The problem is our politics has just become a game of divisive bloody-mindedness, where the “long-term” view only reaches as far as the next election, and the opposition does nothing but shit-can the ideas of the government of the day, even if they’re good ideas.

Putting aside his out-of-touch conservatism, the last time we had true bi-partisan politics in Australia was under Howard, when he brought about gun reform.

As we have a two party system, I vote with the view that I want to build a strong enough majority government in the lower house that they can build good legislation without having to horse-trade with the other party, but with the right mix in the Senate that they need to negotiate with the right parties/people to pass things into law.

For me, I prefer a Labor government, but with enough Greens and/or independents in the Senate that Labor has to consider things like social reform and climate action to get their legislation passed.

My voting order (currently) tends to be:

• Independents (where their policies align with my views/goals)
• Greens (usually)
• Labor
• (potentially) fringe parties with good platforms (this is both rare and dangerous IMHO - I usually dig into their voting prefs first)
• Liberals
• Extremist view parties (One Nation, etc)
• Absolutely anything with a remotely religious agenda

I know I’m possibly a bit rare in this regard, but I’ll often spend part of a weekend before an election researching the candidates for my seat and senate, and building my voting order in advance. A lot of people might see this as wasted time, but I actually enjoy diving into this stuff and casting my vote with my conscience.