…Chris Lewis presents in this article, a fairly accurate preamble of the conditions and possible future of Australian politics. I think there is plenty of winking and nudging between Abbott and O’Farrell as the Federal Labor party, under the ineffectual leadership of Julia Gillard, slides the slippery slope to forced elections. NSW is a good example to Australia as a whole, in how a liberal government, irrespective of leadership, will determine what it sees as imperatives.

...Attacking the Public service will be high on the agenda, and closely followed by Industrial relations reforms (again). O’Farrell demonstrates his liking of “Howardism”, with declaration of war on 400 thousand public servants in NSW; 75% of whom are women employees. This is an enterprise where equality in the workforce has forged benefits for women, not obvious in the private sector.( By comparison, the median wage level for male public servants in the NSW public service is $69.000, compared to the median wage for women of $68.000).

...The future for Australians will be the usual one of no choice, as political ideologues war for supremacy and using hard won community gains as fodder for their egos, and manipulating media power as reinforcement towards the fake of success.

Chris, an enjoyable read. Pragmatically balanced and the absence of ideological rhetoric is most refreshing.

It seems that Abbot has adopted the O’Farrell model during his run up to the NSW election, stay under the policy radar as much as possible to avoid “target lock”, or perhaps O’Farrell got it from Abbott.

Either way it is clear that the Canberra Press Gallery, some of the newsprint and all of the ABC have nothing to shoot at. I evidence this by the number of items we are seeing from their archives of circa the Howard days.

Abbott will have to balance the perceived negativity which accompanies this strategy against the possible higher risk of being targeted by the ALP and its cheer squad.

Old, clipped, truncated and zero context archive footage is on the increase, they seem to be desperate to find their mark. I have to wonder if this actually makes things worse for the ALP because it telegraphs what it is that threatens them most.

Either way we seem destined to face some ugly politics in the next couple of years.

Thanks

Hi Chris,

Wonderful. A really balanced read where I found myself nodding in agreement throughout.

Well done. I hope you find this is what you are good at. I know you are treading an unusual path. Keep at it as it is vital to a continuing democracy in Australia.

I think you will find anyone who takes great issue with your perspectives are extremist and not representative of we Australians.

Altogether you've in a nutshell read and enunciated us very well.

I dropped Telstra and switched to Optus. OLO have my new e-mail. I hope you continue to send me your views in future.