Actually, I don’t care about polls and whether Julia Gillard is less popular than Kevin Rudd, or that Malcolm Turnbull is four thousand times more popular than Tony Abbot. When did popularity alone become the thing by which we choose our politicians? What has happened to us that popularity matters more than policy? Partly it seems to be a product of the unrelenting, exhausting ‘news’ cycle – which sends previously self respecting ‘journalists’ rushing for the shallowest question ( you win, Howard Sattler), the least thought out glib summary. There is so little of what we used to call ‘news’ in our papers and televisions and radios. There isn’t much more online. Journalists, with a few notable and excellent exceptions, are merely reporters now. And they report crap. They may be sent out with orders to report crap, but report it they do. Whose business is it that the Prime Minister’s partner has a caravan on a private piece of land way out in country Victoria? Why is that any of our business? It’s not, but the Melbourne Age made it front page news with photo. Not news. Every day our papers are filled with not news and their many accompanying opinion pieces.

Policy matters. Vision matters. Economic management matters. Education matters. So do debates about misogyny and racism and the culture we are becoming – selfish and thick. But every Monday, it’s the polls we hear about. Shut up about them, Australian newspapers and leave us alone to worry about the proper, democratic poll on Election Day.