Australia, despite all the official prattle about diversity, has never been more divided.
And the same holds true of Dickson, which hangs by a knife-edge. Sitting conservative member Peter Dutton holds the seat by a tiny 1.6 percent and opposition parties are throwing everything they can at him.
Statistically Dickson is Middle Australia.
But it is different to many other parts of the country.
Only 20 years ago much of the electorate was pineapple and dairy farms, or dense bush reaching up to the subtropical forests of the D’Aguilar Ranges.
A new, bright, bursting ahead landscape has been carved out of open paddocks. It is a visually scrappy electorate, full of garages and mechanics, Bunnings and Supercheap Auto, KFC, McDonalds and Subway.
Dickson is industrious from one end to the other; people building lives, factories, warehouses, getting to and from work, going about their business. It is a house proud, hard working world of lawns, children, schools.
The electorate has the same feel Sydney had 25 years ago — a place of opportunity. Work hard, do the right thing and you will get ahead.
There is not the same deep disillusionment, the ethnic enclaves and urban decay you see in Sydney or Melbourne.
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Dickson is quintessentially suburban.
There is little public transport or high density housing.
Here roads matter; and are a live political issue.
In the expansive electorate, which covers 724 square kilometres, there are 30 schools, 41,000 traditional family groupings and 101,000 voters out of a total population of 146,200.
The seat of Dickson is of interest for one special reason.
Touted as a future leader of the conservatives, if Dutton loses his seat in the coming election the Liberal Party will lose, perhaps forever, its socially and economically conservative base.
And their strongest champion.
If the Liberal Party loses its base Australia is likely to become increasingly politically unstable as former Coalition voters desert to minor parties more willing to embrace their concerns over excessive regulation, mismanagement of mass immigration and loss of national identity.
These people, pilloried as right wing, are hard working, socially conservative and disenchanted with the obsessions of the left — global warming, multiculturalism, refugees, identity politics.
Daily the natural industriousness of the Australian people is quashed by strangling regulation and excessive layers of government interference at local, state and federal levels.
And those people who get up and do the right thing, who work hard, pay their taxes and take good care of their children are being trampled.
All they want is a return to common sense and common decency — to an era when they could trust their politicians to represent their interests, not the interests of every special interest group on God’s Earth.
Everyone, that is, except them.
It is the disgruntled members of this group, more than any other, who pin their hopes on Dutton.
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I wish they would stop the infighting and get on with their jobs and give some confidence back to Australia and Australians.
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