Clearing the air after an election

SENTINEL-TIMES COMMENT

IT’S been a long campaign and many people will just be looking forward to “getting on with it” regardless of what they made of the result.

We’ve hopefully got some clear air ahead of us now, notwithstanding the way COVID-19 is continuing to impact the area locally, and we can get on with our own priorities.

But you’ve still got to say something about what was the biggest story in the area in the past few months.

First off, congratulations to returning Monash MP Russell Broadbent!

To be honest, he got the whack he deserved from the electorate for the Liberal Party’s messy performance in the 46th Parliament and for his own crazy response to the pandemic.

By all means, make your own choices where your own health is concerned but once the government you are a part of, based on the best advice of the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Paul Kelly, makes a decision on how best to handle a crisis, you can’t be running interference with your own views, especially where lives are at stake.

But Mr Broadbent has been a good local member for many years, willing to go into bat for local community groups seeking funding, and individuals who fall foul of the bureaucracy.

What he needs to do now, however, is apologise to the community for getting it wrong, to clear the air, and to start turning up at events and activities around the place, to once again engage properly with the community.

Overall, though, it was great to see the political process in action on Saturday; young families turning up to vote with kids in pushers and dogs in tow.

The local volunteers doing their stints on the booths and by-and-large everyone politely accepting ‘how to vote’ cards and getting the job done.

How fortunate are we, as a country, to be able to do that?

But it’s a privilege that comes with a responsibility to protect our political process and the introduction of an Independent Broadbased Anticorruption body to oversee the conduct of our parliamentarians seems the right way to go.

And congratulations too, to our neighbour in Gippsland, Darren Chester, who seems to have got the balance right, being a terrific local member, and being someone who takes a practical approach to policy settings. If you get 71 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, you must be doing a lot of things right.