Why Pauline Hanson and Cory Bernardi are your fault

And it's not Hanson or whip-cracking George Christensen. It's not dog lover Cory Bernardi or bumbling Malcolm Turnbull.

It's you.

I apologise for my bluntness but it's true. Your grasping self-centredness, your desire to put your own need at the centre of your political decision-making, is the reason we are here. You, we all, need to think a little more broadly about what may constitute self-interest because it's not as easy to unpick as you might think. When you vote for a group that which removes another group's right to participate, you damage Australia. When you vote for thieves, lairs and liars, when you vote for the sociopathic elite, it affects all of us.

Politicians, all of them, are the elite. These people are paid by us to govern – and there is nothing more elite than that – but, once they get into power, they usually ignore us between elections, when they need to cosy up. Because politicians are not face-to-face with voters every day, they spend more time pleasing each other than thinking about us.

So when you vote, it's crucial.

You are voting based on brands instead of performance. You are choosing shiny lies and promises over careworn, big and brash over careful and thoughtful. And this is what happens when you do that.

You choose sides. One lobby group's desire to slash penalty rates results in another group's struggle to pay for food, rent and bills. And the Fair Work Commission doesn't seem to know how many of us will lose money now that it has ruled for a reduction in Sunday penalty rates in the hospitality and retail sectors. Labor says it will affect about 700,000 workers. The government says 285,000. That's at least a quarter of a million people who will lose money through absolutely no fault of their own, just the boss deciding to pay less, emboldened by a government that which despises those of us who earn a living through wages. You know, the government could choose to enshrine penalty rates. After all, they're in charge of what's protected by the Fair Work Act.

One woman's desire to have such freedom of choice – so she can decide against vaccinating her children – is another family's death, time spent in hospital, time spent coughing and spotty and extremely unwell. Time spent spreading disease.

One politician's insistence that equal marriage will lead to bestiality leads to so much more than that. We now have evidence that state-sponsored support of equal marriage prevents suicide. How do we know? Research conducted by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that, when US states passed legislation in favour of equal marriage, high school students in those states were 7 per cent less likely to try to take their own lives. The biggest decline in suicide attempts was among students who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Get that? Suicide rates drop when we legalise equal marriage.

So you voted for a freaking plebiscite that was going to be a platform for hatred and, fortunately, we never got that far. Because we don't need more space for lunatics to spread hate. Speaking of hate, which this Coalition of misfits promotes, here's another stage for it to play out.

You voted for a government that would choose to spend its time (and our money) putting together a parliamentary joint committee inquiry into freedom of speech. Which found nothing. The inquiry into the Racial Discrimination Act recommended no major changes be made to the section of the act that covers freedom of speech. But you voted for senators who thought changes to the act were an awesome idea. Please don't ever do that again. The ensuing disruption and waste of taxpayer's money was vast, never mind the fear you helped spread across the community when you voted for these people.

You voted for a group of political interests that would come together to cut the company tax rate, even though those companies look to be doing a fine job of ensuring they pay as little as possible already. They don't need your help. Or the government's help. They are just dandy without paying even less tax than they already do.

You voted for a government that has comprehensively trashed paid parental leave and childcare, first by terrifying pregnant women throughout Australia when it tried to change, by January this year, access to paid parental leave midway through many pregnancies, now by refusing to appropriately fund childcare or to ensure that those who look after our young ones are paid what they are worth

You voted for a government that reintroduced the Australian Building and Construction Commission. When it last existed, death rates on construction sites skyrocketed. Just last week, a young father of one (with one on the way) died on a site where union officials were denied workplace and safety access in November last year.

You did this. You voted for yourself and for your interests. Think outside the ballot box, think about your neighbours and their neighbours, your kids and your parents, and your friends and their friends. You have the right to vote but you also have a responsibility to the whole country.

Jenna Price is a columnist for The Canberra Times and Daily Life, and a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Twitter: @JennaPrice

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