Global issues more important, he says

THANK you, Sentinel-Times for your editorial of March 25 “Think local, vote local at this election”. I will be a candidate in the election and you have expressed exactly what I am standing against.

Federal elections are not about local issues. We have councils for that. They are about national issues and sometimes even about international issues, and this is one such time.

For those with eyes to see the deterioration in US governance is a world-wide problem. The Trump administration is vandalising democracy at home and destroying the western alliance. Our peace and prosperity has depended on the western alliance since the second world war.

Our government may well know this but thinks to keep quiet and maybe avoid some tariff penalties.

Our election candidates show no awareness. I am beginning to think that local media, who should be integral to any lower house electoral campaign are oblivious. But people in the street are aware, I know from canvassing.

Russell Broadbent, who you are advocating for, convinced me to run. I have approached him directly several times to at least say something; indeed, he is in a very good position to lead discussion.

I have had no response at all and I can only conclude that he has no understanding of the importance of what is going on. Since he will not raise it, as I promised him, I will stand against him.

Russell has been an MP for many years. He has had time to reflect on what is important to the national interest. But rather than recognise where our national interest is at stake, he says he will try to get money for a local nursing home.

This would be pork-barrelling and that has gone out of style. The only way that he might get funds out of the federal government, should he be re-elected, is by selling his vote on something else.

The nursing home may be due for refurbishment. It may be over-due. There is a right way to go about this and it is more to do with the council. Russell Broadbent might have made a good councillor but he does not have the vision of a federal MP.

Sentinel-Times, this is not the time to bury our heads in the sand. Our leaders should express solidarity with Ukraine, Canada, Denmark and Greenland and get the message to the American people that Australians think they are making a big mistake.

Robert Durkacz, Cape Woolamai