>"'It empowers negative campaigns, privileges sectional and special interests over the national interest … and confronts a conflict between long-run policy and the short-term tyranny of the polling and media cycle.'"

I agree. It's extremely irresponsible of Labor-Greens to hold the country to ransom as they are doing. Unfortunately, their relentless negativity began when Kim Beasley's led the Labor Opposition during the period of the Howard Government. It was a disgraceful act, especially given that Howard had set the agenda and justified the policies and then strongly supported Hawke and Keating as they implemented them (as only Labor could given it meant getting the unions to allow them to happen).

For those Lefties who wanrt to tag Abbott with relentless negativity, the Abbott Opposition supported some 85% of Labor policies during the Gillard and Rudd years. They opposed only the really bad policies that any responsible Opposition would have opposed. On border security policies, Labor always had the opportunity to admit it's massive mistake of dumping the proven successful 'Pacific Solution' and reinstating it. but their incompetence and pride prevented them from doing so. That's just one of a very long list of really bad policies the Rudd, Brown Gillard, Milne, Swan, Wong, Conroy, and the rest of the incompetent union trained politicians imposed on Australia.

It will take may decades to unwind the damage Labor-Green have done in just 6 years.

If the Abbott policy was any good they would not have any trouble getting it past the senate. Abbott’s budget was way over the top, it was the budget of someone out of control, and to date there has been no improvement.

The problem is Abbott’s authority over the rest of his team, he wants all the decision making, without any opposition from members of govt;.
You can’t say his policy on the run is justified, it doesn’t even sit right with the rest of his front bench.

Your comments are saying Abbotts policy is the only course of action that can be taken, which is very shortsighted.

The amount of damage done to the liberal brand is unrepairable without leadership change. Historical commentary shows how little there is to write about the present situation.

Might have helped in the Abbott govt's case if they hadn't fundamentally misrepresented their intentions prior to the election.

Of course, Labor provided them with a fairly large target, especially with the media on board.

It's quite difficult to sustain the ruse once the cat is out of the bag - especially since the Abbott govt let out all their cats at once - attempting to do a Gough in reverse!

The wheels are falling off quite rapidly as things stand, however. Autocratic rule from the PMO now has backbenches leaking like sieves and resentful of their leadership duo.

When all is said and done, Abbott himself provided the best analogy yet of the difference between him in Opposition and him in government.

He can't bat, he can't bowl, he cant field...but he's a damn good sledger.

>>... our parties remind me of professional football teams, focussed on winning. Most players could belong to either side. The MPs and Senators are no longer representative in any real sense of the constituencies that elect them...>>

Love it.

Excellent analogy.

Thanks for a really good article, Don, on a topic that's pretty close to my own heart.

It seems to me that what is missing from politics is a means of conveying any sense of common purpose to the electorate. That common purpose exists, on the other hand, is taken as a given.

It is very easy to be negative and it's something we all do (myself included) when we can't be bothered to take the trouble to think properly about the other person's position or if we feel our own to be under attack. That's fair enough, but if we want to be able to achieve decent long-term stable solutions there has to be a willingness to accept that not being wrong is less important than finding the right answer.

I think that most of our politicians are people of good faith and when people of good faith get together, then even really hard questions are soluble. On the other hand, I'm not sure that all of the people who our politicians look to for advice are people of good faith, so what we, as voters, need to do is to show those people that it is in their own best interests to act in good faith, whether they actually possess it or not.

Then we might be able to think about more important things, like the Broncos winning the Premiership.

Don great setup to blame all of Australians failings on the evil "left", talk about playing to a crowd.

Looking forward to a no workable solutions partisan part two.

Relentless negativity!
Seems like a good description of Tony Abbott when he was leader of the opposition and quite rightly described as Mister No.
Of course relentless negativity is also the primary "policy" of the repugnant party in the USA in response to Barack Obama in particular and anything defined as progressive in general.

Meanwhile of course the Murdoch "news"-papers have been practicing a relentlessly negative campaign against the Greens for several years now.
The theme being that if it wasnt for the Greens everything would be hunky-dory in consumerist la-la-land. Or that all of our political, economic and even social problems are in one way or another caused by or exacerbated by the Greens.

