Nice article Tony. My experience is similar, if half as long.

Where is this country going? Is it run for the people or those that head the corporations?

Our genocidal immigration policy would indicate an unassimilated mass of squabbling ethnic groups is what Australia has to look forward to. For the benefit of the economy, of course.

BOAZ_David,
The idea of a Creator is a man made concept which defies any rational belief. But hey if you want to believe it go right ahead.

The Bible was written by ordinary human beings right here on earth; even the new testament came many years after Christ was supposed to have lived. The text has been translated from ancient languages into Latin and then into "old" English so who knows what has been lost in translation. If you are honest you will admit it has many inconsistencies and concepts which even the most fundamental Christians don't apply in the 21st Century.

You regularly quote from the Bible as if that was the be all of everything. It is only relevant to believers such as yourself. For non-believers in the Bible such as myself the words carry no more weight than any other text written by humans.

I try to live by the golden rule of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". This I thought was something Christians believed but today many, including avowed Christians, have corrupted this to "do others in before they do you in".

I don't accept the idea that we should have to choose from a smorgasbord of "isms" to construct out lives. However if I had to choose one "ism" it would be Buddhism, but I am not a Buddhist and don't plan to become one.

Be genorous in spirit to your fellow man and accept all as they are.
I trust that you will see the error of your ways but if you don't then may your God be good to you.

Interesting. There's a species of baby boomer now looking back fondly on a lost and more traditional Australia, an Australia which was mostly undercut by a long ascendant left-liberalism.

However, rather than asking what might have been lacking in this left-liberalism, our baby-boomers are arguing that the main problem is that we are now not left-liberal enough.

This approach isn't going to work. If we become more left-liberal, then the things you liked about traditional Australia will recede ever further into the distance.

To put this another way: modern Australia is a creation of liberalism in general, and left-liberalism in particular. If you don't like what Australia has become it makes little sense to argue that the remedy is a larger dose of ... left-liberalism.

Let me be more specific. The author complains that families are less stable, with parents putting their own needs ahead of those of their children. But this is not a product of anything to do with the current government. The divorce rate shot up in the mid-1970s, due to legal changes instituted by a Labor Government.

A rising divorce rate was to be expected. The elites were following a liberal world view in which the most important goal was a kind of individual self-realisation in which it was thought progressive for people to pursue their own individual goals with an autonomy unimpeded by marriage vows. The Chief Justice of the Family Court, the impeccably left-liberal Alastair Nicholson, even argued that the high divorce rate was a moral good, as it represented a stage in human emancipation.

I wish the dismayed baby boomers would pause and sort out some of their (understandable) confusion before launching themselves into political action on behalf of the very philosophy which helped to create the situation they now decry.

Rossco, firstly on the Bible, if you grab any copy of the Koine bible you can see the New Testament at least as it originally was (it helps if you've studied ancient Greek), and you get the feeling from there about what it stands for, and the message is pretty clear. The Old Testament, being an attempt at a national history, with some excellent psalms, is agreed (outside of fundamentalist circles and those within organised religions who do not understand the fallacy of sola scriptura) to be of allegorical importance.

As Alexis De Tocqueville noted, Chrisitanity should be able to deal with modernisation better than Islam because it lacks a weight of religiously-based scientific ideas, and deals with the metaphysical in as un-physical terms as it possibly can... many of the problems of Christianity stem from a lack of exentuation of this.

This article above was an example of the reason why many serious Catholics are flocking to the Libs. The sort of idea that a decent society and societal norms have some sort of religious grounding is difficult to deny, simply because our society was formed over many years of Christian heritage. Other influences do exist... Darwinian social theories and Marxist social theories are two which have negatively affected Australia... but largely the good in our society can be sourced back to its Christian orgins. Partially, the DLP was a statement of this. The anti-communist struggle, despite being eminently sensible in retrospect, was a precursor of the ALP's shift to the middle class and to the social left. Now Labor works towards a social vision which, becuase it promotes the fracturing of society into individuals and new domestic arrangements, works at odds with their economic policy. This detachment means that movement of Catholics to the Libs is no suprise, and this is why men like Abbott draw great significance from those DLP days.

A measuring line has been applied to this once Great South Land......

and it has been found wanting.

“Mene Mene, tekel upharsin”

Your service stations are filled with Baal and Astheroth, leading many astray
Your Newsagents are awash with the glorification of the Starry host of the heavens,
Your Television chanels seek ever greater depths of depravity,
Your Radio stations pander to pride and play to your ego’s,
Your Magazines are like pimps for the gratification of the flesh,
Your internet is the doorway to the cult prostitutes, male and female
You nobles have become sorcerers, your fine young men have gone aside with harlots.
You steal a mans wife... and think nothing of it.
Your Nobles call evil 'good' and good 'evil'.
Your captains of industry seek ever greater rewards, joining panelled house to panelled house...
Your leaders of labor seek power over righteousness.

You hunger, for that which never fills, but you strive after it more,
You thirst for that which will never quench, but you open your mouth wide to drink it in,
You long for that which will never fulfill, yet you run as if in a marathon after it....

What happened to you my sweet bride, your beautiful white wedding dress is covered in squalid filth, I no longer recognize you. Your face has lost its glow, your eyes are filled with despair, your mouth has no smile. Your teeth are filled with scraps from the meal which never fills. I am repulsed, what has become of you, love of my heart ? What lured you away from our wedding ?

Has my love been so weak ? Have I not told you over and over of my deep affection ? Did I surround myself with a harem ? Was I unfaithful ? No my love. Come back, let me comfort you, let me surround your heart with my undying commitment, Let me enfold you in my arms of forgiveness.