Apart from the predictable criticism by the writer of Pauline Hanson (I appreciate that he feels the he is one of the people she talks about), I agree with the gist of this article. Terrible Turnbull and the crippled Coalition do not deserve government to themselves; nor, by the wildest imagination, do the rapacious, big-borrowing and spending Labor party. Majority goverment, particularly with a malleable senate, which we often have, is nothing more than dictatorship. It is a total farce to call it democracy when we have a choice of two incompetent parties, manned generally by people who have made politics a career since they left school. The more the bastards are kept on their toes, the better.

Like the great prophet Abbott said. " If the legislation was any good it will pass the senate" whether the govt; is Hung, Quartered, or disjointed.

As soon as I saw that this article was written by Binoy Kampfmark I just knew he was going to have a shot at Pauline Hanson.

Look mate, I don't know from which foreign craphole of a country that you or your family fled from in order to barge to my functioning country, but I really do find it offensive when people such as yourself come into my country and start telling us Australians that we are racists and bigots, and then tell us everything we are doing wrong.

Whichever nation you or your family hailed from, if white Anglo Saxons were pouring in their millions unchecked into your people's country, and completely changing it's racial demographics, are you seriously claiming that your own people would not be concerned and that they would not vote for a politician who would stop it? Especially if those anglo Saxons had very high levels of serious criminal behaviour and welfare dependency, and had introduced terrorism into your country for the first time?

You know that what I am saying is absolutely true. To deny that your own people are intrinsically different from white people in their attitudes to foreign takeover through immigration would be racist. But you have got yourself in nice, well paid, cushy job where all you have to do is to keep telling every ethnic minority from very failed state and culture, and every loony lefty who is suffering from a delayed adolescence, that white people who prefer to maintain their functioning white society are just disgusting racists.

It is funny how the Muslims can have their spokesmen who look after the interests of Muslims, the aborigines can have their spokesmen who look after the interests of aborigines, and the Jews can have their spokesmen to do the same for the Jews. But if the white people elect a spokesman to speak for them, it is racism.

Please explain?

Our last experience of a hung parliament was the Juliar Rudd disaster, where the price of the greens support was for Juliar to break an iron clad promise less than 3 weeks after making it. Then there was the Thompson and Slipper fiascos.

I agree that its a total farce to call it democracy when we have a choice of two political parties who are just the two wings of the same bird of prey.

We voters might elect the pilot but we sure as hell do not set the flight plan.

We should turn our politician over regularly because the longer they are in the more their focus is on staying in and the more they become 'partners" with those who can put greater pressure on them than the same number of voters can. We the voters fall down the ladder of importance to such people.

Apart from the predictable criticism by the writer of Pauline Hanson (I appreciate that he feels the he is one of the people she talks about), I agree with the gist of this article. Terrible Turnbull and the crippled Coalition do not deserve government to themselves; nor, by the wildest imagination, do the rapacious, big-borrowing and spending Labor party. Majority goverment, particularly with a malleable senate, which we often have, is nothing more than dictatorship. It is a total farce to call it democracy when we have a choice of two incompetent parties, manned generally by people who have made politics a career since they left school. The more the bastards are kept on their toes, the better.

@ BK: "Any decent history of the traumatic years of the Gillard minority government will show that working with cross benchers and independents is exactly what democratic government is all about. Besides, such trauma is always exaggerated, usually by the calculatingly unimaginative."
So true. The Dutch and most other functioning European democracies have never had one party with a majority large enough to govern dictatorially, and that is the way it should be. No party has the perfect solution to every problem so there has to be debate over everything in order to get the least imperfect law or regulation. The Senate has provided this guardian role so far, but with no upper house in Queensland majority governments have always become total dictators which explains the distaste we all have for them.

My memories of the last hung parliament was a a government having to make a case for all legislation to the cross-benchers and getting a hell of a lot of legislation through, despite the noisy interference of the Opposition who said no to everything.

Sure Gillard went back on a election promise, as a negotiation with the Greens.

But Abbott as PM went back on plenty of election promises off his own bat and under no pressure from anyone bar the ACL, IPA and the Australian Business Council - groups not elected to Parliament by the people, as the Greens were.

Not sure what Slipper and Thomson have to do with it being a hung parliament. except that the opposition were trying to influence the numbers in the Parliament against the will of the people.

David,

Gillard gave an iron clad guarantee that there would be no carbon tax and did exactly the opposite 3 weeks later. She also did not keep a single promise, and spent 3 years legislating an essentially green's agenda.

The Thomson saga was initiated by Fairfax which is a labor supporter, and made worse by Gillard's fierce defence, and the Slipper saga was started by Gillard's duplicity.