Tell us what you really think and stop holding back.

The greens won 11% of the popular vote .. so what, that's the normal drift of swinging voters.

You are drawing wild conclusions from it because you want to, the usual leftist watermelon rubbish.

You're disappointed in the ALP, and clearly hate the Liberal Party with a passion, far beyond PM John (MOS) Howard.

Mal Fraser when he was Minister for Army and sending Australian boys to die in Vietnam, was a long way to the right of where he is now - he has become a wet whining hated leftist (guilt perhaps over the 400+ who died?) and continues to try to rewrite his place in history as a backstabber, who had power in both houses and "did nothing". That's his motivation, do not be distracted by the hand wringing and crocodile tears.

Public emotion seems to influence you, which explains your propensity to suck up the spin of the ALP, who of course, let you down.

PM Rudd, "had a plan", except, he didn't, it was all spin .. and then 2.5 more years of spin - that's why their faithful turned on them.

The swinging voters abandoned the ALP, and went to a protest vote, to the greens, not because they cared about AGW.

I hope they do try for a fixed term of 3 years of ruling with the ALP - and after that the coalition will get back in for a very long time, we'll need them to clean up the mess these fools will create.

People did not vote for AGW, carbon taxes or anything like that, impose it on us and we will vote them out when we next get a chance.

If Australians really cared about AGW they would have voted int he greens in a landslide, not one member in the lower house - what a joke.

I would have thought a "drift towards authoritarianism and a further weakening of our democratic institutions" would have suited a global warming alarmist, after all Clive Hamilton said "we may need to suspend democracy in order to fight climate change".

NSW farmer Peter Spencer certainly knows the feeling of a constitution under threat, currently fighting for his stolen property rights in the highest courts in the land.

Politicians are identified as using fear to maintain their power, but the author never let's up on his own fear campaign with "global environmental crises", "climate denialism" and "looming environmental crises".

Apart from farming properties which have suffered under the Kyoto Treaty, coastal property owners rights are under threat from their own councils who have subscribed to climate alarmism.

This author apparently hasn't noticed that the key climate alarmist organisation known as the IPCC has its reputation in tatters following a year of scandals and an investigation by a friendly association which has called for a shake-up of their processes.

This author apparently hasn't noticed that the US Government now admits faulty NOAA satellites have been grossly overestimating temperatures for a decade.

Never mind what the IPCC scientists had to say about their certainties and uncertainties, if the data was faulty from the outset.

This article is ironically titled "Lacking vision or principles".

Great article! Tells it as it is. Raping the planet for the benefit of the wealthy is no longer the main game in town.

We need to change direction. Quickly. We need a world that works for the benefit of everyone, not just for the money-grubbers and the megalomaniacs.

Capitalism and materialism and greed have had their day. May they be forgotten and never reappear!

A good article appropriately criticising both parties for their lack of morality and the march to the right that we have all been taken by over the past 30 years. I notice the typical frightened conservative responses from co2 and rpg that are to the core of what was said.
Yes co2, much of the climate change debate needs re considering with the issues that have come to light over the last year. This does not mean climate change is not real nor does it mean we can sit back do nothing and shrug our shoulders as the environment falls to pieces around us because we are frightened that we may have to sacrifice something.
The political system in Australia only reflects the fear we have to try different ideas. Most likely the vote for the Greens will wain at the next election unless they can be seen to do something exceptional. i have never quite understood why we are so scared to slow down development and show compassion not just to other people but to the whole spectrum of life that we share this planet with. We are so sure we are the only species that matters on this planet that we will happily destroy everything so we can have nothing but debt and a lifrstyle that is impossible to sustain in the long term.

What the author called "neo-liberalism" was no such thing, it was actually "neo-conservatism" or "neo-con".
So a group calling themselves "new con" promise small government and minimal government debt...they end up delivering massive private debt, massive government spending on war, and finally massive public spending bailing out the "too big to fail" corporations that failed due to slack oversight of a credit bubble.
During the "new con" business profits soared while the middle class shrunk and the ranks of the poor grew. The "profits" turned out to be illusions, so folks paid when their investments and super lost value while execs continued to take home $M salaries. Meanwhile public infrastructure got ran down and the tax-cuts and welfare to the wealthy went into house inflation or offshore investment.
Under Howard the new-con empowered racists, enshrined spin and lies ("economic management? How about the billions lost in incompetent OS currency trades?)
The amazing thing about the "new con" was that once it had exploded via the "GFC" none of the consters were arrested or even blamed! The "too big to fail" banks CEOs kept their jobs, the ratings agencies continue to BS and the failed policies continue to be backed.
The Right is simply a collection of self interested parties who ride on Australia's civilised economy, which came out of the balance from previous governments. The Center Left barely exists any more, but needs to stand up if we are to be saved from the radical selfishness that has afflicted the US.
I am ashamed that so many continue to believe in the new con, and would rather stay conned than admit some balance, and some un-spun facts are required.

Yes a well reasoned balanced essay.

How can we even begin to have a rational politics (if that is at all possible) when we have the diatribes offered by the first two respondents to this well reasoned essay?

The first respondent accuses the author of hating the Liberal party, when all that he did was offer a criticism of how it now is and how it came to be so. A prognosis which many Chardonnay swilling "elitists" would agree with. The non-real Australians.

But such a tactic is a not uncommon right-wing ploy. Such is just an extension of their binary politics.
The politics of binary exclusions and the naming of (future) scapegoats.

We are right, you are wrong, and bang-bang you are dead. Or will be when the day of reckoning comes (when all of the traitors get their just deserts)

Right-wingers seem to know a lot about hate which always (according to them) is propagated by those on the left of the culture wars divide.

Anyone who criticized John Howard and his government, was thus always a Howard-"hater". And by extension full of self-loathing (whatever that could possibly mean), un or anti-Australian, anti-christian, etc etc.