A completely immoral Julian Assange is in my view, the very worst spy of all, with no state or personal secret safe from a person demonstrably free of a personal moral code or respect for privacy, personal choice, required verification of alleged facts or permission to publish; or consequent collateral damage!

As for President elect? Putin clearly had some (put in) input into a result that defies popular choice! Meaning no real mandate for anything!

And given Mr Trump has never ever had to report to a board or take personal responsibility for any negative outcomes!

Good luck with the alleged attempt to control or influence, or indeed any successful attempt to fathom the mind of the soon to be? Most powerful man, in the very best democracy money can buy!

I spent enough time in foster homes and orphanages to know that most of the kids (other folk's personal property) that showed up there, were either abandoned, notoriously neglected or abused within an inch of their lives!

The still astronomical suicide rate by young folk in some settlements, gives extreme weight to my view and none whatsoever to the completely spurious, deliberately divisive, countervailing, risible rubbish?

There is not a black way nor a white way, just a right way!
Alan B.

Indeed, once America won a sports tournament against Russia, the Russian press announced:

"Russia came second, America came second-to-last".

So, Mr. Johns, if coming second-to-last makes you this proud...

@dreamon i think you're the one who is clueless.

Gary, talking about Russia in 1917 is not going to shed any light on Australia in 2016.

Any survey needs to be taken with a grain of salt, what where the respondents perceived grievance with representative democracy?

I think the general felling is representative democracy is on the nose not so much democracy itself.

There is two ways to fix it, either the main political parties need to pull their act together, which is very unlikely.
Or
We need to technology and more away from our present process, and allow the public to set the political agenda and be able to vote directly on issues.

The pollies will not like either of these, so we are likely to move into deeper political instability before the fix is inevitable

"we are slightly more free than our former Soviet counterparts, who along with us, remain without a bill of irrevocable rights?"

The recent historical record of the bill of rights in the US demonstrates a clear lesson. Having all the rights in the world wont stop the powerful who see such documents as a limitation on their power, taking it away from us. In any country the only thing stopping this tyranny is we the masses getting our arses and taking the actions that are necessary to prevent it.

We Australians are in the exact same boat as Americans.

In recent times I've started to listen to the Know Your Rights Group broad casts and learning that our Australian Constitution and Commonwealth laws, provide all the rights and laws we need to ensure our rights. We the people just need to learn and enforce them.

Dont beleive me? Read the work of Sue Maynes and her husband who lost their house trying to get the local council to answer 2 questions.

Read up on the Unidroit principles that Australia has signed up to in 1973.

Ask yourself? Have we Australians ever voted at referendums to:

approve the increase of power of any body or govt agency outside of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia?

hand over our ‘power’ to international bodies and corporations?

step out of the protection of the Commonwealth Constitution?

be coerced to any legal action in anything but common law?

be manipulated into agreeing to any commercial activity that gives an assumed power to a foreign jurisdiction?

be governed by any body that is not completely “of” and working completely within, the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia?

be bound to Private Law agreements we did not even know existed?

If not why are we is this the situation