I would like just one piece by one person about the supporters of the liberal party - you know them, big tobacco companies, pokies clubs, billionaire mining barons and the corrupted MSM.

I guess because you could fit them in a kitchen doesn't make them worth talking about so the media all navel gaze over the ALP.

It's ironic that we can even think that today's union movement has anything at all in common with NEW Labour! Or indeed, that the union movement is still relevant?
I see a future where the union movement will struggle against a tidal-wave surge of change? That change being cooperative capitalism that makes everyone on the factory or shop floor virtual profit-sharing shareholders in the enterprise, with a vested interest in its success or failure; and or, willing to share the profit or the pain.
Given this is the only probable economic future that will likely survive and or prosper, in the near and mid term future?
Bob can sing all the one note sambas he can lay his ancient tonsils on, but that will likely just hasten the change toward pragmatic compromise, and the only possible future for unions, who will morph into contract Labour hire firms?
Which is what they will need to become, to retain any real control over wages and conditions; or indeed, remain financially viable organisations? Rhrosty.

Yeah, well the conservatives have been saying that since the first union ever got formed.

I'm not convinced there is an ALP anymore. I can see lots of evidence of a PUP,(Parliamentary Union Party)however, from a branch level representation perspective there is little if any evidence, of what most of us would recognise as the ALP.

How can you say that? The ALP was started by the unions to protect their jobs from the Chinese or any other outsider of colour.

The racist bigotry has simply never gone away.

Marilyn, I think you may have missed my point.

There is much discussion by respected ALP personalities that the ALP has progressively closed out their traditional support base and values. The trade unions no longer seem satisfied with having MP’s to represent them from their traditional working class base, the trade unions now want to do the representing themselves.

As a result the parliamentary Labor Party is now the exclusive domain of the trade unionists, there are now very few root and branch MP’s and no ministers who are non union officials.

I personally don’t care much how the ALP goes about solving its problems as we are just about to solve them for you. All I’m asking you to do is have a little peek at reality before you go hissing off looking for someone else to blame.

You might do well to head the words of one of your own, Bill Kelty?

Marilyn, you are making me very nervous. I’m not at all sure you are what you present.

Your image of a pre-pubescent, radical labor, evangelistic sixth former has gone too far. I’m beginning to think you are no such thing.

Rather I’m inclined to think you are a Liberal Troll, a type 7 Troll, the “agent provocateur”.

You present an image of such stereo-typical proportions that your intent must be to denigrate genuine Labor supporters. This is very sad. I don’t agree with everything ALP supporters say however, I do support their passionate support for their ideology and their right to express it. You on the other hand seem determined to present a view so jaundiced, that it mocks genuine ALP supporters.

I also have reservations in respect of the intellect you present, I think it is fabricated. I’m being drawn to the conclusion that you are not a Marilyn at all. I’m drawn to the view that you are more likely to be a young male, probably attending a private college, your real name is most likely to be Nigel Frodsham-Smyth and you and your 4th form friends have “mocked” up the Marilyn to take the piss out of the ALP.

You seem to have recently ramped up the rhetoric because you weren’t getting the traction; you’ve over cooked it, particularly in relation to the “dumber than dumb” stakes.

Nigel/Marilyn, whatever your real identity is, there is no possibility that anyone could possibly be as ignorant as the persona you present. It just won’t wash.

There are many genuine and passionate supporters of both sides of politics on this blog, we don’t need immature, albeit well educated miscreants, masquerading as stereo-typical ideologists intent on creating offence and reaction.

Get back to your political studies and top taking the piss.Troll off.

The links between the unions and the ALP raise a lot of issues.

Where do loyalties lie when there is a conflict between the needs of workers and ALP political needs/wants.

Whilst conflict of interest issues seem to be widely understood (even if not dealt with appropriately) when it comes to financial matters there seems to be little acknowledgement of the issues when it's someone who should be representing a group of workers and there is the possibility of a conflict between the workers needs and ALP policy.

If the ALP was entirely a union party that conflict might not exist but the ALP is not that and the conflict does exist.

R0bert