ALP "taking over the middle ground" and Liberals in a mess? Fact is Reds, Greens, Blues and Teals are indistinguishable, They're all rainbow watermelons. Middle ground voters no longer have a viable choice after Morrison won The Climate Election and then deserted them.

As long as there's no moral requirement to access that taxpayer-funded trough the integrity-devoid will flock in for their chance to exploit !

No. The Teals were elected out of sheer ignorance and gullibility by voters. And, the Teals are not "well qualified" for anything useful to Australia. Politics is one of the few jobs these days not needing qualifications at all - one of reasons we are in such a mess.

The standout fact for this year's election is that a clear majority of Australians (56%) did not want a Labor government, and only 35% of them wanted a Liberal government. The totally useless Teals were a protest vote, something that will not change anything while we have this stupid preferential voting system.

Until voters go on strike - write 'none of these' on their ballot papers - Australia will stay rooted.

What if? Perhaps? Maybe? I think the Teals will be around for at least a decade. And because of climate change and how we address it. Basically, by tanking the economy with unsustainable energy prices.

If the Teals had a natural leader, Jacki Lambi perhaps? Then they could coalesce around her? And become an official party then become the government?

I mean labor barely scrapped in and only because they're not the "liberals", i.e., conservatives. The only true libs in parliament today are the Teals. Labor a mismatch of neo libs and neo conservatives/opportunistic career polly waffling Pollies

The Teals as a true moderate Liberal party, could easily defeat labor. By embracing carbon-free nuclear power.

Not as conventional nuclear power but as MSR thorium and MSR nuclear waste burners. Where the rest of the world pays us annual billions to take their nuclear waste. And were we to do that, provide the very funding we need to transition to low cost, clean, safe, affordable energy THAT WE OWN AND CONTROL!

And get the economy up off the floor as well as drawing down our massive trillion plus dollar debt.

The world's lowest costing energy will see the high-tech energy dependent industries of the world beating a path to our doorstep, even as China all but encircles us? And given that's the case? A robust manufacturing industry even more essential!

To encapsulate, it's the economy, stupid.
Alan B.

Whatever Mr Burke said, the primary role of any politician is to represent the views of his electorate.
However, in practice, it is not possible for a politician to know, instantly, his electorate's view on a particular matter.
So, in parliament, he must use his best endeavours to envisage their probable attitude.
He is guided in this by the 'policies' he expounded to voters at election time.
If he represents a particular party, the majority who installed him will understand that he will apply that party's principles when casting his vote.
Independents also stated their aims and ideas to their electorate. So they too have a set of principles to follow.
As their term in office proceeds, they should take steps to find out if the thinking of their electorate is changing.
Politicians are not supposed to 'roam free'.
They all have their guidelines, which are supposed to underpin the way they vote.

Whether they stay or 'wither' on the vine, will depend on their personal 'drive'.
If we accept that all who are 'well qualified' will become 'thoroughly bored' and leave parliamentary life, what are we then left with?
Are we to assume that all long term politicians are ignorant slobs, who are too lazy to find real and meaningful employment elsewhere?
Are we to assume they are confidence men, with the goal of getting as much as they can, whenever they can, for as long as they can?
Is so, why did we elect them?
Are we so lacking in integrity ourselves that we couldn't see them as they really are?
I think we must avoid being so negative.
We must quite rightly accept that most politicians do their very best to fulfil their duty to their electorate.

Ipso Fats,
Thumbs up ! The best captain will lose control of his/her ship if the crew is useless !

The way the Labor Government and the Liberals have come together on the National Anti-Corruption Commission is an example of what you're suggesting - an attempt to make the Independents/Teals look less relevant

This GUI cost me the half hour or so it took me to compose a comment.

There is only so much time I'm willing to save the world, and that's gone for today.

Grrrr.

I think the Teals got such a big turnout is because they're not right-wing conservatives and didn't sign up to sell the country to the highest bidder.

the problem with foreign investment is foreigners and their allegiances! And the fact that they almost invariably come with tax avoidance, price gouging and profit repatriation.

