@cohenite. It is not enough to dismiss something you disagree with as a "leftist rant". If anything that Alan Austin said is wrong then perhaps you could provide a reasoned rebuttal. Your ad hominen approach is frankly tiresome and does nothing to advance the debate.

I'm with you, cohenite!

Cheers,

Allan Thomas

If you are tired James then you had better retire; don't stay on my account.

Alan Austin is, IMO, a one-eyed advocate advocate for the ALP. I find his defence of Gillard particularly galling.

In respect of his list of alleged coalition faults a number stand out as being unreasonable, notably blaming Howard for the 1999 East Timor massacres. This is straight out of the Pilger textbook, blaming the West on the basis of some perverted 'blowback' logic for the barbarism of other cultures.

To blame Howard's reasonable proposal about a referendum for causing violence by the pro-Indonesian forces is grotesque but I'll leave it at that in case someone accuses me of getting personal.

Cohenite the left/right paradigm is used by the elites to divide and conquer the masses.Unless you are worth at least a $ billion you are one of the serfs.Neither of the major parties or the Greens serve the people.

This is the current reality of a world owned by counterfeiting banksters.

Gee Alan

seems everyone is now accepting you are nothing but an off-shore labor leftie propagandist.

Living in the European socialist utopia and telling us what is best for us.

Cheers mon ami, mi amigo, gee can't remember the greek or italian

Shame these important discussions have to shift to the lowest common denominator of left/right politics and football team politics. Why not just look squarely at the debate and learning from the mistakes of the past. Howard's awful decision to intervene (along with the US) in Afghanistan and Iraq is something from which we can learn.

If not Australia is doomed to make the same mistakes into the future. Same goes for the ALP's continued support of that decision and continued overreaching in national security policy vs privacy aspects.

More accountability and transparency is what is needed for government regardless of who is in power.