This issue is not going away. It highlights several aspects of Australian life/politics. First, at election time there's a national delusion, an almost hallucinatory trip - we think we vote for a specific person to lead the nation. We do not. I repeat - we have never, and are not about to, vote for any one person, neither Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott, to lead this nation. The point is, however, we should be doing so. It aint rocket science people - we now desperately need legislation following referendum, to enable the people to directly elect the PM. Yes, just like others elect their president. The system was irrevocably broken and cheapened, and diminished, and demeaned, and prostituted, by Julia Gillard et. al. We better fix it before it is no longer a democracy.

Dear Kenny
I cannot let your assumption pass unaddressed. I have never in my life voted Liberal and I won't be starting now.

I had little time for Kevin Rudd, as I've previously stated at some length in this journal.

But I have even less respect for the robotic person who replaced him, and the method by which she achieved the top job.

I am not alleging that the government acted illegally in replacing the PM. Of course they didn't. They acted in compliance with the Westminster system. Which has shown itself to be a flawed system on more than one occasion.

If political parties are going to use their leaders to persaude us to vote for them (and they do, and it works and it's presidential) then we need to have some means of preventing the party that wins government from chucking out the leader/PM without consulting the voters who put them in office.

This is not rocket science. It's standing up to the major parties and refusing to allow them to manipulate us and our votes.It's addressing a flaw in the system that the major parties exploit.

Thank you for reading my article, and giving it five minutes of your life. Unfortunately there's a no-returns policy on your time.
Jennifer Wilson

So Artsgrad and Jennifer,

Are you proposing a tricameral parliament - a House of Reps for whom we vote electorate by electorate, a Senate for whom we vote by state, and a house of one, a Prime Minister ?

Would she/he be in the lower house, the upper house or floating free of both ?

Would she/he have to be elected to one or the other other house first, or could he/she be elected independently of both ?

What would her/his powers be, i.e. what powers of the other houses would have to be ceded to her/him ?

Would he/she speak as PM in the lower or upper house, or would she/he make decisions free of both, ex cathedra ? Would he/she be bound by decisions made by the majority of the lower house ?

Could he/she dissolve parliament at will, or in consultation with the other houses, i.e. with members in her/his own party (and then what happens if he/she represents a different party from whichever has the majority in either the lower or upper house) ? Suppose Bob Brown was elected as PM, with his five or six fellow-Greens having the balance of power in the Senate (i.e. no majority in either house) - could he (and they) dictate to the country on that basis ? Even as a Green, I would have some qualms about this definition of democracy.

But once we iron out these wrinkles, it should be pretty simple really ;) Who says arm-chair pontificating is futile ?

Joe

Jenny,
I am reminded of the Monty Python Skit about "bring out your dead" with this article. Encouraging the people to air their limited understanding of politics and the fact that both sides indulge in this internecine blood sport.

Starting with an heading designed to generate cynicism. Followed by an outrageously myopic assertion. All this is followed by visceral 'reasoning?' and factually light verbiage topped with an equally unhelpful lack of understanding of the Westminster system.

Sorry ma'am time to move forward or, get party authorization.
Without a doubt this is the weakest of your offerings. You and Greg alike.

PS the 'Australian' (sic) might be calling you soon
Graham, really mate.

There are many countries in which such unilateral action would have caused riots in the streets and bloodshed."

Not here, Jennifer. The last activity that could be considered an uprising of opinion was the Vietnam Moratorium. Before that it was probably the Eureka Stockade. Takes a lot to get Australians motivated about anything other than a football score, any game will do.
Sadly, Jennifer, your well written article is just flying in the face of apathy. This is Australia. Many of us tonight sit comfortably in front of the ABC News 24 release while we have dairy farmers in Tasmania almost forced to look for the sale of their properties overseas, anywhere, because the amount they receive for their milk from the monolithic foreign-owned middle men of the industry, the processors who then on-sell it to the big retailers who then make ten times more in profit than the farmer who produced the product. Standard activity in this country where nobody gives a damn. Sell off our assets. Who cares?

As Jennifer said, Australians should have been outraged by the disgraceful action last month, by a person with blind ambition, a leftwing zealot accepting rightwing support for services yet to be rewarded, but you can count on that. For example, if the so-called Senator Arbib (claim to fame: Labor money-raiser) rises further up the pecking order as a result of Gillard's assassination of an elected PM, then you will know I am right. He does have right wing skills, whatever they are, none of which should be discussed in polite company, but he should never be allowed to talk to anyone about anything important. He and his ilk brought on this coup, fanned by a compromised and compliant Gillard and her Melbourne Zionist backers.

Rightwing Arbib and the leftwing Melbourne Zionists. Now these are strange bedfellows but anything is OK for a comfortable life of power and influence.

There are many matters requiring urgent attention in our country, Murray Darling, Health, and on.

Australia has a choice of Gillard or Abbott to fix these problems. We have hit rock bottom.

Jennifer,
It's not often I agree with you. I share the general disquiet about the removal of Rudd.

I'm a liberal voter.

So have no real desire to praise Kevin and his efforts nor indeed offer him my sympathies. I'd liked to have had the opportunity to have hit him with my metapherical baseball bat.

However of greater concern is that Gillard is trying to hide her involvement, with Kevin, in the doubling of our annual immigration intake ... without telling us.

I wish both had been up front and told us they intended to do that as an action intended to alleviate some of the effects of the World Economic Crisis. Gillard with her pretend immigration 'statements' isn't telling us whether she wants to continue with that strategy or reduce immigration to our historical levels of 140,000 p.a.

Oh and by the way I wouldn't mind if all 140,000 were all asylum seekers ... from refugee camps!

Hi and regards Keith