"Can Labor bring about a just society?" They never have to date! Nor have the Liberal party! Why should we expect anything different in the future?

Totally agree with your final remark Jocelynne!

Likewise RobP and especially Maracas. Exactly right.

(Qualifier: I have been accused of posting '40 words or less'. Whilst I await the attendance of the Word Police to bash my door down, I will say that I WILL continue this civil disobedience; particularly when others post far more eloquently on what I would like to say.)

If we had those brilliant lefty policies we could be really advanced like Cuba or Venezuela.

Instead we have to make do with low unemployment, low inflation and a Top 20 standard of living caused by the hateful Hawke / Keating / Howard years.

I disagree with Howard on some key things but I don't accept that we are an unjust society.

Rudds Team is ALL of US at a TIME when the WORLD needs our CITIZENSHIP and ATTENTION against unfair policies shutting out key "aspirations" to live in a JUST and PEACEFULLY supportive environment at ALL regional levels.

See my OPEN LETTER to HOWARD, RUDD, AUSTRALIA.

No matter what Australia, I believe; "...the Broadband issue, the ALLIED Health issue, the APEC issues like the Community Provisions, Services and Future Development National issues are ALL inter-connected. "

http://www.miacat.com/Open%20Letter_Sept_14th.htm

It's Down to Community Enterprise. Family supports (be it for mothers and children in Iraq or our kids at home). Global planning is impacting on citizens everywhere.

Technically this is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

We as citizens KNOW THE SCORE.

There is no one else to wait for now... the TIME IS NOW and IT IS UP TO ALL of US.

After Rudds election I believe Australia will go into a focused KNOWLEDGE, SHARE and EXCHANGE DRIVE. There will be some healthy hair-raising arguements. We will Problem Solve many things as a nation and we will once again learn better how to strengthen our pluralistic sense of oneness as an Australian Nation. AUSTRALIA is a leader in ethical political policies and debate in the everyday world forum.

I believe organisations like Candoo NGO (see open letter) will be able to participate in community enterprise again - without the adversity around ("LOCAL + REGIONAL PARTY POLITICS)

I believe "renewables" on climate change will be widely sought. As with balanced multi-fixed agreements for a "broadband-max" telecommunication plan. (i.e., e-democracy is a about cutting Red-tape, Inclusivemness, about having a NO WRONG DOOR POLICY!)

A FAIR AUSTRALIA POLICY IS PROVED BY ITS FOOTPRINT IN MARKET PARTICIPATION AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IN THE BUSH.

Here transport is a key issue under-mining economic values. Fuel and insfrastucture depict our access to basic services.ie: Product Markets and Civic Health.

I believe our wonderful business minds will be more innovative then in any time previous. We need ALL HANDS ON DECK.

I believe there is a strong POLITICAL WILL TO ACT in Australia and Australia is progressively ready for this challenge

http://www.miacat.com/
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westernred,

Any fool who has the good fortune of being able to sit on top of a pile of mineral wealth and is prepared to flog it off today rather than to preserve some of that wealth for future generations, or take care of our national and global environments and can create the illusion of being brilliant economic managers.

This is all the more so if the newsmedia that is supposed to hold that Government to account is sycophantic and uncritical, and if the Government is prepared to spend hundreds of millions of our taxpyaer dollars to promote itself in a deluge of saturation-level self-promotional advertising.

Most those positive indicators to which you referred (which in any case are flawed) are due to Australia's foreign debt increased by a staggering AU$200billion last year. Compare that with the $AU10billion "Beazley Black hole".

For further information, see my post at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#94409 and the associated article "Living standards and our material prosperity" at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326

Also please check Steve Keen's blog on Australia's ballooning foreign debt at: http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/?p=39 and John Hermann's article "Myths of the economic competency of the Howard Government" at http://candobetter.org/node/164

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Sage wrote "To expect any politicians to rise above the grubby behaviour that they engage in and deliver a just society is an expectation that won't be realise."

One thing is certain: If ordinary decent people don't engage in politics, then we will continue to be governed by corrupt rulers.

If things are ever to change for the better, then many ordinary people are going to have to risk dirtying their hands by becoming politicians. Of course there's a risk that such people can become corrupted in the process and will end up becoming indistinguishable from what they once opposed, but that outcome is not inevitable as my article has shown.

James Sinnamon (author)

As an oldie going on 87 who experienced how Keynesism got us out of the Great Depression and gave us help and confidence to begin again after WW2, as well as a dying Keynes figuring out the wonderfully successful Marshall Plan during the Bretton Woods Agreement, can't understand why we have to change back these days to the empirical greed of the colonial days.

Regards - BB, WA.