Do you like guns?

Pamela Gorman, of Arizona's third district, made this ad. As you can see, the gist of it is that she likes guns and puns, but she doesn't like taxes. As you wipe away that tear of laughter/despair and reflect on the worrisome tea-party types who are slowly crazifying America, there's actually something that we in Australia could learn from the straight-shooting Pam.

Imagine you're a voter in the Arizona third district, you like guns and you don't like taxes. Well, then Pam's the best gun-capable, anti-tax candidate for you. Conversely, of course, if you don't like guns and don't mind taxes, then she's not for you, right? This all seems a bit obvious. But looking recently at Australia's major parties and their leaders, things here are not nearly as simple as in Arizona three.

What if the internet filter is your big issue? You'd say there'd be one party for it and one party against, and you just pick which is which. But, instead, the government last week pushed back the policy into the uncertainty of a review about classification guidelines, promised for sometime after the election. So the policy could yet be dropped; there could be a review with recommendations and modifications; or the review could get ignored and then the filter may head on to become legislation.

In fact, despite the nation only being a short time away from voters picking a team, many of the big ticket items at this election are hard to track down. An emissions trading scheme; it might come back, it might not, but we won't know until 2013. A policy on asylum seekers; we could have a regional processing centre in East Timor, maybe not East Timor, maybe nowhere.

Of course, these are some complex and nuanced issues. Goanna understands that not everything in this world is a yes or a no. But the thing is, in politics the parties' jobs are supposed to be to sell what they're doing, what they're not going to do, what they like, what they don't like.

Inevitably, you won't agree with everything one team is selling. But it should be just enough to convince you to tick its name on the ballot paper. That's the whole freaking idea of democracy. If you don't know who's doing what, then it's time to play pin the tail on the voting donkey.

The Coalition is also guilty of the same lack of Gorman simplicity. Back to the internet filter. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott still seems unclear about the idea. Despite the Nationals recently voting at their federal conference to drop the policy cold, Abbott hasn't been able to make up his mind: ''I don't want to see our kids exposed to really terrible stuff on the internet.''

But . . .

''On the other hand, I don't want to see the internet destroyed by a filtering system that won't work.'' He said that he would ''wait and see'' how the policy developed before taking a definitive stand.

Of course, the reason for this is easy enough to figure out. If you said, for example, ''I sometimes like guns'', or ''taxes can be good'', then you've covered yourself for when you vote against some crazy ''gun for every child bill'', or a ''don't tax people who earn more than a kegillion dollars per annum bill''.

Qualify, obsfucate - it's the easier path to walk.

Pam Gorman maybe a lot of things, screwy gun-toting hick coming close to the top of the list. But at least Gorman's got some political cojones, the type distinctly lacking in Australia.