Pericles is spot on ... "Unfortunately, the outcome is already known: politicians will be elected."

There is currently a dearth of decent people to 'lead us out of' the serious mess our society is increasingly confronted by. At the government level, we are lied to and misled at every turn by a tiny minority of well-rewarded 'people's representatives' who make non-transparent and unaccountable decisions behind the closed doors of a cabinet ... advised and sheltered along the way by equally well-rewarded 'public managers' and a plethora of parasitic 'lobbyists' from national and trans-national industries and shareholders in search of a quick buck in the various forms of government largess or Corporate Welfare!

And although we are given the opportunity once every 3 or 4 years to get rid of those who fail to represent us (only to be replaced by others of the same class and motivation), we are NEVER able to remove from office those who 'manage' (control) the system on a day-to-day basis, formulating and enforcing 'policy' while the politicians are out-n-about kissing babies and doing 'photo ops' beside sports 'stars' and foreign 'royalty'!

Meantime, 'executive' employees of giant national and inter-national corporations reward themsevles with obscene income and 'exit packages', even when the company is going down the toilet, often throwing thousands of decent employees on the scrapheap, to be picked up by the 'low-wage' scavengers!

“the secret of liberty is to enlighten men as that of tyranny is to maintain their ignorance.” – Robespierre

in other words, sowat, we need democracy, and soon.

right on DEMOS ... however the insatiably greedy minority who rule over us and exploit our labour and mutually endowed natural resources are highly unlikely to give up their privileged lifestyles and power without a struggle.

'We the people' will never achieve true democracy without an organised, concerted campaign to oust them and the sycophantic 'muddle management' class within the media, public service (joke!), academe, finance industry and so on who support them.

The current government has a decade of successes to support its claim to be the right government for Australia at this time.

When the federal opposition were last in power they lied about the tax cuts which were “Law”, created the “recession we had to have”, assured us that no Australian child would live in poverty etc.

So “Who is the smartest and most hard working political party, best equipped to lead the country in tough times ?”

Slam dunk: the one which reduced the public debt and enabled people to save for their own future; not the one who taxed to the hilt whilst building a public debt to hang around the necks of our grandchildren .

A “green economy” is still an “economy”, needing prudent and fiscally sound management. You can be as “green” as you want but it will be too late when you are going to bed at dusk because the greens have legislated to shut down the power stations and lighting oil is rationed and available only to the upper echelons of “party officials”

Sowat: commenting on democracy and quoting Robespierre in the same breath is a dangerous pursuit, bearing in mind how the concentration of power affected his “reasoning” and the outcome of that reasoning being the latter of the French “Terrors”.

As for “'We the people' will never achieve true democracy without an organised, concerted campaign to oust them and the sycophantic 'muddle management' class within the media, public service (joke!), academe, finance industry and so on who support them. “

You read like Robespierre. Your strategy, remove the muddlers, is revolution justified by supposed social justice / progress.

Same argument was used by Pol Pot in Cambodia.

Pol Pot, restarted the Calendar, like Robespierres new calendar.

Destroy the “muddlers” and teachers and “educated classes” Robespierres great terror and Pol Pot’s “Re-Education” camps.

Invoke the terrors of the guillotine, gulags and killing fields.

It has all been said by fools before and tyrants from Robespierre to Stalin to Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot have lead all those fools into the abyss.

Col Rouge,
Perhaps you can explain to me why the government is loath to
mention peak oil. They will chat on about global warming but not even
acknowledge the existance of the looming problem.
They had 20 years at most to prepare for peak oil starting in 1985.
Oh, bit late now isn't it ?
If they are lucky they might have five years instead of 20 years.

They are not prepared to take the people into their confidence.
In a few years at the current depletion rate of our own supplies we
will be importing 75% of our oil. Where will our surpluses be then ?

I suspect they are fully aware, but are too timid to mention it.
The problem is too serious to just pretend it will go away.
It won't and the longer they ignore it the more expensive and
difficult it will be to mitigate the disasterous effects.

Crisis! What crisis? Peak oil is a myth, since shortages of easily accessible oil (which will occur) will result in higher prices which in turn will make it economic to recover oil from tar sands or other currently uneconomic resources.
As for the climate change crisis, we've been pumping large volumes of CO2 into the atmosphere for some 200 years, so what makes anyone think that we have to solve the problem in the months prior to the next federal election or even in the next term of government? The reality is that a problem that's been 200 years in the making will, like the salinity crisis in Australia, take decades before we find the right answers and implement them.
This election is no different to any other of the post-war period. We still have to choose the party that we hope will make the right short- and long-term decisions for the future of our nation and its citisens.