Politics has never stirred my loins, not a lot does, mind you. When you tell people you're a journalist in Canberra they all assume you're up on The Hill chasing people around the corridors of power. That idea has never appealed to me and while I have full respect for my colleagues who are covering politics, I just wonder about the importance of such coverage and the influence it has in helping the average punter formulate their decision to vote.

I love it when people tell me they've gone to a restaurant or read a book on my recommendation. Not that many political journalists are suggesting who to vote for. I do love it when "commentators" go to town on certain politicians. But that's more sport than politics. I just wonder if anything one of our hard-working and dedicated federal politics team has written will change the way someone votes.

That's not why they do it, of course, it's all about presenting information in a balanced manner. It's up to you to make up your mind as you digest the last of your sausage in the queue.

I received a lovely letter this week from a reader commending me on my "even-handed description" of Liberal senator Zed Seselja in a story that I had written recently.

"When I saw that you were the writer I immediately doubted you would be fair," this reader wrote. She doesn't like the way I reveal all my feelings in my stories, she told me. (Lord, if only she knew how much I am holding back.) But she liked my story about Seselja.

Except it wasn't mine. It was my esteemed colleague, chief political correspondent Karen Barlow who wrote that story, alongside Dan Jervis-Bardy. I've loved it since Karen came to the office, some of the light which shines off her falls on my shadow. I do get worried at morning conference sometimes when the chief of staff asks what Karen is up to, and it's a Monday morning and I'm working from home in my pyjamas putting the finishing touches to a recipe no one will ever cook, and I'm thinking, they want me to do something today?

But I digress.

This reader finished her letter, handwritten in an elegant cursive - it's always a worry when handwritten letters arrive - with the note "Don't waste your vote on an independent!!!"

I wanted to tell her that no vote is ever wasted. If you've thought it through, your vote counts, no matter who you cast it for, because it's your vote.

Indeed, one of the best politicians I never got to vote for was an independent, the late Peter Andren, who was the member for Calare from 1996 to 2007. Calare was my hometown electorate but I had moved to Canberra by that stage so I never had the chance to tick the box next to his name.

I had the honour of working with him when I did work experience at Prime Television and with the Orange radio station 2GZ in the mid 1980s where he put me in charge of reading the radio news each morning. He was an intelligent man, kind and generous, who had the best interests of his community at the forefront of what he did every day, in both his journalistic and political career. He was a champion for regional areas and 40 years later his integrity is my benchmark of what a politician should be.

The first federal election I voted in wasn't until 1987. I'd missed out on voting in 1984 by 10 days and three years later I was ready to make my voice heard. A few feisty years of university in Canberra had piqued my interest in the whole process. Look, up on the hill. It's Parliament House.

I'm not ashamed to say my first vote went the same way as my parents' vote, and their parents before them. It's just what you did. You voted along family lines. It's what the party stood for. We were working-class people.

I doubt, now both my children are of voting age, that they're even taking their parents' preferential vote into consideration. It's great to see they actually seem to care a little more about who to vote for than I did at their age. But I guess the threat of a climate catastrophe in their lifetime will do that to you.

They've both kind of told me who they're not voting for. But that's the whole problem with the underwhelm in the first place. The options are limited, and have been for many years, in my opinion. Perhaps a vote for an independent isn't quite as wasted as my dear reader suggests. Maybe it might show both major parties that we're just a little fed up with it all.

But vote early, vote often, buy a sausage. Gotta love democracy.