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Politics
Jessica Clarke
Orator of the Year
winner
Tony Abbott kisses nun in Sydney, K Rudd dog posts shaving ‘selfie”,
Likely Australian senator brushes off kangaroo poo fight video,
Clive Palmer has a cold and may miss first day of parliament, White-
bread salami sandwich thrown at Prime Minister Julia Gillard,
Prime Minister Julia Gillard hit by another sandwich during
LynehamHigh School visit. Welcome to Australian Politics, Believe
it or not, these were actual headlines appearing in our media over
the past 10 years. Whilst this may all be a little fun and games, the
wide variety of events occurring this past month made me realise
just how messed up the world’s politics are. In the United States we
have an orange coloured man who is living proof that money can’t
buy you good hair running against Hillary Clinton, Turkey is in
disarray after a failed coup in attempts to throw out the government,
Great Britain’s divided after the highly controversial ‘Brexit’ and
over here we’ve had 5 Prime Ministers in 7 years. This has been a
highly unusual year to say the least.
Politicians have never been painted in a good light but why is
that slight bit of distrust now resulting in such instability worldwide?
I would love to give you a simple easy, peasy answer, but I’m afraid
it’s not quite that simple. Many people claim this downfall was long
coming, but why now exactly? The latest version of the
IPSOSMORI
trust poll which measures how much people trust different
professions produced politicians at the very bottom of their list,
with only 19% of people believing there is such things as honest
politicians. This is an unfathomable drop of 58% over the past 42
years. Earlier this week the
WAB
ethics index rated politicians the
worst rating of all occupations. I have researched the background of
our current Prime Minister Mr Turnbull, our local member Josh
Frydenberg and our first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. They
all seem like perfectly good people that we should be able to trust,
so why don’t we?
The economic crisis in 2007–2008 plummeted the amounts of
trust in national governments to record lows and it hasn’t much
recovered since. Our new modern era and scientific revelations
have made us begin to question our surroundings, and the
governments are in clear shooting range. Us as a society are now
beginning to see the many errors in the ways of politicians. We are
beginning to question the government and their decisions, and
feeling no fear in speaking out if we feel mislead. We are looking for
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