Facing a cost-of-living crisis and a changing climate, Australians have their chance this election to make their votes count and to avoid cheap populist platitudes, Quentin Grafton writes.

History shows that voting for the wrong person, or on the basis of a single issue, at a time of a crisis may spell disaster, Quentin Grafton writes.

On this DS Pod, political scientists Ian McAllister, Anne Tiernan and Marija Taflaga join Mark Kenny to talk about political integrity and why pork-barrelling may not be an effective way to win votes.