This author, like most of the party politicians in Australia still doesn't get it! All the noise from the people just fall on deaf ears. When results like those returned from the last many polls show resounding discontent with the residing power-brokers those in power ought to wonder why. The remedy is simple - "Listen to the people".
I don't know which result will be worse for Australia come the next Federal election -Labor, Liberal or a Hung Parliament - "We'll all be rooned."

Benjamin,

you sorry university educated over paid socialist fool.

All your high ideals and your lofty goals have very little relevance to the working people of this country.

Most of them merely want a full time permenant job, enough pay or support to put food on their tables, petrol in their modest cars, decent clothes on their and their kids backs, cheapish power produced from our abundant coal reserves, less tax and a political party that represents them and understands these needs.

Their most basic aspiration, now that homeownership is beyond most of them, is for a decent education for their kids so that they can get the f..k out of the situation they find themselves in.

What they don't want is a bunch of overeducated middleclass simpleton socialist idiots to steal their representative partry and turn it into a vehicle for all the marginal international movements that bear little relevance to their needs and aspirations... and who try to keep them and their children in the labor class hell forever.

That's why they don't vote labor anymore.

Benjamin Jones

come now where is the clear thought that should be the hallmark of our academics..

First off, Labor is a philsophy or a point of view or whatever, to you and your political science mates. To the actual voters who matter out in the marginal electorates (remember them?) the party is a brand that has to be marketed and sold..

The media is at times only one remove from the ivory tower themselves, but they do understand that they have to reach an audience, and that audience instantly turns off the moment anyone starts talking in airy philosophical terms.

Its not for the media or the voters to change but for the political science academics to recognise the reality of the debate.. maybe you could switch to studying marketing?

Anyone who thinks that Labor under Rudd could have crept back into the hearts of the electorate has a very short memory. Retaining him in power would have just made Labor's ratings nose-dive that much faster and sooner. The real problem for both parties is that economic management has become a no-brainer, and it's no longer enough to avert economic crises and balance the budget, which were regarded as pretty major and astonishing feats twenty years ago. Now a party has to 'brand' itself with an ideology; and unfortunately Labor's 'branding' is to do with destroying wealth and adopting the inane policies of the Greens.

So Federal Labor is in the same state that the Liberals were in with regard to the National Party when Hawke was PM: alienate your mad minority allies by rational behaviour, and lose government, or alienate the electorate by siding with your mad minority allies.

Hay nutter, I think you should stop beating about the bush, stop pulling your punches & start telling them how you, & the rest of us, really feel.

So you lament that the meeeja treats labor as a brand and then relate a football analogy of blind support for a team, no doubt handed down through generations.

Here I was thinking policy might be worth a mention.

What you're basically saying is that even if Arsenal aren't Boring Arsenal any more, they're still Arsenal, and their current style of play is no factor in whether you would support them or not. So too if a political party doesn't support the same values, you should still vote for them anyway.

' The Labor Party can and will return from its political woes '

And the South Sydney Rabbitohs will one day again win the grand final. How many years of sitting in the rain watching them play like shite with a million dollar team and how much money down the drain at the leagues club is this blind loyalty worth?

Jon J, good analysis.