Lefty disappointed

It's amazing Melbourne-based writer, teacher, film-maker and The Drum contributor Scott Bridges manages to find time to work:

I am a massive political nerd. My days generally revolve around voraciously consuming political news and opinion from a range of sources and then discussing it with likeminded nerds on the Internet.

I'm one of those people for whom life stops during a political spill and Twitter becomes my home.

Every three years, come election time, I am like a kid at Christmas. For about six months, anticipation builds as speculation grows about a possible election date, and then once the starter's gun is fired the next five or six weeks are an orgy of politics. I love the theatre of an election but I also love the super-charged debate and fired-up argy-bargy.

But this election is so disappointing:

The other night I was talking to an Iranian man about politics when conversation turned to the subject of the Australian election. He asked me about the big issues of the campaign and wanted to know what Australians were fighting for.

I started to give him an overview and found that I - a hardcore political junkie - was so disinterested in the current state of Australian politics that I couldn't really be bothered, and as I spoke I found myself getting embarrassed about what passes for political debate in Australia. I was embarrassed about my country's politics in Iran.

Bridges could have taken the opportunity to describe the process whereby Rudd was peacefully deposed as Labor leader, elaborated on the press's freedom to discuss such matters and then discussed party member's freedom to leak inside information, no doubt all novel concepts for the average Iranian. Instead he has a big whinge about the current election campaign not meeting his expectations.