Since it’s become mildly fashionable among newspapers and bloggers to make a statement of neutrality during election campaigns, now that we finally have a date, I thought I’d jump in with one of my own.

I promise to be almost entirely neutral during the coming election campaign … because I won’t be in the country to see it

I’m flying to Hong Kong on November 1 for travels that extend to just before Christmas. So I shall be voting at the consulate in Shanghai, not escaping the irony of casting a vote within the world’s last great communist dictatorship.

It’s a shame, because the campaign is pretty much the only time the Prime Minister comes to Perth, and I’ll miss a bunch of other awesome events (including this one). But it’ll also be nice to escape the media-saturation advertising; much as I love watching politics, the lure of the outside world is far greater!

Naturally, I will try to continue posting whenever possible, though I make no guarantees of quantity or quality …