<the Labor Party has been a predominantly free market party for at least 25 years and will continue to be so, although still with a disturbing tendency of continuing to look after union mates to the detriment of the wider community.>

And I thought it was the developers that Labor is looking after, silly me. After all for developers to get planning laws changed, they simply make political donations.

The only real way those who oppose developers, to win, would be to be able to donate more money than the developers.

One only needs to look at the sad state of public infrastructure, such as public transport and hospitals especially in NSW and VIC to see that the socalled socialists have not been performing.

There has been an incredible lack of foresight, during australias boom years, to capitalise and to build and improve infrastructure. So one must ask where did the money go? Or to whom did the money go to?

When will you losers get it? The Labor Party exists to pursue the same aims as the rest of the union movement. The biggest threat to Labor's popularity is trendy special interest groups.

Keating crapped on about the big picture. Keating was rejected.

Beazley cared only about trendy issues. Beazley was rejected.

Crean cared only about trendy issues. Crean was rejected.

Latham appeared to represent a return to traditional Labor values. He looked like becoming PM. He then did a U turn when he was accused of practicing class politics. He never looked like becoming PM from that point on.

Rudd campained on industrial relations. Rudd became PM.

Ah this article illustrates the eternal dilemma of socialists and socialism…

what they think

versus

what they say

versus

what they do

versus

what actually works

the article attempts to find a wedge in the Australian Conservative : Liberal side of politics

but

it really just illustrates the inherent deceit and duplicity of labor’s socialist “values”

JamesH “socalled socialists have not been performing.”

Socialism has never been about “performing” it is fixated on sharing poverty (the inevitable consequence of socialism) equally

What an enormously speculative article. Yes I suppose Patrick Baume’s scenario could happen. But then, so could a million other possibilities.

Here's my political speculation:

There will be an explosion of concern about Australia’s record high population growth rate and the hopeless conflict that this presents with the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, secure healthy water supplies, stop environmental degradation and live sustainably.

I think that support for Federal member for Wills, Kelvin Thompson, in addressing our absurdly high population growth and terribly antisustainable Ruddite politics (http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/speechesdocs/091111%20Population%20Reform%20Paper%20ac.pdf ) will grow rapidly and his position will come to prevail.

Rudd will lose power in ~2014. The Libs will win on a much greener ticket. But they’ll lose after one term because they were not green enough. Rudd will lose the Labor leadership when Labor loses power and be replaced by Thomson. Labor will regain power in ~2018. Thomson will become PM, on a ticket of genuine sustainability.

But unfortunately by then, the need for a government based on real sustainability will have come along many years later than it should have and the road to recovery will be very hard indeed.

“So the obvious and logical result would be a Conservative Party and a truly Liberal Party to emerge from this chaos.”

I don’t know that there is anything obvious about this predicted result, but it would certainly be a good idea.

People like Malcolm Turnbull are not Conservatives by any stretch of the imagination: Turnbull should have taken up with the Labor Party, which is no longer what it used to be, either. John Howard wasn’t a Conservative, nor was Malcolm Fraser.

The Liberal Party has, in fact, been a true liberal party since Malcolm Fraser. It is called Conservative only by people so far to the Left that everyone except themselves is seen as a Conservative or Rightist.

It is true that there are a few Conservatives in the party, but they have been crushed by Turnbull’s presidential style of leadership. His leadership is just the same as Labor’s leadership: dictatorial and self-interested. Turnbull want’s (or wanted to) be Prime Minister, so he twisted his party and the weaker wets in it to his own ends, just as Rudd is doing by trying to force through a useless (as far as emissions go) carbon tax. Like Rudd, Turnbull has said nothing to the electorate about his amendments; HE is happy with them, and that’s that!

Did anyone notice that ordinary householders would receive $900 million LESS compensation under his wacky amendments?

The best thing that could happen in Australia would be a new conservative party, properly named the Conservative Party of Australia, or some such, with many of the current crop of Liberal politicians, including Malcolm Turnbull, switching to the Labor Party, where they would be more comfortable.

Taking on another Leftist like Joe Hockey will assure that not a lot will change, however.

Wasn't it just after Mr Latham had his backside whipped that commentators were saying that the Labour party was finished. Obviously with the obsessive left media Mr Rudd has had a dream run. Eventually the apathetic public will wake up to him opening the floodgates to illegals and his generous giving away money to the corrupt UN. Once people's pockets start to get hit you can be sure they will look for an alternative. In the meantime the national broadcasters and other leftist journalist will enjoy the season they are in. They forget how quickly things can change despite them having any integrity in reporting.