It was almost 6pm and the sun hadn't let up all day.... I was burnt and exhausted, my sandwiches still lay in my backpack, unwrapped. I shuffled over to the curbside, I must have looked like some kind of retarded suburban cowboy the way I was walking, but I had no choice, the chaffing on my inner thighs was now at 'Wasabi' levels and I'd do anything to alleviate the pain. I'd just pulled out our sign from the nature strip when our Booth Captain made the call.
"We start the count in 2 minutes and the doors will lock. So if you want in... get in now!"
It was election day 2007.
It had all begun about 5 weeks earlier, the election campaign was into it's second week and John Howard had just lost the last chance of my vote with his pathetic pledge to finally recognise 'the stolen generation'.... like seriously Johnny, 11 years in power and you wait until the eve of your fourth term to make the announcement... wheres your integrity man! Anyway that sent my vote sailing.... but where would it land, Rudd hadn't offered enough alternative from Howard to win my tick, and I still hadn't got around to obtaining my gun license so the "Australian Shooters Party" didn't seem the logical choice.
I spent the next few days analysing my life on the basis of - politically speaking, what really 
matters to me? It felt kind of strange as I've never seen myself as political, yeah I've always had views, but I've never tried to box them into which political party those views most agree with. Anyway box them in I had too and after a week of researching the various party's policies 'The Greens' got me with their cool triangle logo.... and got me good too. As after doing all that thinking I felt I owed it to my new party of choice to help them out..... this started innocently enough - handing out "Green Times" newspapers (recycled of course) to strangers in the city, that then became convincing my girlfriend Jess to join me in a 'Refugee rally' down Swanston St... which then became mail dropping the local neighbourhood (recycled again of course), the whole thing culminating into my 14hr 'Greens' dedication (of course not that I realised I would spend 99% of that on my feet) to the booth of 'Camden' in the electorate of 'Melbourne Ports' on the 24th of November 2007 - the day Australia decided.
matters to me? It felt kind of strange as I've never seen myself as political, yeah I've always had views, but I've never tried to box them into which political party those views most agree with. Anyway box them in I had too and after a week of researching the various party's policies 'The Greens' got me with their cool triangle logo.... and got me good too. As after doing all that thinking I felt I owed it to my new party of choice to help them out..... this started innocently enough - handing out "Green Times" newspapers (recycled of course) to strangers in the city, that then became convincing my girlfriend Jess to join me in a 'Refugee rally' down Swanston St... which then became mail dropping the local neighbourhood (recycled again of course), the whole thing culminating into my 14hr 'Greens' dedication (of course not that I realised I would spend 99% of that on my feet) to the booth of 'Camden' in the electorate of 'Melbourne Ports' on the 24th of November 2007 - the day Australia decided.The whole thing was quite an empowering experience, I even scrutinised the count which was pretty cool.... but in the end it didn't really matter.... cause we lost! Damn those two major parties!
Well until next time..... think Green.
1 comment:
I enjoyed being dragged along to the refugee rally - it gave me an insight! Well Done :) I don't think there are two many that would selflessly donate 14 hours of their Saturday!
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