I think I'll join the new Western Australian Revolutionary Party (WARP) - it certainly makes as much sense as the current lot! Their first act will be to dig a deep trench aling the WA border and then install Wilson Tuckey as president. The full manifesto can be found at

www.georgefripley.wordpress.com

Speaking of faceless men again.

What about the behind the scenes faceless men who orchestrated the Liberal election propaganda campaign?

And the Liberal machine altogether.

Everybody knows who they are--right?

In pointing out that deal-making, fund-raising and polling have now become the raison d’être of the ALP, Jennifer reminds me of a government department I once worked for where the management division was given the task of drafting the new departmental mission statement. The result was a statement saying that the department's sole purpose was to manage itself well.

I think Jennifer is distinguishing between the outcome of our collective vote last Saturday and any collective purpose within the electorate. I wonder if social networking would ever allow such a fine-tuned result to be achieved deliberately?

I love the hung parliament - every election I fret over whether to put Labor or Liberal last, and now we've achieved a perfect result where they are both squirming like worms on a pin.

Sweet article full of nice thoughts but not all that realistic. If we went to the polls again next week you can bet someone would get a majority one way or the other. I agree about the possibilities of a hung lower house but don't see anything except both main parties doing whatever deal they can to get power. From there they will be hanging out to when they can pull an election so things can go back to the status quo.

both parties are run by the faceless men(and women) so let's not get all moralistic about it. The chance that either side will make any long term or meaningful reforms to the system is fairy tale stuff. They know that if they can make the current situation work acceptably then they will probably walk the next election in and the independents will again be sidelined.

I have no faith in our political system but am able to accept that nothing short of a revolution will change that and we are not that desperate, yet.

Phil Matimein, more separatist dribble from WA, well you can have Wison Tuckey. His lose is one of the positives to come out of the election. No more of his irrelevant dribble. I lived in his electorate for 8 years and never saw him nor noted any good to come from him and he was in power that whole time. The electorate will do much better with an independent National in place. The WA Nationals should stand as an example to the National party in the rest of the country.

[The major parties had absolutely no moral authority left]

I really hate the way the Liberals, since Howard, now rely almost totally on the ultra-negative Republican style advertising and sloganism, to attract/retain voters.

Really all they appeal to is the most crassest of human emotions -greed and vengence, and the human weakness for the comofrt of traditional memes (such as the Libs are better at managing economies - not so. Labor govs spend, which induces follow on growth, that the Libs take ownership of. Libs are conservative, which means Do nothing at all Radical, except if it is somelthing like a GST to tax the masses). Libs thinks view this as being "Moral Authority"

Hi, David G and Houellebecq

I don't believe for a moment that there could possibly have been some gigantic conspiracy between Australian voters to bring about a hung parliament. That is the kind of conspiracy theory that gives conspiracy theories a bad name, and I certainly didn't suggest such a thing.

The majority of voters have, quite by coincidence, declined to give either party a mandate.

The nation now seems to be dividing itself into glass half empty and glass half full - give the politicians a shot at it, and see what happens.

Thank you for reading and repsonding. Jennifer.

PS: I don't think I'm a pseudo intellectual -I think I'm a real one, but what makes an intellectual pseudo, is it the same thing that makes a prime minister real or not real?