Sir,

The Political realignment you tray to put in evidence, may occur according to Haidt’s ‘Moral Foundation Theory’ but in your previous article to OLO (11/11/2009) you wrote that “the vast bulk of Journalists honestly try to get it right. But the media does distort”.

By extension, the moral foundation theory becomes of little import when the values it should act upon are distorted by a media who has a stake in the overall play of feelings in the ‘operetta’ of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Sir,

It is your business to help journalists refine their ‘art’ and you mix with many of them. I read The Melbourne Sun-Herald only when I want to assess the level of poison it injects in the poor people for whom that newspaper is the daily diet…Tragic!

@ Pericles:

Okay, so you don't like Greens policies as presented at their website. Don't vote for them, simple.

You're probably right that most Greens voters haven't read the policies on their website, but that's probably even truer for the 'majors' - whose policies aren't exactly well-articulated on their websites either, IMHO.

However, there's more than a million Australians who support the Greens, and that number has been steadily increasing at every election, not just the last one. Green voters are probably at least as aware of the detail of Greens policies as are Laberal supporters of the detail and costing of those parties' policies.

I suspect that the reason that more and more people are voting Green is at least partly as Mr Hull describes (and as you implicitly acknowledge), i.e. that they provide a moral dimension to party politics that is woefully lacking in the 'majors'.

Thanks for clarifying what appeared at first glance to be a baseless slur on the Greens. No, that isn't the kind of corruption I had in mind, unless you assert that engaging in party politics is inherently and necessarily corrupt. I agree that there's been plenty of examples of Labor and Coalition politicians who might support such a contention, but I'll repeat that the Greens have avoided the mire thus far.

I think it just might have something to do with that "moral dimension".

I agree entirely with Pericles;

Personally, the only thing that endears me to the Greens is that they at least substantiate in some way that they are actually expecting to do a job and manage the state;

I'm most definitely not going to give my vote to a candidate who insists that it's somehow not his/her job as a politician to actually manage the various mechanisms that keep society running- but their job to sell them to someone who will, (and still expect to be paid).

And on that note- any party that explicitly promises to oppose, halt and deny privatization, will always get my support sooner than a party that is vague about it, or has been proven to support it.

@ King Hazza:

Thanks for your post. Given that the Greens are about the only political party in Australia that advocates ending privatisation of government functions, would you vote for them, given that policy isn't costed?

Or are there other reasons you vote for them?

Nobody can fault Julia Gila rd for laying to us.She said "will be no carbon tax's in the government that I lead' this is 100% OK.She is not leading this government Bob Brown is.As sun this bunch of useless s....is send pacing better for all of us.Treating us as total imbeciles is way to dangerous.I'm wondering way we haw a Governor general,She supposed to protect Australia from people inclined to destroy our country.The enemy is in Australia.I fell sorry for the young generation and of their blindness to reality and naivety.

"Greens could replace morally wayward Labor"

How ironical! This would take some doing, as the Greens have yet to demonstrate that they have morals.

Besides. most Australians would become aware that the Greens are technology- and economics- illiterate.