Everyone knows our system is corrupt. The real art of an Australian alleged politician is to avoid appearing on the front page of any local newspaper dressed in prison greens and eating prison food.

How many times have we heard the 'I made an honest mistake' excuse? Take the fellow from Nth Qld who forgot he owned a half share of a concreting company. The poor chap must have been driven mad reading his bank statements. Large amounts of money kept landing in his savings account and he has no idea of their provenance. This went on for a period until a helpful colleague reminded him of his business interests. "Of course", said our friend as he slapped his hand to his forehead. Then out came the "I made an honest mistake" excuse.

As if to confirm the fact that our alleged politicians are an embodied paradox not one of our alleged politicians has forgotten to turn up at the Qantas check-in counter for the much-sought-after o/seas fact finding mission.

And to further confirm the paradoxicalness of our conservative NQ rep he has now taken to wearing an earring as if to tap into the Zeitgeist of the pirate era. Or could it be that he has forgotten that his partner wears the earrings and he wears the nose ring?

"Our democracy encourages corruption and undue influence."
Firstly, it is not our democracy but the democracy of the ruling elite, a small handful who make all the decisions in society and grab a very large share of the wealth in society. We just pay for everything sometimes two or three times over. There is no voice in parliament for the majority of society but that is the whole point of parliament! The media play a particularly foul role promoting that someone in parliament is fighting for our rights or the voice of the little man, however reality is far different. Parliament is a house the rich built to make steadfast their rule and sway, increase their wealth and keep workers from taking the road to power. The ruling elite are very conscious when workers go into struggle.
This is an interesting quote about the media in one of its rare honest moments: Mike Ruppert used to display a famous quote from John Swinton made in the 1880s that he and every other newspaper man was paid to keep the truths that mattered out of the press. The quote ended, “We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” The quote may be found on p. 400 of Upton Sinclair’s The Brass Check

I think our democracy is a complete sham.

Personally I think the Swiss have the solution. Generally leave it up to the politicians, but allow regular citizen initiated referenda so when they sell us out to big business for contributions, we can exercise our democratic right and make up our own minds.

The preference system allows Labour and Liberal to become even more dominant and important from what they really should be for the Australian people.

With the minor parties selling their souls to get one of their policies over the line, under the misguided slaved attitude, that being satisfied with one of your party policies, getting over the line, is democracy and a reason to preference them.

The religious political parties they will sell their soul and preference according to a deep seated homophobic oppression.

The homosexual influence effects less than one percent of the population.

Perhaps their policy for a law in the change for the age of 16 to be consenting for sexual activity.

And change the meaning of Paedophilia in our dictionaries from:

"THE LOVING OF A CHILD".

The members and supporters of our Major political parties, along with the Nation are being undermined by power grabbing antics which are leading Australia out of the democracy it once had, into the clutches of those who do not care about you.

Excellent analysis Joo Cheong

We live in a plutocracy, probably have done since the first fleet. Instituting limitations on the degree to which the wealthy can own the political process would be a great idea, but don't hold your breath.

How about Professor Ian Lowe's negative brainstorming exercise, as follows:

Most people now agree that we should be aiming for a sustainable future, but there is disagreement about what that means. Sustainable means able to be sustained. To focus your attention on this, let me take you through an exercise called negative brainstorming. Imagine we have been asked to develop strategies to ensure an unsustainable future. How can we achieve this goal?

Let’s start with a population growing exponentially. No species can expand its population indefinitely in a closed system. If we don’t stabilise our numbers by socially acceptable means, they will be limited in time by starvation, disease and fighting among ourselves. We can increase the impact of a growing population by increasing consumption per person; this puts compounding pressure on resources and the natural environment. We can deplete important non-renewable resources, such as oil, and over-use renewable resources like water, forests and fisheries. We can do serious environmental damage, like causing a major loss of species or changing the global climate. To ensure our economic decline, we can adopt the trade pattern of a Third World country, exporting raw materials and importing value-added goods and services. To increase social instability, we could widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots. And as a moral foundation for this unsustainable society, we would embrace materialism.

I don’t think I need to elaborate. The way we are currently living is not sustainable; it doesn’t satisfy any of the main criteria. Despite the evidence that the overall consumption of the present population is degrading our environment, we encourage both growing numbers and increasing consumption per person. ... etc etc (for the rest Google any of the above word chains)

Greed will never go out of fashion.....