected and trust your own instinct and follow your own judgement as the people will have voted for you and entrusted you not anyone else.
I strongly oppose Senator Conroy's plans for the filter and I was ready to drop my admiration for you or want of your other policies in favour of just dumping the whole labor party. I follow Kate Lundy on twitter and regularly read her blog, where she puts forward her thoughts and she is the single voice of reason that stopped me from just blindly going out on a limb on just one issue. I trust you enough that you will have a serious look at the facts about the filter - Sen Conroy is perhaps misinformed? Has been given the 'wrong intelligence?' - How many times did the liberals use that line once no weapons of mass destruction were found in the desert?
I think the NBN will be great for our country. But one thing that has not been thought about is that planned changes of AUSIndustry funding towards software development and innovation. This reduction in R&D will have a death knell to all those in the IT industry that will drive our future on the very NBN infrastructure you lay. I urge you to look at this if you form the next government. Your governments assistance to tax concession/ rebates / $ for $ funding towards software innovation will be needed more than ever if we are to be able to use the power of the optical fibre network you build.
The other issues, like child care, ETS, mining tax, immigration do not really bother me, but money on building chapels in schools is wasted in my opinion and would have been better served if professional counsellors were instilled instead.
A word for the future, if you are elected, don't offer insulation or solar panels at a fixed rebate, means test it (use your databases in centerlink) and get customers to send in 2 quotes to a govt dept responsible and get a credit authority - this will keep the providers honest and they will not rort any scheme you introduce.
Anyway I digress.. I am writing this letter to tell you, I trust you Julia, I trust that you will do the right thing. You will clean up your team, put those shadow people in their place, and you will be strict with local state governments. I vote in a marginal seat of Swan in Western Australia and you have my vote. Please please use it wisely and invest in our country's future.
Sincerely
Ashul
