“How far back would an Abbott government push the campaigns for … marriage equality?”

I didn’t know there was a campaign for “marriage equality”. I thought that campaign had been won long ago. I thought husbands and wives were already equal in marriage.

If you mean the campaign for “gay marriage”, you should say so, instead of indulging in this torture of the English language in order to dress an attempt at unconstitutional word theft in the language of human rights and thus appeal to all the airheads out there.

Luckily for the logical thinkers, there is still a sizeable number of Labor MPs who have not been taken in by this fraudulent appeal to emotion and who will vote in favour of the English language when the gay marriage campaign next reaches parliament.

"In the fullness of time, history will remember Julia Gillard as an exceptional prime minister..."
Rubbish! She will be remembered as the worst PM we have had. The nastiness we have experienced in this parliament started with her as deputy PM. She set the tone. She was incapable of answering any questions directly, openly lied to the electorate and treated us as fools. Whilst she has introduced some beneficial legislation, it will be up to someone else to sort out the detail and the financing. Her initiatives are only half baked. Gillard didn't ever govern in Australia's interest, just her own interest and that of the unions.

Sparks, I endorse your comment. Gillard was a failure of monumental proportions.

That she hung on to the end rather than resign because of her poll numbers (which were even lower than Rudd's when she replaced him) showed her stubbornness, lack of political acumen, and her inability to accept her rejection by the Australian people.

It also showed the stupidity of the factions and why they should be drummed out of town before they cause more problems!

History will give her one out of ten as a P.M. if she's lucky!

...Ah “yes”…But.. Ah “no” too… I think it a foolish concept to believe Labor voters are automatically pro-gay marriage, or for that matter, pro Republican… Ain’t necessarily so Doc…Both these topics will lose more votes than it will gain.

Kevvy, did you write this?

I liked Julia Gillard as a person, and it is sad that Australia's first female Prime Minister will be remembered as a failure. It must really gall the trendy sisterhood that Britain's first female prime minister really was an exceptional woman, she was nationalistic and patriotic, and she really did stick it to her "wet" male colleagues.

The fault lies with the Labor Party and it's policies. "Labor" does not mean "trendy lefty" or "troublesome imported foreigner."

It's funny to read the author of this article going into orgasms of delight about how this will reinvent the Labor Party and win the next election. There is something charming about blind faith self delusion, even though it is pathetic.

Very good article, especially the second-last paragraph.

LEGO

Thatcher did NOT 'really ... stick it to her "wet" male colleagues'. She did everything according to the book on how to please a Tory male. She became more Tory-male than the Tory-males themselves - racing off to war, inviting mass-murdering right-wing dictators to tea, slamming those uppity working-class miners, stealing all that North Sea oil (which really belonged to un-Tory Scotland) to fund tax cuts for the Tory rich.

For a female PM to receive the long-term seal of approval in Australian politics, she would most likely have to be another Thatcher - an ultra-conservative woman of the hard Right, who knows how to kick working-class arse in public while kowtowing to her born-to-rule male minders in private.

Hi Killarney.

If you ever bothered to pick up a history book, you would find that pre Thatcher Britain was called "the sick man of Europe" because it's economy was in ruins. And all because of the Socialist unions who were doing their damndest to wreck the place. And I say that as a union member myself who has worked on coal mines in NSW and seen the way our own overpaid coal miners behave.

The previous Labor Prime Minister (Callahan) had simply resigned because the country had become ungovernable. Into that chaos stepped a remarkable woman, a daughter of a grocer who earned a law degree, became a scientist, and eventually, the best Prime Minister of Britain since Churchill. If only you trendies could attract somebody that good. But you can't, because what Thatcher had was common sense and brains.

Scotland is part of Britain, so Margaret Thatcher did not "steal" anything. You sure have a vivid imagination.

She stood up to one of your hated "right wing dictators" who invaded British sovereign territory and she sent the Socialist depleted British armed forces to get back British territory. I would have thought that even a leftie like yourself would respect somebody who defended their own country against attack? But you people live in a parallel universe.

General Pinochet in Chile did exactly the right thing by kicking out the idiot Communist government which had ruined the Chilean economy. You remember Communisms, don't you Killarney? Not only did this economic system turn entire countries into giant prison camps, it was such a bad idea that even the inventers of it in Russia gave up on it.

The middle classes of Chile sat on the balcony of the stock exchange sipping champagne as the Chilean Sabre jets bombed the presidential Palace and killed that idiot Allende, who could not run a lamington stall at a school fete. And before you cry over the poor little Communists who got murdered, pick up another history book and read what the commos did to everyone else once they got into power.

The author says ....Do we the people vote for the prime minister? No we don't. We vote for a local member and the members themselves appoint a leader.

I disagree, as it is my opinion that many do vote for a prime minister, but their only option to do this is to vote for their local member.

Proof of this is reflected in the polls, as there are simply not enough people in K Rudds electorate to make the swing in the polls so large.

Put simply, the swing is soley due to Kevins popularity, yet only a very small percentage can actually vote for him personally.

Killarney,

Spot on with your analysis of Thatcher.

Rehctub is mostly right, a large part of the vote for a local
candidate is influenced by the leader.
However if a local member is hopeless it is difficult for him to get elected.

The effect is why the show pony has made such an impact.
However like a rock landing it can have a very short term effect.
He is already grating on my nerves, but it will take a little longer
for him to grate on the nerves of the average labour voter.

Interesting to see Bob Carr tell everyone that Rudd does not know that
most of the illegals are in fact economic migrants and not under
threat by their country.

I meean, we all knew that but was Rudd that stupid that he did not know ?
Then if he did know, was his weakening of the border controls deliberate ?

That is the choice he is either stupid or duplicitous and wanted large
moslem immigration.

That is the choice no other option available.

Vote for a local candidate, you've got to be kidding. For the last 3 elections, state & federal, I haven't even known the name of any of them. They are totally irrelevant.

Hell it is hard enough getting enough information on council candidates, let alone federal & state.

Hasbeen,
if you cannot identify your local members, then you plainly don't know how to use a telephone book - a skill I thought most Australians would have learned by year 8. Perhaps you are too young to remember phone books?

What about the other candidates? If all you rely on is the TV news, then your behaviour is ignorant and foolish. You won't find out anything much through that medium, which plays to the government and the opposition and largely ignores the range of other candidates that serve mainly to funnel preferences to the dominant candidates.

Do you know how to use Google? If you have anything beyond the most superficial interest in political issues, policies and processes, then I expect you can educate yourself on who is running for office in your electorate.