Actually, historically speaking and looking at the raw numbers without any political inflection - yes, the ALP is the natural party of government.

I do find it most interesting when posters such as BN trawl out the poor performance of State Labor as a hammer to whack the party.

Perhaps when they can point me to a better State Liberal party then I might give these claims a little credence.

TurnRightThenLeft,

You say:

"Actually, historically speaking and looking at the raw numbers without any political inflection - yes, the ALP is the natural party of government."

Really? "Of government"? Which numbers would they be? What numbers mean that it's natural for the ALP to be in government?

I would love for someone to explain to me why one party is the "natural party" OF government. There is a problem with that statement from the start.

My point was not that the libs are the more "natural party" - but that the original author made it sound like there was something fundementally wrong with Labor not being in Goverment, which is patently false. The Labor party is made up of humans, they make mistakes like any other humans and deserve to be kicked out when they screw things up, just like happened to the federal Libs over the weekend.

BN: the simplest numbers. Looking at the numbers of State and Federal governments elected from each side, it's pretty safe to say more voters have voted Labor than for the Liberals, Nationals (or Country Party) combined.

As to which one should be in power, well, that's up to the voters. And they seem to pick Labor more often, whether we like it or not.

I agree that ‘natural’ is not quite the right word, but, in the absence of another more precise one, Labor has been the ‘natural’ party of government for a lot longer than 27 years. It has been the ‘natural’ party of government since the Second World War. The fact has been disguised by the 23-year existence of the DLP, which split the Labor vote. Now that we have a prime minister form a partly DLP family, we can say that the Split is definitely over.

The Victorian Labor Government is so much better than the Liberal Government that it replaced and the Liberals have become such a disunited bunch that Labor can look forward to many more years in power. The federal campaign showed a Liberal Party in a parallel universe banging on about Brian Burke, union ‘thugs’, the ‘hopeless – but strangely re-elected - Labor state governments and the non-issue of the day – Mersey Hospital, Queensland LGA amalgamations, etc.

Just as Victorian Labor gained two landslides with its policies of reforming the Upper House, constitutionally protecting the auditor-general, re-investing in education, cutting taxes, capping prep to grade 2 classes at 21 pupils each, restoring proper academic subjects to the curriculum, etc, so will Kevin Rudd be re-elected with an increase vote in the next federal election. Liberal commentary so far shows that just as they do not understand the results in Victoria in 1999, 2002 and 2006, they do not understand the result in Australia in 2007. If they did, they would be able to put pressure on the state Labor Government.

Billie,

Sometimes I do wish you weren’t on the same side as I. All the GST revenue goes to the states already. The poor staffing of Victorian secondary schools and the poor conditions and pay for teachers are solely the responsibility of the state government, which has the funds to fix them today.

Who is the natural party of government is immaterial, the important issue is that the mood out there is calm,happy and a joy to be amongst. Something that has been missing for a long time.

Commonsense of being and reality has returned to Australia.

Chris C stick to being the expert on school administration policy. The economics teacher at Hampton High could tell you that the Federal Government collects taxes and allocates money to the states for provision of schools, hospitals, roads, utilities etc.

One of the commentators has said that the dispersal of GST revenues is unpublished and he felt the first act of the Labor government should be to release information about how much GST is collected and which state gets the money. It is clear that the GST moneys are sitting in Canberra and the states' share of revenue has fallen as a percentage of GDP over the last 11 years.

see http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/surpluses-need-to-be-spent-on-infrastructure-that-in-turn-provideservices/2007/11/23/1195753308773.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Also read Alan Kohler in the Eureka Report

We all forget that the Labor party was formed in the 1890s as a result of the shearers and miners strikes and that conservative parties have come and gone in the mean time. Protectionist, Free Trade, Commonwealth Liberal, Country Party, Nationalist, United Australia.