So what else is new!

Even so, there's an old Irish saying that goes, you can't polish a turd.

And I think Swanee was guilty of lots of that?

I mean, if someone showed him into a stable filled to the gunwales with Horse manure, he likely start digging for the horse that'd be sure to be in there somewhere?
Rhrosty.

Syd in this political rant you missed one major point.

Yes Oz has always been committed to equal opportunity, & I like most I know have benefited much from this, & most still give it full support.

However you missed the other necessary equivalent idea. That of reward for effort. In the old Oz, reward did match effort, with just a little support for the lazy & indolent.

However the mob you support has continually greatly increased the reward for the bludger, to buy a few votes. That has destroyed most of what Oz stood for, & got the most productive in our population well off side.

To get this country back where it once was, we need to recognise & reward effort much more than currently, & stop rewarding indolence.

Good luck with that.

Hasbeen, have you any actual evidence of greatly increased reward for the bludger?

Second paragraph: "Under [he that sues] we get pessimism because we are in a decline."

Methinks much of this pessimism is personally generated.

Did you see him on the most recent Q&A. A fair, middle of the road and economically lucid panel were bemused by his vehemence and ignorance. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4181085.htm

He basically argued that money for the rich was "their money" leaving no consideration that the rich were further enriched by the low taxes on superannuation.

You get the Government you deserve, people!

The author is absolutely correct to point up the fundamental problem with display politics and short-termism.

We need to reconsider how we do Government and we need to do it tout suite. A model of bi-partisanship as the default was once taken for granted, now it is an exceptional thing to be trumpeted as a triumph of negotiation.

What has changed? Politics has become something that one does as a deliberate career choice and the rise of the professional political class, where a student politician goes on to become a political staffer, then as of right assumes a seat in the House has bastardised the Westminster model of democracy.

Who was the last Labor PM who had ever worn a blue collar except as part of a photo-op? Ricky Muir made proud mention of his blue-collar roots as he is right to do, but he isn't a Labor Senator and he never could have become one.

On the other side a similar parlous state exists, although having a wealthy family helps open doors more easily. On both sides, it's who you know that matters much more than anything else.

What's good for the Party has come to be more important than what's good for the country and as the author points out, that isn't good enough.

We need a vision and we need leaders who can articulate that vision so we can all see it. We need to allow our leaders to be humans who, like the rest of us, sometimes make mistakes. We need to transcend the Party model as it is done today; it has served well in the past, but it's now a dead horse that should be cut from the traces.

Most of all, we need good, capable journalism, not the third-rate advocatorialising, creative writing, TV panel shows and Party press releases that has come to substitute for it.

And we, as voters, need to take responsibility for having let this happen.

Craig, you've nailed it!

I've read articles which suggest that only 30% of us understand economics, and another 30% understand politics, with the remaining 40% who understand neither, deciding elections?

If we could just get rid of election reversing preferential voting; and replace that hugely manipulated and massaged system with proportional representation. We'd not only get what we the voters actually preferred, but cease leaving the marginalized without a voice.

And if we could be the ones choosing the preferred candidates rather than party officials, we'd get a far better class of candidate finally beholden entirely to the electorate, rather than this or that power broker!?

And dare I suggest the only way we the people are ever going to force the parliament to ring in those particular changes, is to always put the incumbent on the bottom of the ballot paper?

And a far better strategy than simply refusing to vote/voting informal; then bitching endlessly about the result/class of Representative.

I mean, it's hard to get a rep you can live with or bear or even prefer, if you never ever vote for anybody, then brag about it afterward.

I mean, it's hard to know if the coffee is lousy, if you never ever take as much as a single sip? (don't complain about the coffee; you may be old and weak yourself one day)
And here I was using the generic you.
Rhrosty