Moving Forward, Moving Forward, Moving Forward, Moving Forward.

Direct Action, Direct Action, Direct Action, Direct Action.

Working Families, Working Families, Working Families, Working Families.

Great Big New Tax, Great Big New Tax, Great Big New Tax, Great Big New Tax.

They all treat us like the mugs we are - so what's the big deal?

briar rose,

Is Rhiannon, the NSW MLC who herself stands accused for misusing government funds for her own advancement for a federal Senate seat, the sort of candidate you are talking about? You know, a Green who can be trusted to keep others honest?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/09/2949504.htm

"If Senator Brown decides to step down as leader of the Greens in the next parliament, the battle for the ideological soul of the party will be on in earnest.

The Greens skate away from a lot of scrutiny of their policies, largely because they are a minor party but they do share one thing in common with the majors. The Greens are riddled with factional feuds and a furious though largely circumspect loathing of one another on ideological grounds."

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/jacktheinsider/index.php/theaustralian/comments/red_and_green_and_everything_in_between

Thanks for this article. I can no longer stand being treated as a person without inteligence, just another stupid voter. Yes, it's been particularly bad in this campaign and I'm turning off already.
But Australians should feel lucky if they're not Victorians, with a state election in about 120 days and a government which dictates instead of consults; presumably because Victorians are too stupid to waste time on.
I still retain some hope that Ms Gillard's natural intelligence will take over

Keep in mind, that article places a LOT of assumption of people remaining stuck in 'celebrity culture' that helped votes of yesteryear.

Not to mention that the Greens losing Brown (personally preferred by myself I admit) would still leave them in a position better than Labor and Liberals now (having lost John Howard, Peter Costello, Kevin Rudd, Kim Beazly, and countless other remotely distinguishable faces).

This won't go down too well with the urban luvvies but unfortunately what we are up against in Australia are a lot of people (including Gillard and Co) who have no experience in business and little understanding of what drives investment. To most of them if you invest or own a business you are 'rich' and deserve to be soaked by the Government and the 'wealth' redistributed. Never mind if you employ people and would have to lay staff off if costs rise. Never mind if you make little or no money in order to pay ever increasing staff costs (as is the case for many small businesses I know). Their thinking never seems to extend that far. Indeed the Labour Party does not want their thinking to extend that far and it has a strong history of playing on the ignorance and fears of these people in order to get re-elected. In addition, their slogans, symbolism and outright lies will almost always be cloaked in a moral observation. After all that makes it so reasonable does it not? Until there is better education in this country then we will always have a large segment of people who are antagonistic to and suspicious of business, never mind that it provides them with an income. I always make the same comment to the Labour supporters - put your money where your mouth is, start a business, take a risk and employ people then make an EDUCATED comment. I GUARANTEE that if you do this you won't vote for Labour too long. But they won't will they? It's far too easy to sit back, criticise others who try to make a profit and take your weekly hand out...

I am surprised that no-one has provided comments on the truly atrocious media coverage of the election so far. For nearly all channels to devote all of Saturday morning to something we knew was going happen was awful television. Couldn't they just have had a news break? We had coverage of Julia leaving home, Julia arriving at the airport, Julia arriving at Canberra airport all the time accompanied by earnest discussion (babble) of whether her partner was with her and on and on with large chunks of fill.

For me the lowest points were the comments about how many times Julia would have her hair done during the campaign and the extended coverage of the door that she would walk through announce the election. This was almost beaten by the shots of the empty room from which Tony Abbott would make his speech.

The only amusement came from Laurie Oakes who has his nose out of joint, presumably because she chose not answer his question the day before or as one of my colleagues at work suggested because Gillard didn't clear her ousting of Kevin Rudd with Laurie first.

Can I suggest that OLO start a discussion where people can nominate their "worst/funniest election" moments relating to the media? Kevin Rudd feeding the media chooks this week is my first nomination. Masterful! He dragged them around his electorate and didn't tell them anything and so the story became about how Kevin lead them around the electorate and didn't say anything. Moving the debate because of the Masterchef final is my nomination for runner up.