Keating finding fault in others; now that's pure gold.

To expect our politicians to clean up their act is a big call. I am of the opinion that you have to be bent, corrupt, easily tempted, easily led, have a fondness for overseas travel, possess the ability to be struck mute when called upon, economical with the truth or perhaps a stranger to the truth, prepared to operate outside the law and other entertaining qualities to enter politics. If these qualities were to be applied to those who frequent racetracks they would be termed a 'colourful character'.

Re corruption, John Warhurst asks "what is the impact of all this?"
The impact some of us are looking at in horror is the trashing of Sydney's drinking water catchment by mining operations. The Sydney Catchment Authority was set up in 1999 to protect the health of the catchment and its precious rivers but these are in fact being cracked, polluted and depleted as we speak. Unbelievable at a time of severe water shortage. Experts ask that the mines be moved back a little from the rivers to protect them from permanent damage, but the mining companies are granted their every wish by the NSW Labor Government, taking every inch of coal they can get their hands on - never mind the environment or our water supply. We can only conclude that some corruption is taking place, probably at every imaginable level given the big bucks involved.

Mainstream politics is rotten to the core. It's time we turned to the army of willing independent candidates to bring some respectability to politics.

Does this Warhurst bloke actually get paid by the ANU to be this naive?

What exactly does he think is any different today to the way politics has always been played? Or is he just sharing the pain of his disillusionment with us?

At the end of the article the pious hope is expressed that independents will be elected. What a joke.

If Warhurst is really that angry with the ALP, then he should say "I will withhold my vote and my preference from the ALP until they meet the standard I require".

But what's the bet that at election time he will rationalise the ALP as the lesser of the two evils, and give them the only thing they want - his preference?

They DON'T CARE if you write articles saying how bad they are as long as they get back in power. So either stop whining, or come up with an actual plan to change things.

David Jackmanson
http://www.letstakeover.blogspot.com
http://www.lastsuperpower.net

I don't think people should conflate the resignations of various Ministers in other States with the WA cases. I think most Ministerial losses have been to do with individual issues and not corrupt public behaviour.

That aside, there is a stench of petty municipal level corruption across the country, fortunately in WA the State Labor Government has recognised that Ozzie flesh is weak and set up the CCC with sweeping Royal Commission powers. The fact it has snared a number of politicians and public servants is just evidence of how dumb they are.

What we don't know is how corrupt other States and the Feds are. The AWB cracks a mention. I would be interested to have listened to the tapes of Federal Ministerial conversations about AWB.

Painting a target on Labor because of the CCC and trying to colour all political dismissals as evidence of corrupt behaviour is just peurile partisan politics. Without effective CCC type oversight we can only guess that the Federal Government is honest or that previous State Coalition Governments were honest. Let's not forget the mangled history of the Queensland Coalition.

The professor is upset about sackings by state premiers but he is silent about the lack of sackings by the prime minister.

Which is worse, sacking a minister because he deserved it or not sacking ministers because the PM had the numbers and continually decided to tough it out? Then when it suited his bare knuckle politics the PM sacked (sorry, accepted the resignation of) a minister who doubtless will be rewarded handsomely later on.

As regards political lobbyists, there are plenty of them in Canberra too but I guess no-one wants to talk about that.