Ginx, Rainier and others. You do the ALP no good at all with this arrogance. I've voted Labor many times and might do so again if they would show their faces and tell ME what they intend to do which is markedly different to Howard and co.

So far there's been very little to go on, except that there've been assurances that devious sleaziness will be OUT. OK, so now we're getting plenty of THAT from Mr Rudd and I'm back to wondering what the ALP has in mind across all the portfolios of the missing front-benchers. What will they do. Where is the front-bench?

Rainier and Ginx etc see this as ME having my knickers in a knot and ME being a Howard toady. So much for getting the voters back who have turned against the ALP. You and your ilk have lost your perspective to rabid partisanship. You have turned yourselves into gullible unquestioning sheep.

You were making some fair points Punter, then you turned into a complete twOt!

"...gullible unquestioning sheep! TWADDLE! How the hell do you know me to know that? It is the last thing I am. Trust me on this one thing. IT IS THE LAST THING I AM!

Don't you understand? I have no bloody faith in EITHER Party. And I'm getting fed-up with the Right/Left thing. I really thought that was just a bimbo obsession. Obviously not. 'Left'= ALP. Like hell it does!

The thing for me is this; I don't give a monkey's testicles that many of you support this character, and think he and his Regime (yes, Regime)can walk on water. He has made life VERY difficult for those who could least afford for things to be tougher. And he has done it for eleven years.

ANYTHING; ANYTHING will be better than that. ANY bloody thing!!

You have your view; I have mine. I dislike intensely the moronic perception that if I don't support Howard; and I damn well don't; well, then I have to be Rudd's man. TOSH!

(NB:I did not aim Howard's Toadies at any one individual. But dish it out;....take it.)

Punter57, I'm not a Labor voter, never have been, never will. Sorry to confuse you even more.

Gosh Alex. Will you please piss-off back home to England. There's nothing for you here. Howard is a carcus swinging in the breeze, waiting for the election to cut him down.

This article is just pathetic. I don't know if you were part of the dirt unit that thought Rudd going to a strip club would end his career (apparently some of the Libs thought it would) but when you are reduced to taking cheap and nasty shots at Julia Gillard, using the sisterhood of Janet Albrechtsen to justify it, then really Alex, you have nothing to say here.

Australians are not Englishmen. Your sort of contemptible politics of personal destruction may go down a treat back in ol' blighty, but here we just laugh at you. It's time for you to pack your bags and go. Your party, if not your country, needs you.

Alexander Deane,
Julia Gillard may not have been seen by the paid media for a week, going by what I found on the web. Still, it alarms me that she should be under attack by a well educated Pomm as yourself!

"A former chief of staff to David Cameron MP in the UK, he also works for the Liberal Party in Australia." Yes, this is just an UNFAIR ATTACK BY THE LIBERAL PARTY!

Yeh, go back home and sort out the mess there, those gun tooting murderous children. Why not research our gun laws & how our Police
handle the importation of illegal weapons..

It is easy to understand the ALP policy that only one man gets the microphone.

As pointed out by Graham Young in his Aug 6 Ambit Gambit, the ALP has taken on Vic Fingerhut (a US political consultant for the Democratic party). To quote Graham :

Vic Fingerhut "[a] pioneer among Democratic polling and media consultants [who] has been behind almost every major 'rally' for Democrats of the past three decades" boasts on his website that "in the past year" he produced "a dramatic shift in public opinion and attitudes in Australia"

Fingerhut would be advising Rudd to quell all ALP front benchers and run a campaign like the American presidential campaign. This means that there is only one person (the president) who quotes direction and policy. Only one person that faces the public to represent the party. This substantially reduces the risk of clangers from the various party factions and gives the impression that the whole party is behind the leader when in actuality they have all been gagged.

So folks - if you are inclined to vote for Rudd's ALP you will be validating his desire to pull us closer the American campaign strategies. Who knows where good ol' boy Vic might crop up next if the ALP wins. Fingerhut's web site already brags how he has dramatically changed Australia's public opinion in the last year.