Meanwhile this essay describes what a truly human politics may begin to look like: http://www.dabase.org/p8realpolitik.htm

Here is something that everyone should contemplate, Since 2012 there has been wide spread corruption and defamation in the media And The GOVERMENT KNOWS THIS. I am sure a lot of people remember the continuous comments of " The Paedophile kid" well that "saga" was actually defamation that was the direct result of Triangulation. If you do remember about what I am talking about ask yourself why was there no actual reports played on air after all it is the media, its what they do but there wasn't one single report, just continual slander about a kid who was supposedly a paedophile. What actually happened was that the media got wind of a hacking method called triangulation for a "contact" at the Sydney university of technology. Which resulted in whole teams of reporters hacking there way into authoritive agency's , governments official's house and the private lives of the public. that's how this defamation came about for 3 years this has being going on and even the police of local and federal jurisdiction and the government has being informed but still there has being no resolution to the issue. the talk on the inside of the media is this is investigative journalism and there "fighting corruption" but all that is an excuse to make millions of dollars of illegal profits to bump up there paycheck, knowing full well they are breaking dozens of federal laws ( commonwealth privacy act1988 ) and broadcasting laws. If you look at the time line for nova radio 96.9 ( it was this station that started the defamation) prior to 2012 they were on the bottom of the Sydney radio list now they are at the top of the list for ratings in 2012 when the defamation broke they were generating such big profits it go them a relaunch of there vega fm radio brand ( now smooth fm) also the launch of the smooth pay tv channel along with numerous contract such as close radio, a joint venture with us online streaming staion RDIO the first of its kind. along with dozen of concepts.!

If anyone can find any information about nova's progress since 2012 best of luck cause they have being hiding as much information from the public as possible even posting misleading information on the web to hide the truth about what is happening from the public. they have also submitted inaccurate records to commercial radio Australia so as not to raise suspicions as to why they had such high ratings. And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how far this corruption has spread into the media. SO what I would like to know is how should this corruption be dealt with?

A federal ICAC now!

Some sort of accountability regarding pre-election promises. No more saying one thing and doing the exact opposite. There must be a better way of holding governments to account than waiting 3 years for a chance to vote them out if they break their promises without proper justification - too much damage can be done in 3 years.

A cap on political donations and more transparency regarding political donations.

More ministerial accountability.

Disallow ex-ministers from working in related sector for 5 years.

Reliable information: For citizens to make rational decisions we need good quality information - this is not happening. We know we are being fed spin (propaganda) - how many of us trust the media/those in power to give us the truth?

Rule of law - some Australians are below the law while others are above the law - this must change. The Magna Carta was signed 800 years ago - it is shameful that some of our basic freedoms are now being taken away.

Freedom of speech - how free is our speech when would-be whistle-blowers are gagged to keep them silent? How can that be in our national interest? The corrupt and powerful are protected, while the truth tellers risk losing their jobs, their reputations, and even being imprisoned.

Taxation without representation is tyranny. How is it that corporations who often pay little or no tax, are able to lobby politicians for favourable treatment? While ordinary workers are taxed a third or more of their pay, plus paying other taxes such as GST etc on many consumables and we don't have any lobby group speaking up for us? This is inherently undemocratic. Murdoch, Rineheart and their ilk are better able to defend their interests because they have greater access to politicians, lawyers etc. Ordinary people simply don't have the same access to those in power to protect their interests.

Our political system is broken and needs fixing.

What a dreadful article Don. Far too true, too close to the bone, & offering so little hope the mess can be cleaned up.

This followed by posts from 579 & the hound, showing they understood not a word of it, & highlighting how unlikely they would be to even try to correct the problems.

I have always blamed Richardson for the rot. Was he the first, prepared to implement dreadful policies to buy the ratbag green vote, or was that just the first time I stood back far enough to see what was happening? How the hell can you judge yourself in these things?

You & the hound really highlight how unlikely we are to be able to get anywhere with sorting the mess. When we have so many industry & political leaders prepared to ride the Global warming scam to wealth or power, & so many without the savvy, or the independence to even see what is happening, one really could be forgiven for joining them.

God help our kids.

@ Poirot

<<[Abbott] can't bat, he can't bowl, he cant field...but he's a damn good sledger.?>>

And that was from the person who was sledging the Abbott administration even before they took office --LOL a real pot kettle situation.

