"It seemed that the fear and loathing of strong women, which is inherent in the Aussie culture of ‘mateship’, had finally bubbled up into the public arena in all its ugliness. "

Whilst I can accept that there are a small number of people for whom that may be the case I think as a general claim I don't think it's substantiated by any more than feminist dogma.

My impression is that many of those most critical of Gillard and her performance as PM had a high level of respect for Margaret Thatcher.

The attacks like a lot of attacks go for whatever is deemed in the attackers view to maximise the hurt. Comments about Gillards backside are not necessarily any more sexist than the lefts pre-occupation with Abbott's swimming attire or ears.

I also get the impression that as there are some who disliked Gillard as PM because of her gender there are others who liked her more for her gender than what she actually did. Not sure how we accurately measure the size of either group.

R0bert

Poirot,

I'm sure that any day now, Abbott will announce that he is reinstating all that money cruelly ripped away from those women.

Then when the carbon tax is removed, Ford will suddenly cancel its plans to close its factory and when the FBT recording for part-private car use is gone, that company will rehire all those staff they had to immediately sack months before anything ever really happened.

Homelessness skyrocketed during Howard's Golden Age too, as did youth suicide and personal bankruptcies.

We get to have a vote every 1000 days or so but some power brokers get to vote anytime they like.

All we have are two groups of self-serving opportunists arguing over who gets to sit on the leather com-car seats.

The only difference is that one believes that things can always get better and the other believes that this is as good as it gets, so don't change anything unless we really have to.

They both have "faceless men" behind the scenes and both have dubious internal practices.

"With enough votes like mine, we will at least have another hung Parliament and hold the men in suits to account."

Unfortunately it seems to be only the 'men in suits' who understand money and who realise that in order to spend money it is first necessary to make it -- or to motivate someone else to make it on your behalf. I'm sure the Liberals will be drab, uninspiring and in some ways retrogressive, but they will hopefully put enough money in our pockets so that we can afford to choose our own ways of alleviating the situation. Under the Greens all we can look forward to is a big group hug to keep us warm when the last power station closes down.

Don't vote for either of the major parties.

The trouble, Arjay, is that our voting system means that in most cases our vote will flow through to the major parties. They have stitched up our democracy for their own advantage. Add to that above the line Senate voting, which can result in the election of a Senator with a miniscule primary vote (ie virtually no public support) but a lot of carefully negotiated preferences, and I think we can fairly call our democracy non-representative.