oops! that's supposed to say 180 degrees. don't know how this typo occurred.

As a swinging voter, giving my vote to the ideas and not the personalities or parties, I voted for Kevin 07, but in the last election, so disillusioned was I, that I voted informal. Seeing the performance of the GALP (Green Australian Labor Party) now, and reviewing the performance of the former ALP, I fully understand my disillusionment.

GALP and ALP do not stand for the working people, they are Liberal pretending to be different. As Liberals, their performance is worse than Liberals who suffered for their complacency and stale ideals.

What a terrible thing it is that the working class must turn their back on public education because the real funding is to be found in private education. It plays havoc with the families budget as they search their finances to fund a private eduction.

What a terrible thing it is for the environmentally aware that they must endure this constant holding pattern as the GALP dump their ideological fuel before landing with taxes only... as if that is the solution.

I care about the environment. I care about the working class. I need for governments with vision and the courage to bring that vision to fruition. I need for real solutions to modern problems and not just more taxes that are spent on everything but the problem.

What political party is there now which can give this to me?

George Jetson
You have expressed what I think a lot of ALP/Green supporters are feeling. The idea that climate change and energy issues can be addressed purely by economic triggers (trading, caps, taxes) is short sighted and throws environmental issues into the mire of the financial markets.

We need to do more on renewables and more on saving resources including not increasing populations to beyond what environments and finite resources can withstand. The GALP is doing some work on renewables but are still, like the Coalition, obsessed with energy sucking projects like desalination, with problems already experienced with the NSW plant being located too close to the sewage outlets and the risk of E.Coli contamination. It just gets worse and worse.

Gillard is still playing it 'safe' without any real vision about much of anything.

Increasing the cost of power only means people will pay more for power at the expense of something else even if there is some reduction in usage it won't be enough. Moving money around via an ETS is not addressing the problem. I wish the Greens would get on board with a bigger focus on direct environmental policies as well without a blind faith in an ETS to have any real effects of climate change. I can just imagine the shonk dealings that will come out of a cap and trade and the inflationary effect of bargaining/trading cap allowances (if my understanding is correct of how it all works).

Bitar and others have said there needs to be more internal debate, but how much will just be lip service and how much will be a frank discussion about what Labor really stands for.

I think you are whistleing into the wind wishing for any thing outstanding while there is a hung parl:
The least critisism will come by a status quoe:
50% are on the other side, so you can not win.
As long as both sides remain inseperable there will be no change.

george,

the problem with the left of centre alp/greens is we have no positive economic philosophy principles, we criticise market economics when it is preached as the guiding force in labor markets, we decry the myth of the invisible hand in respect of welfare economics but to deliver environment reform we embrace the free market and expect the invisible hand to squeeze carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere

Well I thought the Bitar whingeing was glorious, and a prime example of a brain dead political party.

Bitar even blamed Latham for the near loss.

Incredible!

Might as well blame Gillard for supporting Latham into the leadership when he challenged that massive windbag, Beazley.

Let's face it, the ALP is a dead parrot. It's lost any membership outside of trade union officials and ALP party machine men, and a few token women.

The Qld branch of the CWA has more members than the entire ALP, and probably including the Liberals too.

Let's hope the ALP keeps filling its leadership spots with people of Bitars brilliance, so we can watch them slip out of history along with the Democrats.

There are absolutely no reasons to vote for the ALP over the Coalition, other than to avoid equally terrible politicians.

They've lost me as a voter, at state and federal levels, and while people like Bitar, and Rudd and Gillard, continue to be feted by their mates, I'll not be bothering to reconsider.