SPQR,

"<<[Abbott] can't bat, he can't bowl, he cant field...but he's a damn good sledger.?>>

And that was from the person who was sledging the Abbott administration even before they took office --LOL a real pot kettle situation."

Well, perhaps I knew something you didn't - and since the Abbott/Credlin administration has proved itself thus far an unmitigated disaster - maybe I was onto something.

In fact, he's turned out far more incompetent than even I dreamed he'd be.

The most negative thing the opposition could do is to pass all the government's bills. The fact so much bad legislation is getting blocked suggests the political system is working reasonably well despite the "short therm poll driven culture".

As for the article, it obfuscates a fairly good point and encrusts it in rightwing rhetoric! For instance:
| And twenty years of growing national wealth (no longer growing) have led to a widespread
| perception that there really is a money tree, and almost any problem that one encounters
| could be solved if only some medicinal money were applied to it.
Nobody actually claims there is a money tree, but the claim that there isn't is invariably used to try to persuade people that we can't afford what we really can afford. The lack of increasing wealth is due to economic mismanagement, with a compliant media failing to challenge the narrative that the government should take more money out of the economy than it puts in. And when almost everything is limited by the amount of money available, most problems can be solved with increased funding.

Hasbeen You don’t have much support for your type of govt; at the moment, and rightly so. They have not displayed the type of skills needed to run govt or anything else.

You must be happy with Abbott’s one man and one lady policy making, which are all failing to come to fruition because of no other than bad policy, unworkable, not even thought out. And rightly blocked in the senate, by all sides of politics.

This is far removed from what we voted for, like when Abbott was negotiating the hung parliament he was prepared to do and say anything to become PM. He used the same tactic to be elected PM. That means he had his own radical plans to become a dictator, by using his PM power to bully his own front bench. So much for his reconstruction of his front bench to eliminate any form of obstruction for himself, This implies he does not have the nation at heart he has himself at heart.
To stand over and bully ministers to get his own way surely proves he is not suitable for the job, and you would be best to reconsider your faithfulness to a rouge PM.

Time has come for his own party to stand united and eliminate the skum from their ranks and become a proper parliament. The wheels are turning as the top offices of our land are leaking, and ministers are jostling for position. Abbott is desperate to spend billions of $ to follow his dream of being an infrastructure PM, and worry about the consequences later. That is another ill thought out idea, with Vic not going ahead with a tunnel to give a handful of city people a short cut. Vic has more pressing infrastructure jobs which includes public transport. Shoot from the hip and you are sure to strike a nerve somewhere.

Aidan, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is supposed to have the best interests of the realm at heart at all times, as is the Government. If that were truly the case, then it would be rare for any bills to be blocked, because due process of Parliament would see the pros and cons of proposed legislation properly discussed (rather than debated) and modifications made or objections overcome through explanation.

Of course, it isn't truly the case, since the Parliament is no longer made up of those who have a strong vested interest in the outcomes of their decision-making process, as it was when Parliament was first conceived.

So Parliament is now a farce of preposterous peacockery, where legislation is written in back rooms to appeal to Party apparatchiks who hope it will be saleable as a product to the public and there is no discussion at all on the floors of the Houses, just posturing and silliness.

It's not just a shame, it's shameful.

The Abbott government would have a far better chance of blaming Labor and a recalcitrant senate for its disastrous budget if it had not so comprehensively lost the public debate.

Modeling clearly showed the budget pain fell disproportionately on the poor. A few policies were particularly toxic – including the $7 GP co-payment and paying unemployment benefits to under-30s for only six months of the year.
If these policies are not to be “barnacles” but remain as unimplemented government policy, it is hard to see how the government will escape the perceptions of unfairness. It hasn’t, and can’t, win this argument by claiming the budget is the only way to make spending cuts, because voters understand that governments have choices, and they really don’t like the choices this government has made.

Bill shorten.. on higher education . I’ve said before these reforms need to be scrapped and their proposals need to be taken to an election.”
Abbott said on Tuesday the “very good package” of higher education changes would be a priority when parliament resumed next month, but the crossbench senator Ricky Muir told Guardian Australia he was likely to oppose the bill.
At least two other crossbenchers, Jacqui Lambie and Nick Xenophon, have said they were not prepared to support the current bill, partly because the Coalition had not told voters about the plans before the 2013 election