Lack of interest and the resultant lack of accountability will see the same things happening.

Over the last decade I have witnessed abuses and excesses by federal politicians and others in positions of trust that should have resulted in an immediate cry for resignations from the electorate.

It is not solely the fault of the public that politician, senior bureaucrat and CEO alike have not been held to account, there are others such as the Fourth Estate, who have let us down by not explaining and not having the 'guts' to lead the charge for transparency and accountability.

I mentioned CEOs - ever wondered why so many people invest in houses and not in shares or other investment products? If so, just watch the sorry behaviour of business leaders and entreprebeurs that is excused by finance editors and by major accountancy firms (who seem to know just who writes the cheque).

If the public wants accountability and a better deal from elected representatives, then the public has to get angry enough to participate in democracy and not just on polling day as is conveniently recommended by politicians. The public has to do better than whinge.

Where are the letters to the editor to demand investigative journalism? Where is the threatened mass boycott of a TV channel because it fills its news and current affairs segments with pap? As a matter of fact, where is the excellence in commercial TV so promised by Mr Howard and his merry men (and women) when they were knee-capping the ABC for the umpteenth time?

cornflower, the beauty of the parliamentary oligarchy is that the common people have no, that's zip, control over policy. consequently, they don't waste time worrying about it. it's like the weather: if you're not a meteorologist, there's no use wasting time on it.

if we lived in a democracy, citizen groups could start recall referendums to punish crooked or ineffectual pollies, they could demand or forbid action through citizen initiative. but oz is 'content' to be mis-ruled by pollies as that is the society they find themselves in, and change is inconceivable to them.

don't complain about pollie mis-rule, if you continually vote for pollies. whatever they do, you've got it coming to you.

For the first 10 years of Howard's 11 year rule Jenny's little man had the ALP firmly in his corner.
Australia did not love Howard but the ALP seemed to be blinded by his light.
Now it is OK again to remember we basically do not like John Howard, is it old age or just normal that he shows himself as he truly is in live news interviews?
Rudd will not answer every ones wants and needs, no leader could, but he will be very popular in just months after he takes over.
Any thought of an impending bust under Labor, more interest rises than we would have under this mob, are not based in reality.
Rudd wants to unite a country John Howard set out to divide.
My greatest pleasure post election will be watching the conservatives tear him apart and the debate on work choices will be better than footy grand finals and the Melbourne cup together.

The difficulty I have with the approaching election is the apparant similarity in policy and attitude of the main contenders.

On the one hand is the 'Liberal' Party. And I think that the amalgamation of the Liberal Party and the National Party would be a good thing. They could then call themselves the 'Conservative party'. As that is what decribes their policies and attitude.

On the other hand is the 'Labor' party. Any resemblance to the original 'workers' party that created the ALP has long disappeared.

Both major parties blindly follow 'economic rationalism'. Both parties suported the invasion of Iraq. Both parties agreed on the Tampa incident. The list is endless.

Where is the 'Opposition'?

We hear and read about so-called left-right politics. Yet in both major parties there are left leaners and there are right leaners. There are centre left and centre right. Factions within each party fight for power. Branches get stacked, (until they break).

The purpose of an election is to vote for a person who you (I) consider to be the best person to represent my community and electorate.

Is it any wonder that more and more 'Independants' are getting the nod.

To vote for either of the major parties is, as Bob Brown said, a vote for either fawn or beige. And both of them wear 'camoflage'.

Get a life Warrigal! To suggest that the 'Liberals' and National Party 'people's representatives' are conservative reveals your naivete. Like his role models in the seriously fractured U$A and the so-called 'united' kingdom, hoWARd is a bloody REVOLUTIONARY ... he (and those around him and hiding behind him) have completely revolutionised our 'egalitarian' 'Christian' 'democracy'!

With considerable ongoing assistance from the privately owned and controlled corporate media (euphemistically once referred to as 'The Free Press'), corporate public relations industries and a highly-politicised senior executive service within the Common-wealth public service, hoWARd simply stepped up the pace of the neo-liberal economic 're-form' agenda began under the Hawke-Keating regime. the result is HIDDEN social inequality approaching proportions not observed since the Great Depression(s) of the 1890s and 1930s.

Even the burgeoning 'charities' owned and operated by the numerous 'Christian' sects are well aware of the full extent of the social disaster that has been forced upon several million innocent victims of the pernicious system which he and his supporters profit by ... yet they dare not speak out lest the annual public funding or largess handed out to them is cut off.

Reverend Kev and his fractured Party will do little if anything to reverse this great betrayal of 'ordinary' (ie, Working Class) Australians.

sowat, are you angry at someone?

i bet you vote for politicians! step over to a mirror and see the cause of your problems.