How much is your vote really worth? $2.48. And you would do well to remember it.

If you make a word cloud of what candidates have said at this election, most prominent are words such as ''cut'', ''trust'', ''jobs'' and ''economy''. Yet if you did the same for voter sentiment it's more likely that words such as ''underwhelming'', ''disenchanted'', ''depressing'' and ''idiots'' would most likely come to the fore.

In fact, if you look really closely you'll see that the only people who are genuinely enthusiastic about what has been going on for the past four weeks are people who are on the election payroll. They're either a candidate, a spin doctor, an ex-politician enjoying some triennial limelight or, rarely, a spokesman from a well-funded, ideological think tank hoping to get some policy traction in the new Parliament.

The other group of course is the media, who know that they have to be enthusiastic if they are going to have any chance of keeping your attention at all. (I, of course, fit into this last category, but have chosen to take a particularly jaded tone throughout to seem a little wise and detached. This is a special kind of ironic enthusiasm that seems to do well in the inner city.)

But the 13 million people who matter most in this election, the voters, are jack of it. If they could think of a way to have a country without a parliament, I reckon they would do it. This week I have spoken to lifelong supporters of both parties who genuinely wish they didn't have to vote at all.