Particularly for politicians, what does pragmatisms have to do with ethics or the "fairness-reciprocity foundation" ?

IF politicians were there to participate, to contribute and to balance out the opposing claims and counterclaims they would be undertaking all these disussions on legislation through public debates in the chambers, not in back rooms.

IF Executive Government was about enforcing those rules agreed to by Parliament, then our executive branch would NOT be so busy trying to control the discussions in Parliament.

Tony Abbott attempts same control over his troops, with less success, as he does not control the lolly basket, yet.

IMHO we need our executive government to be what our constitution allows, to be chosen by our popularly elected Governor-General !

WHy will our politicians in Parliament NOT return this right to the poeple ?

Why is it that academics can never see the wood. I suppose it's their inclination to talk too much. They talk their way round & round a question, rather than look at the answer.

The main reason for the change in the Labor party is a change in income flow.

The poor wharfie is higher payed than most white collar workers, the self employed tradesman earns more than the people he works for, & the builders labourer earns more than those working at the builders head office.

This being the case there is no longer much place for the old Labor trade union. Their last refuge is the over payed public sector, or wealthy professional associations.

Of course there still some militant unions, mostly run by "hate the boss" immigrant leaders with a Scottish accent, but by & large, they are now a head looking for a body.

With the closure of our factories, the unions, once lead by the very bright factory worker, who had been denied an education, became the toy of the academic, or the "B" grade law graduate, looking for an entrance to parliament.

Just a quick glance at our current parliament will show you this is a recipe for disaster. A labor party made up of all the rest does not have much reason for it's existence, a glance at the current "leadership" will show you this.

Of course the Libs now have a problem, too. Their main reason for existence was to protect us from the percentage of radical ratbags in the Labor party. As this diminishes they had better quickly move to protecting us from the far greater percentage of such in the Greens, or face extinction, too.

If Labor can just improve it's leadership, we could end up with a Labor Liberal coalition, protecting us from the increasing number of ratbags in the Green far left?

I certainly hope so, one world government frightens the whatnot out of me.

Interesting article from Crispin Hull - I hadn't come across Haidt's theoretical framework before. While the analytical categories are by nature artificial, the various "moralities" do make some sense when applied to the Australian scene.

@ Pericles:

It's not like you to be disingenuous. Have you forgotten how to use Google?

http://greens.org.au/policies

There's a whole bunch of them there, well thought out, coherent, easy to access. They're not costed, but at 12% they're hardly likely to be implemented independently, are they?

While I share to a large extent your cynicism pertaining to politicians as a species, there are exceptions. Thus far in their development, the Greens have largely avoided the corruption endemic in the 'majors', by consciously attempting to do politics differently. Of course, the bigger they get, the more susceptible they are, which is one of the reasons that most Greens don't want the party to grow too quickly, or to gain power in its own right before it is sufficiently mature.

@Hasbeen:

While I agree with much of your take on the decline of the relevance of unions, you didn't bother to read the article, did you?

I think that we're far more likely to see a formal Laberal coalition than the One World Government of your paranoid fantasies. But even that's unlikely, despite their similarity at every salient level, given the degree to which they hate each other. Perhaps their shared hatred for the Greens might bring them together temporarily for the express purpose of destroying the Greens electorally, but shared hatred is hardly an enduring political philosophy..

I don't think the Greens will ever replace Labor as such, but we could well be witnessing the beginning of the end of the two-party system - and about bloody time, I say!

"Of course, to displace Labor, the Greens will have to evolve more from hair-shirt wearing basket weavers who meet every ounce of successful economic initiative with daunting demands for redistribution to the undeserving."

The Greens have evolved from this perception and continue to do so. Much of those perceptions are exagerrated to diminish any valuable policies the Greens put forward. Much easier to dismiss them as basket weavers to avoid intelligent discussions about policy which might reveal the opposition to be lacking.

Economic redistribution really means reducing the gap it is not about stealing from the rich to give to the poor - although that is the fear campaign put about. Why the failure to comprehend that jobs at the middle and high end are over-rated (and over compensated) while the jobs at the lower end are under-valued and thus compensated poorly. The bleatings of the 'rich' are deafening whenever there is talk of an increase in the minimum wage but senior public servants, CEOs and middle managers can continue to reap economic benefits with barely a ripple, while continuing to reduce, often, operational staff, and reaping huge bonuses to do so. It is the biggest boys club around.

Labor is not the only part to lose voters to another party, the Liberals lost much of their little 'l' vote when they moved to the Right. Many of these went to Labor and/or the Democrats.

The biggest driver to the Greens is the failure of either party to question some of the bigger issues around free trade and globalisation and the failure to address inequity in any meaningful way.

The task and test for the Greens is to be able to put their policies into action and decide on what compromises need to be made based on costings and priorities; and based on the democratic choices of the electorate should referenda form a part of a Greens Government. Every government has to compromise to some extent - tax revenue is not a bottomless pit and the wishes of the electorate have to be paramount in any viable democracy.

Before work choices John Howard had the keys to the lodge.
Few with understanding will not know he probably would still be Prime Minister with out that.
Who in 2005 saw Kevin Rudd coming, his high mark in the polls.
Labor would have walked in an election of both houses.
Only a few know he was holing of, to get maximum benefit out of the timing for such an election.
The rest is History.
Look back however to the two post Howard's leaders, and Abbott's first 6 months.
Any one doubt Labor is at its worst ever.
How about in 2 years 6 months.
It stands tall like a huge tree, Abbott is not much better if at all, but he is on path to win.
Both sides are increasingly concerned with the greens, in truth CONSERVATIVES should praise them and donate to them.
They push Labor at its worst even further down.
We will have carbon tax/ETS, we will see reforms in Labor we may not see an election victory but we live in the days that are the start of greens decline.
And too that puts Liberals in power unprepared with the wrong leader and wrong policy's Labor will return.

Ummm, polpak, section 128 of the Constitution is the only way you'll ever get a popularly elected GG, believe me. Maybe you refer to the US Constitution, they're both written on parchment and ours was modelled on theirs. :))