Yobbo, it is just like all that good natured banter about Howard being like Hitler and us Aussies support our "Gulag" detention centres.

t.u.s

Col Rouge, can we sum up your last post thus " I am all right Jack" ?

[Comment deleted for flaming and poster suspended for one week. First breach but a fairly flagrant violation of forum rules.]

The problem with Australians as I see it is that most are politically biased and therefore immature when it comes to thinking politically. If you have voted one way all you life you don't really understand democracy. You must on occassion change your vote.

When Gough Whitlam first came into power he pushed through many reforms ... all far too hastily for the likings of the Liberal/Country Party and other Aussie voters. It was wrong and showed poor judgement on his part.

Now JH is doing a similar thing... pushing things through with undue haste. The fact that he has been in Govt for now his third term doesn't alter this fact.

Honesty has gone out the window. The Howard Govt uses plausible deniabilty as it's defence from kids overboard to Reserve Bank appointments.

The real danger to our democracy from both political sides is the lowering of standards, the ignoring of core & then non core promises and the stacking of committees and boards.

JH is on old war horse but he (like Keating) may be doing more harm to our democracy than he or his followers can contemplate. The Liberals are out of control and racing to the far right more each day.

Malcolm Fraser has is corect... The Liberals are no longer liberal.

hedgehog "Col Rouge, can we sum up your last post thus " I am all right Jack" ? "

Certainly not.

But I make the decisions which effect my life.
I do not kowtow to anyone nor play the "union" or "corporate" game.
I work on the basis that the idea of having a "secure job" went out the window with serfdom.

If I were "All right" I would not work 6 days a week and would not be investing most of what I earn into new venturers. I would be sat back moaning about how my union was not defending my divine rights to a challenge-free, gravy train existence in a government funded sheltered workshop.

You see, some of us want to take risks with and apply effort in our lives.

We resent those who would attempt to hold us back from receiving full and fair reward for those risks and that effort

It is called "individualism", it leads to individual fulfillment (emotional / spiritual as well as material)

and it beats "collectivism" every time (because that represents lots of lives with wasted potential).

Col, face it mate your just selfish and probably have no friends. That wouldnt concern you though because your a rugged individual.