No, our political system is much the same as it was. What we have now is a spineless media that puts US style spin on everything, leading to a US style popularity contest based on "sound bites" and "truthiness". Real analysis and accountability has largely gone, or is brought out for the trivial cases so that they can claim professionalism.
Like the US, we now allow the stakeholders free reign to spin as they see fit. This began under Howard when he made the ABC another media clone in the name of "balance". Science was also undermined, as was real economics. We now get our advice from "institutes" that push brands, parties and other profitable entities. Journalists are not allowed to do their job as the politicians are free to reject their difficult questions, knowing they can find a friendly journalist to air their spin without consequences.
I believe both parties need a big kick and a reminder that we do want liberalism...just not tainted by ignorant conservative rubbish, we also want some socialism...just not jobs for jobs sake and unsustainable welfare. Science matters: without it we are stuck with the confidence of fools and the spin of those with much to gain.
Optimising anything requires balance and an unbiased analysis of *both* sides. Extremism and uber-conflict will break democracy by forcing wedges through the community. Howard started the "culture wars", but they are now gathering momentum and the harm is starting to show.

A comment by one 60 yr old non Christian I overheard recently "A GIRL....? ? ?"

Re the faith of her parents.. (Christian/Baptist) she claims she formed different ideas.

If she has no faith, then presumably she has no reference point for her values. So..her values and political decisions might end up being entirely 'pragmatism' based rather than principle based.

I just feel sorry for her, having walked away from something she clearly did not understand.. if she DID understand and still walked away..the please Julia.. don't stand near me when the next storm comes.

If she did walk away from the faith with a correct understanding of the Gospel and Christ...then she will answer to the Almighty for that, (as we all will) but one wonders how she might translate those anchorless flexible playdough ethics into national policy.

I sure hope she doesn't get advice from any psychic.

"the practice of democracy in this country has lost its way"

What absolute garbage, if a leader is not performing as he should and is unacceptable to a large body of the electorate as Rudd was, then the democratic thing to do is for his parliamentary colleagues, the Caucus, to replace him.

That is precisely what the politicians demand of managers in the bureaucracy perform or get out and now!

After it took a revolt by exasperated voters to depose Howard for his arrogance and disregard for large sections of the electorate, his own ministers immediately criticised him and put distance between him and 'his' decisions. If they would have lost their jobs for questioning Howard and his politics were partisan, loaded towards the big end of town and to George Bush, why didn't they do something?

Similarly British Labour struggled on for years supporting an unpopular PM out of false loyalty when he did not have the confidence of the electorate. Their media had very kind things to say about Australian Labor having the gumption and courage to replace an underperforming leader.

What the author should be on the look out for is lack of ministerial responsibility, failure to declare interests and as applies to some parliamentarians in both upper and lower houses, failure to contribute and give good value for money for the betterment of all Australians, not just the few billionaires with mining interests.

ALGOREisRICH..."walking away" from faith is an act of rationality that leads to maturity and freedom. It allows one to be honest, (truly honest) and also allows humility and freedom from fear.
You assume that one who walks from Christianity has no ethical rudder? On the contrary! I believe, through experience, that atheists are consistently more ethical than Christians.
It is not only the worldwide abuse cover-ups, the endless wars, the witch burning, slave owning, repression of knowledge and glorification of ignorance (they replaced sex ed with abstinence training. Result, teenage pregnancies rise over 50%!)...but also personal experience. As a rule, atheists can work as a team while Christians generally sharpen their knives ready to further their own interests.
Could you really say that Bush or Howard were particularly moral, given how lying and mass destruction for profit was their main legacy? I mean who kills millions to secure an oil supply and then says "God told me to do this" with a straight face!
Australia grew into a great country through hard work and pragmatic secularism. When churches get involved someone usually gets hurt.
The trouble with only having a mental hammer is that the world appears only as a bunch of nails. Christianity has taught you to despise humans unless they join the tribe. This was OK in pre-industrial times but has no place in a modern world.

not a very enlightened piece - others have said it well enough before me.

The only difference with this coup - and it was - and all the others since 1966 - given Menzies was the last to leave at his own timing - was the sugical precision of the move - and contrary to the authors view - the honesty of it - Gillard was loyal until the caucus told her they had lost faith in Rudd - simple

Seems to be a lot of finger pointing going on, failure this and failure that but what about the mitigating circumstances for those failures? No one seems interested in the whys?

For me once it had become obvious that multi lateral agreements by all nations to reduce their carbon emissions in an orchestrated binding and confirmable treaty at Copenhagen was never going to happen the impetus was lost. There was never any point or expectation that Australia would continue on its lonesome regardless, introducing and enforcing its own ETS which we all know is expensive and will be detrimental to the economy.

The atmosphere above continental Australia doesn’t exist as a static bubble, there’s only one atmosphere for the earth and it’s continuously circulating over all nations. It’s also a fact that Australia’s carbon emissions are so minute that any change plus or minus would be of no significance whatsoever. You could pack everybody in Australia up and ship the lot out, turn the lights off, shut down everything, close the doors and leave it to the kangaroos and still make no impact on the planets overall atmospheric carbon levels.

So there was no point in Rudd continuing with his ETS without the rest of the world joining in, it would have been stupid.

Another unexpected global disaster was the financial crisis which forced Rudd to redirect funds originally destined to power up his election promises, such as the education revolution amongst others, into keeping Australians in jobs and our economy afloat.
These were higher imperatives that did not exist at the time that he made those election promises and he did a bloody good job of saving Australia from the financial hardships that broke many average families in the US, UK and others. Overall I think Rudd performed well I only had two problems with him at the helm and that was his kowtowing to the USA and the continuance of Australian military deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.