Why the hell should I care about politics?

Australia is in the midst of some politically significant event. From what I gather, the current prime minister is being replaced, not as a result of voting but as a result of conflicts (is that right?) within her party itself. Thus, the replacement is a member of her own party. Apparently this has something to do with some federal elections coming up in September.

I only found out about this yesterday and all I could think was: Didn't this already happen before? I remember last time that in fact Julia Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd (the then prime minister) in a similar situation. Now the event is just occurring in the reversed fashion, with the same people involved. This leads me to the question: What the hell is the point of all this?

To show how little I know about politics, I will say this: I have no idea which party is currently in power. I know we have the Labour and the Liberal parties (and some other minor parties), but I have no idea which one is government and which one is opposition. The only time that I did know who was leading was when John Howard and Kim Beazly were the leaders, and the only reason I knew then was that I used something of a mnemonic to remember. The mnemonic was: John Howard has no 'i' in his name and Liberal does so he is a member of Liberal and similarly Kim Beazly has no 'o' in his name so he is a member of Labour.

That is how ignorant I am of politics. I can't find a mnemonic for the current government and so I don't know who is in power.

So my question is: should I care?

My father certainly thinks I should. That I should read the newspaper everyday and keep up to date with what the policy makers are deciding. But he's just being a dad. Come election time, I often make the mistake of telling my friends "I just go in there, roll a random number in my head, and select that on the ballot". This entitled me to a first-class ticket straight into the 9th circle of hell, right between Judas and Brutus. Of course, if it was up to them, I would vote for whatever party they support.

There was a brief period once when I did care about politics. At some point, some elected official said they were going to increase funding towards academia, or something along those lines. I listened to their words, liked what they said, and decided I would pick them for the upcoming election. When I discussed this with my friends, it was like I had dropped about 50 IQ points. Something about the party supporting unions, and other stuff that had no significant impact to my life. I still voted for that party. Can't remember if they won or not. Can't remember if my life changed dramatically...probably not.

The fact is, learning about politics just makes me feel more powerless. Ultimately even if I like a party's particular policies, it seems they are always going to have other policies that impact on me, or others, negatively. And who are these select few people making all these big decisions for me anyway. Yeah I think we need to focus on climate change and don't mind paying for it. Yeah I have certain views on asylum seekers and how we should treat them. Yeah, I think we should increase academic and research funding. But what does it matter? The only responsibility I seem to have is to turn up at a school hall every few years and make a check in a box. And when I hear about things like Julia Gillard replacing Kevin Rudd, and then a few years later Kevin Rudd replacing Julia Gillard, I think: Oh great! So the previous screw up has now replaced the current screw up.

And I think to myself: Why the hell should I care?