24 October 2007

Federal Election Email Interview - The Questions

| Administrator
Join the conversation
16

Alright Folks our Federal Election Email Interview is here! It’s two days late but at long last and after much pulling of hair we have crawled through the huge number of comments and pulled from the muck 10 gems to put forth to those personages who are vying to become or remain our elected representatives in Federal Parliament.

There was far more than 10 worthy questions (and much much more in the way of bile, insults and venom) so sorry if yours didn’t make the cut. The questions will now be emailed to everyone running for a Senate or House of Reps seat in the ACT. If by some chance you are or know of someone who is running and you or they have not received the list of questions by 5pm this afternoon please email us with your contact details at root@the-riotact.com.

We will be posting the answers to the email interview unedited and in full over the coming weeks as they come in.

And the winning questions are;

Q1 (amended from a suggestions by p1, VicePope and mlm)

Provide a short (no greater than 200 word) employment application style Resume (CV), including what work have you done apart from being a politician or political staffer or party/union/lobby employee and what experience or qualifications you have with regards to economic management?

Q2 (from poptop)

What would you like to see as the first piece of legislative change brought about by your Government? What are your personal goals for your first year representing the ACT?

Q3 (from sepi and poptop)

What private opinions do you hold which are different to those of your party?

On which issues do you disagree with your Party’s stated position?

Q4 (from Joe Canberran)

Are you in favour of fixed election terms? Why or why not and if so what length of term are you in favour of and why?

Q5 (from Mr Evil)

Do you think that it is important for the Prime Minister and their family to live in Canberra? Why or why not?

Q6 (from Maelinar)

Do you consider that making observations about the structure and makeup of the other major political party as beneficial to your own party’s role in the election?

Q7 (from S4anta)

What are you thoughts on the permanent trading of water entitlements, as per The National Water Initiative (http://www.dpmc.gov.au/water_reform/nwi.cfm), and do you believe that giving water a tradable, economic value is really the best method to ensure that this scare Australian resource will be utilised sensibly in the future?

Q8 (compiled from questions posed by Kramer, fnaah and boomacat)

Canberra has a large student population and Govt funding per capita for public education facilities seems to be on the slide with there being an apparent shift towards encouraging more people to enter the private education sector. What are your thoughts on this?

What initiatives would you pursue in regard to HECS fees, full fee paying uni courses, increasing/decreasing Austudy payments, funding for education/ R&D/communications infrastructure and assistance or encouragement to private sector research and technology companies?

What measures will you take to ensure the best possible education is available to all Australians?

Q9 (from Snahons_scv6_berlina)

What’s the single most pressing issue in your electorate (local electorate issue – not a broader issue that has an impact on your electorate) and how do you plan on addressing it?

Q10 (from Jazz)

Suppose that you and I are stuck in an elevator for 5 minutes. You know nothing about me other than I’m enrolled to vote in your electorate. What do you say to convince me to vote for you.

Join the conversation

16
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest
el ......VNBerlinaV812:43 pm 25 Oct 07

[Admins: Sorry for taking the thread even further OT, but there’s no way of sending personal messages to other users]

Thumper: Are you still involved with the volunteer firies? I’m giving serious consideration to volunteering myself, I need more info on what’s involved and who I need to contact. Send an email to my spam-trap address –

webbasedemailsucks [at] yahoo.com.au if you can assist. Cheers mate.

el ......VNBerlinaV812:31 pm 25 Oct 07

…Just like everyone else.

el ......VNBerlinaV812:07 pm 25 Oct 07

So are we.

yeah, good idea.

el ......VNBerlinaV811:33 am 25 Oct 07

Likewise.

BeyondThought11:28 am 25 Oct 07

Thinking this through, why would a candidate submit their answers early so everybody could copy them, or pull them to pieces in their responses?

Perhaps it would be better to post them all on RA at the same date?

preferably after a bowl of all bran.

Lord Mælinar10:08 am 25 Oct 07

All kings should sit on their thrones.

-Proverb Lord Maelinar 2007

I think the PM should live here.
It’s a Canberra issue for sure.

I have a rather bizarre feeling of satisfaction that my suggestion had some influence on the final cut.

I am looking forward to skimming the answers that may or may not come back, and then taking small parts totally out of context.

I’m curious why Q5 made it to the final cut. I have a pretty strong opinion on the issue myself, but is it something that a local pollie should see as part of their concern? (Perhaps it is a strong issue with Canberrans that I haven’t picked up on yet.)

Q10/
“Wanna blow?”

Also how do they answer Q6 if they aren’t labor/lib.
Might be better as party/ies.

Ooh, that came out sounding a bit harsher than I meant it to be. The questions are very good, just some typos here and there.

Might want to run them through a spellchecker so that we don’t confirm pollies’ suspicions that their constituents are idiots.

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.