Chris Lewis,

I couldn't listen to Bitar for more than 5 minutes.

Agreed. I have been a Labor voter for more than 40 years and I've never seen a Labor Party so bankrupt of progressive ideas. Labor governments in the past have sometimes been politically inept (like the Rudd-Gillard administration) however,they at least tried to implement progressive policies. L.F. Crisp divided Australian political parties into 'Labor and anti-Labor' ie the Coalition's raison d'etre was to keep Labor from office and subsequently altering the social and political status quo. Labor now seems to have adopted the Coalition's political strategy--the result is a national policy grid-lock.

The final sentence puts the situation concisely.

I am ganerally antipathetic to Labor, so my overall understanding is one of perceptions as opposed to facts. However, as perceptions are what generally guide the voter, perceptions regarding this government are very negative and becoming ever more so I judge, from things I hear on the street.

Chris Lewis writes

"While these are difficult economic times....the public does expect Labor to promote politices in line with its historical traditions. This is especially true when an increasing minority struggle with higher costs for housing, food and utilities."

Well, Labor have driven much of the increase cost of utilities and food with its push for an ETS which gave licence to parties all over to do whatever.For example, power plants not being maintained due to future uncertainty.

Consumers, in my years of being, have always born painful costs in almost everything when Labor is in government. It seems as if their assertion that they protect the 'little man' is, and always has been, a pathetic con.

As for Gillard being more intellectually able than Abbott - that flies in the face of all commonsense. Gillard is one of the least able leaders - let alone PM's- in my many years of watching and living under them.

Time for a change and sooner rather than later.

the problem is that there are no internal debates within the party so no contest of ideas, generally left of centre activists only associate with like minded people and therefore are not used to arguing or trying to convince people with a different mindset.
we become insular and cannot understand why our views are rejected by the community at large and generally resort to childish name calling

It's hard to disagree with this post, but the ALP faces other problems as well:

- a PM who seems to lack a narrative or vision, other than her tedious references to education (an area where her policies are completely unconvincing)

- the lack of politicians able to speak plainly and convincingly to the general public. Gillard and Wong remind me of computer generated voices: Gillard because every utterance seems to have been through three cycles of editing to avoid saying anything controversial, with the result that she seems to lack intelligence (which I must assume she doesn't); and Wong because her highly analytical monotone sounds like machine speak. In neither case are they able to engage people in the bigger picture of what they are about. (Bring back Tanner.)

The government does deserve some sympathy, in that the key issues at present are all very controversial (refugees, the Murray, private school funding, mining tax, ETS). On balance, I can't see any of these issues being good news stories for Labor, which is even more reason why some big picture narrative is important (and this won't be achieved by continuing vacuous references to what the 'Australian people' want).

In answer to Slasher. What a remarkably honest and perspicacious response to the above article.

You are right, people of like mind do congregate together, think alike, then scream at the rest of us, calling us racist or whatever insult might be the flavour of the day.

This is no way to bring people along. It causes resentment and antipathy and never wins debates. It may win an election, but soon people being to feel the pain of increasing costs and see the dishonesty in the policies - or lack of - put forward and it goes harder with those elected to power.

One other observation - the left of the spectrum are intellectually arrogant and people, by and large, detest being talked down to, treated as if they were morally inferior, dumber somehow. There are many in the community who have very high levels of education but who also have the saving grace of not feeling themselves better, or morally superior in any way to their fellow citizen.

The American grassroots organisation The Tea Party has a growing pesence in Australia, so I wonder how much longer it is before ordinary people begin to make their feelings known as are the farmers of the Murray Darling Basin.

Still, I admire your honesty. It is refreshing indeed and you are to be commended for it.

Were ALP Labor than I'd be a vehement supporter of Labor. However, in the years since Whitlam the ALP has done a 180〫move away from Labor & that is their gradual undoing. It is almost traditional that voters wait until a Labor Government has emptied the till & then a Coalition mob gets voted in again until the coffers are full again. The electorate is simply exploiting the economic loop holes. Mind you, those with a little more integrity are the ones missing out. Why do you think the Public Service is doing so well ? Because they don't have to go down with the Government that fails. They've got the best of both worlds at the expense of the working class.