Give over Roses, praising NZ, & I expect Tasmania for their electoral system is rather counter productive mate. I'd be trying to hide the fact if I believed in it. Both are failing, if not failed states.

Tasmanians would be surviving on bread & dripping if the rest of Oz did not subsidise them to a huge extent.

New Zealand would be the same, if they had not sent a huge percentage of their population over here to get a feed. For those poor kiwis it would be mutton fat dripping too, the worst type.

You'll have to do much better than that, if you want to get real people to let the fairies control our lives.

<< …LibLab's politics are shams in which the only interests either component party serves are the interests of their party's financial sponsors, the 1%. This is why representative government is not democracy - the 99% elect them, the 1% buy them. >>

Agreed EmperorJulian.

So where are the Greens on this issue?

The lack of real democracy incurred by the donations regime and other favours offered by the vested-interest big business sector has surely got to be one of the greatest concerns when it comes to the quality of governance and indeed the future wellbeing of this country.

And yet, we don’t hear boo out of the Greens about this!!

So….. what principles are the Greens really interested in here??

Peter McMahon, you write of the Greens:

< Should they focus on core environmental issues (such as global warming, energy and infrastructure policy), or should they present themselves as an overall progressive party (with policies on sexuality, drugs, euthanasia and the like). >

What about a holistic sustainability strategy?

Isn’t this what the Greens should be concentrating on first and foremost?

Isn’t this the most important thing of all, both in our national political arena and for the future of our country?

I presume you agree, given that you are a lecturer in sustainable development at a University school of sustainability.

The Greens have critically missed the most excellent opportunity with their current political clout to steer this country in the right direction towards sustainability. And I think that Labor would have been reasonably receptive, given that it has the likes of Bob Carr and Kelvin Thomson, both of whom are very vocal in this direction. But alas, we have seen nothing of the sort!

I’d love to get your thoughts on why this is so, Peter.

Roses 1

I agree with your general comment but take issue with this:

'there are encouraging signs that the independent web-based free newsmedia / blogs setup in the last 5 years or so are winning this one'

I'd like to agree, but the signs are that the web-based news and blogosphere is creating a very polarised and vindictive public debate. The outcome of this is in the way the last few elections in Australia and most countries throughout the democratic world have viciously turned against their incumbent governments since the start of the GFC. If the 'free' newsmedia were doing its job, the public would be much better informed about the effect of the GFC on their own economies, and less eager to blame it all on their own governments. Instead, the real culprits - transnational casino banksters, the globalised free-trade system and career military and war profiteers - are not being scrutinised as they should be, except on a few socialist left or libertarian right blogsites that only a few thousand people read worldwide.

Ludwig

Re the ‘lack of real democracy incurred by the donations regime and other favours…’, you say:

‘And yet, we don’t hear boo out of the Greens about this!!’

Well, you can check just this small selection of ‘boos’ (aka media Greens releases) on political donations reform to start with (plenty more on their state and federal websites):

http://greens.org.au/content/federal-donations-reform-report-missed-opportunity

http://nsw.greens.org.au/content/donations-reform-breathes-fresh-air-council-elections

Neither of these media releases appear to have been published by any news outlets. Yet the never-ending smear quotes from their political enemies about their ‘extremist’ and ‘dangerous’ policies get front-page/centre coverage every time).

Also, keep in mind that the Greens have operated for a relatively short period as a very junior party in a reluctant partnership with the Federal ALP to keep an unpopular government in power. Yet both their detractors and supporters expect the Greens to use this very limited and difficult public platform to achieve everything from 100% renewable energy yesterday to economic surplus today to total world peace tomorrow! Give them a break!

Thanks Killarney

The Greens’ policy is good. They want a complete ban on corporate donations. I know they have had a little bit to say about donations. But it’s nowhere near enough. Yes the media is problematic, but if they are not getting their message out there, then they need to try harder, find different avenues, squeeze it in sideways in interviews at every opportunity. It is THAT important!

So then, what about immigration, population, striving for a balance between the demand for energy, food, goods, services, infrastructure, etc and our ability to supply it all, somewhat better than are now doing, in an ongoing manner and with a big safety margin, ie; the achievement of a sustainable society?

Where is the Greens’ message on this??

Could you possibly find something, Killarney… or is it as non-existent as I think it is?

<< Give them a break! >>

No way!! They deserve an absolute hammering. Crikey if they had just seen fit to support Kelvin Thomson and Bob Carr in the things that they’ve been saying about lowering immigration and stabilising population, then they would have been half way to espousing a platform of sustainability.

The fact that they couldn’t even do this much is just deplorable.