Verity Johnson: Voting is a gutsy act of fighting spirit

Opinion

[Mum] told me it was my duty, as the bearer of ovaries, to vote. The ghost of Kate Sheppard would slap me back to the 1700s if I didn’t.

I hate the inevitable.

When I watched Never Let Me Go, I was the one throwing popcorn at the characters and groaning theatrically. Apparently, the acceptance and compromise with the inevitable is what makes the film "art". I wish I could give the election such a romantic spin.

I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about the election. At the moment it's a mix of irritation, apathy and frustration. It's a bit like babysitting.

The more I stare at it, the more I think that John Key will just get back in and everything will be the same. I've had this feeling of inevitability before. I turned up in Australia just before the general election last year. Everyone was saying, "God, I hate Tony Abbott ... but he's still going to be Prime Minister."

I get the same feeling now. It's less extreme than Australia, it always is, but we're still being propelled towards the return of the smiling status quo.

This Thursday, National was polling at 50.3 per cent. They seem to have faced down the "Dirty Politics" scandal like it was nothing more than a lippy, pus-faced 14-year-old boy trying to be well 'ard.

They're relatively unscathed; the scandal stuck to their polling numbers like non-branded Blu-Tack.

So they ducked under Dirty Politics. Kim Dotcom's already admitting his bombshell is more of a soggy sparkler. And David Cunliffe's not exactly dicing his opponent into whale meat. They just won't be stopped.

It's hard to motivate yourself to vote when you realise that what you want just won't happen.

If I had to list issues that were important to earnest young things like myself, the environment is up there. It's a global phenomenon too: in 2013, two-thirds of Australian young people and two-thirds of British children were concerned that climate change was affecting their lives. Then there are issues like improving internet access, supporting tertiary education in all disciplines, removing battery farming and increasing public transport.

These are topics the Greens, and occasionally Internet-Mana, are hot on, and National is tepid at best. In light of a report released in 2013, which found Key's policies would reduce climate change by only 0.4 per cent by 2030, I'm not enthusiastic about the next four years.

Even if the Greens got into power by forming a coalition with National, as John Armstrong pointed out, they'd be sacrificing a lot to get there.

The future seems pretty grey for these issues. So why vote when it's inevitable?

Do you roll over, rip open a bag of Crunchy Nut and bury your face in it? Or do you vote, and change your Snapchat name to CuteCanute?

I was all for not voting. It seemed about as effective as using aromatherapy to stop a leopard attack. The sense of inevitability, of the puny inconsequence of my opinion, was paralysing.

Thank God my mum was around to pull me out of my wallow. Fixing me with a fiery eye, a talent unique to feminist warriors of a certain age, she told me it was my duty, as the bearer of ovaries, to vote. The ghost of Kate Sheppard would slap me back to the 1700s if I didn't.

It didn't matter whom I voted for, but for God's sake I had to do it. "I didn't put up with 40 years of arse-pinching for nothing, you know!"

I love the over-50s. They've got such steel.

It was seeing that steel which made me realise I had to vote. Not specifically on the basis of feminism, more because those women's personalities showed brilliant strength, fire and guts.

And I think it shows strength to fight against something inevitable.

When I raged at Never Let Me Go, I foamed because they didn't even try to fight the inevitable.

I thought they were pathetic. Not one defaced billboard, not one angsty poem, not one flicker of subversive interpretive dance.

Nothing.

I've come to see there's something wonderfully gutsy about fighting when you know you're going to lose. It's saying, "I know I won't win, but if I don't do something, anything, then I'll never respect myself."

So I'm going to vote not because I think it'll get me a Government who cares about my concerns. I'm going to vote because voting is an act of fighting spirit.

And when the next Government stuffs up, I want to claim the moral high ground in arguments with my brother.