OK, well I'm still here.

I'm now a successful farmer - I have an off-farm job.

The intervening three years since I last posted anything have been far from uneventful, and at least the drought has broken.

All those doomsaying environmentalists must be squirming. I believe in climate change, but the impacts, although potentially large, will not be as simple as "it will never rain again".

I used to be a lifelong labour voter, but they lost me with the live export debacle. They were more willing to support a few cows in the last minutes of their life than desparate refugees who brave leaky boats and death to escape a war that Australia helped prosecute. I don't know who now. I really can't take to the libs - too smug and self-interested. The greens just want to destroy my livelihood, because they have no concept of scale (something for another day). Labour are now hollow at the core. The Nats have a passing appeal, but there is something - perhaps an inherent conservatism in the party - that still keeps me away. Perhaps we need the american "write in" system. Vote 1 me.