If we want new infrastructure and new amenities, we need a superior paradigm to selling the family farm or borrowing evermore and then using more and more of a shrinking budget bottom line to fund government spending/responsibilities.

Any national survey taken today would probably tell us that nuclear power ought to be on the table. And only Dutton has embraced it post-election.

Nuclear power ain't all the same. solid fueled reactors still come with a plethora of potentially dangerous problems and still create massive waste.

Waste which in MSR technology is simply and mostly unspent fuel. And nations around the world will pay us annual millions to take their waste from them. But that window of quite massive economic opportunity is narrowing quite dramatically and soon could be no more.

Another issue is real not Clayton's tax reform. And if that reform isn't a flat and unavoidable tax of around 15% then our highly complex convoluted two-tier tax system. will continue to make more and more have-nots. We need to fix it not phuck it!

Then there's affordable housing and new homeowner grants. Grants which have served to put upward pressure on house prices.

What will lower house prices is rapid rail and much lower commute times. Tunnels and bridges are all well and good if we can pay for them rather than price gouging foreign investors. And that could be done by us via the sale of tax-free, low interest, infrastructure bonds.

It's the economy stupid!
Alan B.

The Teals are pretty, upper class, ladies who read the United Nations folderol on Net Zero Emissions and thought it was the most profound thing ever. Somebody find them some baskets to weave.

Steve S,
Ladies ?? You're right about the upper class thing & the basket weaving !

Citing Edmund Burke that “politicians are elected to use their judgement”, Syd Hickman might appear to be arguing against the 2party system. However, that’s only true if we take the simplistic, but popular view, that parties are the standards of opposing armies in a battle for power.

The better alternative view of the 2party design of our system is that the two are akin to prosecution and defence in the justice system. That is, a process of contest to find the best truth rather than an opportunity for dominance, in both debate and elections. A more generous assessment of the vision Teals sold to the electorate is that better process is possible, and that is surely true.

The design of our system wisely does what it can to avoid dominance in Parliament by not having a popularly elected leader. The media negates that advantage by exploiting the common human attraction to a charismatic leader because of the confidence they engender in the majority. That majority science tells us are emotionally dominated by fear, inclined to seek approbation and be followers.

The reality is that the system was designed to be a process for finding wise consensus in legislation and testing the fidelity of ministers in the use of executive power. The only reason the system doesn’t work more faithfully to its design principles is that our political culture isn’t strong enough to resist the myriad modes of influence that seep into every crack in our collective self-interested pragmatism and make politics sleazy rather than sacred.

Politics is perhaps necessarily inclined to the profane because the advantages of power. However, the Teals made clear that climate is an existential threat that demands the best governance we can achieve and further that corruption is the greatest obstacle to that outcome. Indeed, that’s exactly why the ethic of selfless service is the first of the 7 Nolan principles, which are validly part of our political heritage.

Why not give the Teals the benefit of the doubt and assume they want a better political culture more than power?

Colmery. The best truth is the almighty irrefutable truth and we have space age unbeatable lie detection. And it can be deployed covertly so we can test evidence and polly waffling Pollies promises. And the very reason we don't do that, in politics or our courts, where all that really matters is winning, above all else!

The Teals got in by promising what the others have promised over and over, but never ever delivered. Teal representation, much to the chagrin of our version of the proud boys.

Who to a virtual generic man have gone into orbit. As the lust for power was again denied to these dropkicks via their ultra-right-wing conservative candidates.
Alan B.

Just a thought....
Before we cast too many aspersions of those we elect to parliament, we need to remember there are practical limits to everything.
We do no live in a magical world where any wish can become a reality.
Promises made must be practical, not just desirable.
It is up to us to sift the grain from the chaff.
No good saying afterwards that such and such a party didn't do so and so as promised.
We should be able to assess a promise made, and be satisfied that that promise has a reasonable chance of becoming reality.
Should we choose not to do this evaluation, we cannot afterwards complain that we are being let down.
It seems to me that the ball is steadfastly in the voter's court in these matters.
As always, it takes two to tango.
And we, the voters, are a big part of the dance.

I have long maintained that a good politician focusses on what the constituents need, not what they want !