Heavenly Beverley : This Constituent's Tale

I was born into a solid middle-class conservative household. My earliest memory of political activism was supporting the "Turn on your lights" campaign of Malcolm Fraser that brought down the doomed Whitlam government of 1972 - 1975. At fourteen, I had yet to develop any sort of political conscience apart from the views of my parents.

I remained a swinging voter throughout much of my adulthood. My strongest early interaction of political support was through the state and federal Liberal members of my neighbourhood. Eoin Cameron, a Federal Liberal member of parliament who allowed me to use his office photocopier to print my newsletter for my self-help group. Katie Hodson-Thomas, an empathetic Liberal State member who lobbied and reinforced the Special Needs Aide application until my son Alex ( autism spectrum disorder) received appropriate support in primary school.

Much more recently, State Labor member Darren West helped us in a disagreement with Western Power and the Water Corporation that could have led us to pay tens of thousands of dollars for our power and water connections. Through Darren's intervention, our costs were dramatically reduced.

Once Alex left high school (attaining his WACE), any positive political assistance dried up. Ten years later, he remains without any ongoing work. The majority of this time has been under the Federal government of the Liberals.

This is in spite of his endeavours gaining Hospitality certificates through TAFE over a number of years. He has volunteered at the Warehouse Cafe in Shenton Park and been a paid worker at the Swan Friendship Cafe in Midland.

Mister Christian Porter is the current Federal member for Pearce. Today, Michael and I received yet another quality paper brochure from Mister Porter. He stressed, "A stronger economy means we can deliver on our plan for more jobs, tax relief and better services and infrastructure".

Well, that's a surprise.

Mister Porter is the member of a vast electorate that stretches from the northern coastal suburb of Yanchep to the Central Wheatbelt. One might think he might live towards the centre of the electorate to allow for easy movement to all its corners. Alas, this is not so.

His electoral office is in Perth's eastern suburbs. For those of us who live in the regional areas of his electorate, we have to travel for one and a half hours to access our member. Mister Porter has given scant interest to the regional part of his electorate until the last twelve months. I believe that this is only because he has become aware of his electoral vulnerability.

Back in 2016, Mister Porter was Federal Minister for Social Services. Michael and I, along with Joe Sergiovanni, arranged to meet him in his electoral office in Ellenbrook to discuss the impending closure of the Swan Friendship Cafe. This initiative, what had been championed by Joe and his wife Maria, had operated, supported and paid young people with disabilities for a number of years. They had struggled on with no government funding to keep the Cafe alive. The crunch had hit and the Cafe needed government funding to continue, primarily because they had to employ a fulltime chef to oversee proceedings and guarantee the safety of the employees.

As we entered this meeting with Mister Porter, he expressed surprise as he believed we were having a private meeting. This was in spite of the fact he was surrounded by four of his staff. He quickly dispelled any hope by stating there would be no funding available to the Cafe as he ascertained that, in his opinion, there were not enough clients to support the venture.

An interesting interjection by Mister Porter half-way through the meeting felt annoying at best and intimidating at worst. He pointed to Michael and I in turn and mentioned our and my children's disability support status. He seemed to indicate that the terms of disability and support were somehow offensive. Considerating Michael and I have both paid taxes during our working lives and my children would love to have paid employment so they could pay tax, we found his insinuation insulting.

We are not the only constituents in Beverley who have been let down by Mister Porter's lack of understanding. We believe that the only reason Mister Porter has discovered any enthusiasm of his regional constituents is that he understands the fragility of his margins.

That is a harsh assessment of him. Unfortunately, Mister Porter has yet to improve his credentials. He skims around the achievements of the Federal Liberal government over the previous six years. He uses the fear factor of the Labor boogie man to convince us to vote for him again.

Please, for all our sakes', vote with reason and logic, rather than with terror. Earlier this week, I unfriended a woman on Facebook who believed that the world would be better off without Muslims and wanted me to spread her extremist views. I had no problem with her personal values; I had a massive issue with how she voiced those views.

A world better without Muslims? We could go further...A world without all religious groups or ethnicities. And what would that get us? A world that is devoid of food, culture, music, art and literature?

Oh goody!

My instinctive wish was to vote Green for this current Federal election. However, I am voting Labor. There. I've said it. I believe that I need to vote Labor to remove the incumbent Mister Porter. And worse than that, I have agreed to hand out "how-to-vote" information for Labor at Beverley's polling booth at our school.

I have no problem with others' political beliefs and values. However, I cannot condone "blind" voting without thought and I can't tolerate the concept of removing or inhibiting of a particular race or religion due to a few extremist nutcases. That occurs, sad to say, is a tiny minority of us all.

Anyone wishing to unfriend me due to my stance, go ahead. Anyone willing to support my stance, please do so. I look forward to seeing as many of Beverley's townspeople as possible next Saturday.