Lead by the "crazy left of the party"?! The ALP has been lead by some of the most right-wing leaders in its history. Who have we had recently? Mark Latham, Kim Beazley, Paul Keating and Bob Hawke - none of whom have left-wing credentials, all of whom support "free market" economics, none of whom have differed from the current government regarding foreign affairs or domestic policy apart from very minor issues.

How right-wing do people want the ALP to come? Until it is indistinguishable from the Liberals? Then who'd bother voting Labor?

If Labor wants a chance at the next election then it needs to stop being "Howard-lite" (and sometimes not that "lite" on some issues).

Correct, the right has no monopoly on family values. However if Labor insists on promoting anti-family policies they will find they will drive voters in ever increasing droves to the Liberal folds.

When will Labor wake up and realize that the majority of Australians actually do want to preserve time honoured family values?

I wonder what these whingeing conservatives want from the ALP? A pat on the head for being good little church goers? If they want "family values" they should practice them without worrying about government approval. And they have Howard's approval at any rate. Nobody's forcing them to have sex prior to marriage. Nobody is stopping them from marrying (unless they wish to marry children). Nobody is forcing them to divorce. If the school they send their children to is getting too expensive then try a cheaper one. "Family values" is not a term for a government program. It's a subjective set of values you have to practice (or not) yourself. No-one can do it for you.

DavidJS appears to have a distorted reality of what the “elites” actually are. Yes you are correct in locating Murdoch et al – they are what you call economic elites.

The cultural elites are a boisterous minority that hates everything about Australian society – the ones obsessed with the re-engineering society along the lines of progressive political correctness.

You have difficulty in coming to terms with the fact that a majority of Australians do not agree with your vision of “family values”. That is just one of the facets of living in a democratic society where the will of the majority prevails at the ballot box. The simplest advice is to experience life in a country where democratic ideals do not prevail - a country where we would not be able to have this discussion without fear of being incarcerated and “re-educated” –something the bourgeois-liberal mind set have never been able to comprehend.

Also, you should reconsider discarding the use of vague "Left" and "Right" distinctions. You state Paul Keating and Bob Hawke were some of the "most Right wing leaders in history". Well, on issues relating to economic policy they certainly were - on par with the most economically rationale Coalition government. However, they were always sympathetic to the bourgeois-liberal disdain for Australian society.

The current day ALP can thank the “progressive” actions of Hawke and Keating for the working class’/blue collar flight from its ranks.

Can any of you articulate what you mean by family values. Social engineering by left wing governments has brought some horrible things like the women voting, absolution of slavery, racial tolerance. I would suggest the same people who are going on about family values would have argued against things as well. In fact some of them do still now.

Let's get the history right. Abe Lincon and the Republicans went to war to stop slavery, not left wingers. It was the churches of the time opposed to slavery, saying all men were equal, not left wingers. Utah women voted in 1870, a church state certainly not full of left wingers. New Zealand took twenty years longer. So let's get your history right.

The left wing gave us communism, Stalin, Hitler (yes, he was a socialist), Vietnam, Cambodia, Tiananmen Square massacure. The left wing have been a blight on civilisation. Why in the world would anyone want to be associated with the likes of these.