Tinman, I start my once a year lecture to QUT political communication students on "Politics of the Right" by pointing out the problems with classifying people into left and right, and I run them through a short dissertation about how we are less likely to vote for a particular political brand out of habit than we used to be. So you're not telling me anything that I don't know, and propagate. But try having a discussion about politics without using terms like left and right.

The same applies to class, even though Liberal politics has never been based on class. This is a fact which Judith Brett found novel enough to essentially base her "Menzies and the moral middle-class" around. It was only novel because the left dominates the university analyses of politics, and they think of everything in class terms, that "class traitors" like me find puzzling.

However, all these terms do have some application, but do break down on the boundaries. For example, calling One Nation a party of the right is really a misdescription, while it serves well enough to describe the Liberal Party as on the right. Calling Lindsay Tanner a left-winger is also stretching things a bit, although it works well-enough for Julia Gillard.

But discussion always proceeds on the basis first of generalisations, which sometimes expands, and sometimes degenerates, depending whether one is making useful distinctions, into particularities.

The Federal Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 according to Wikipedia "allows the executive branch of government rather than the judiciary to imprison people and to imprison people indefinitely without charge or trial. The act makes it also an offence to even talk about somebosy being imprisoned. One of the most controversial aspects of the legislation is the requirement that a parent, if informed of their child's detention may not inform any further person including the other parent."

In Italy, Where I lived the length of Mussolini's dictatorship, inhumanities of such magnitude as the legislation above, did not exist in law or facts.

Should Liberalism be harsher than fascism? Howard was a son of a mechanic. Mechanics was in him and with it was moral bankruptcy.

From my observations, terms like Fascism or any other 'ism' have no significance. Man remains the fundamental measurable entity.

Graham ,there has to be a bit if left and right in all of us to ensure survival.We are empathetic beings and through co-operation and specialisation,we have built civilisations way beyond the capacities of our mediocre ape genetics.This is what makes our existence so precarious,yet so exciting.In reality we are achieving way above our capacity to assimilate these new changes,and therein lies the rub.

The left in us harks back to love and family security,but the right is all about survival.Finding the balance between enjoying our comfort zones and having enough efficiency/productivity to sustain it,will always be a dilemma.

The Socialist Left such as Julia Gillard have now redefined themselves as the "progressives".The right are now the conservatives.The conservatives are evolutionalists,who will retain tried and tested structures of the past,thus will only make radical changes only when a system becomes totally dysfuncytional.Slow tried and tested change is usually the order of the day.However the Coalition, with IR, broke the mold and went for chaotic change.They went for radical change with no evolutionary component.It was destined to fail since it was not true conservative philosophy.

Isn't it ironic that the "conservatives" in philosophy are closer to natural evolution than the "progressives",who often ignore tried and tested past philosophies that will ensure their survival?

I see the downfall of John Howard and peter Costello as a failure of management systems and ideas.
First They told us "If it ain't broke don't fix it", when they should have been focusing on continual improvement of the systems.
They also seemed ignorant of Maslow's 'Heirachy of Needs' where if your basic needs , like food, clothing , the roof over your head are under threat, your immediately focus your mind away from higher level needs like the esteem of others or ththe community and the economy.
It was on the nose because it focused on monetary motivation, it assumes money is the only motivation for people.

The “Liberals” forget the facts, when they pretend that the Industrial Arbitration Commission of this country is a mere instrument of economics. From the very beginning one hundred and three years ago, it has been an agency of something much more important and that is, industrial equity, a "fair go all round" or, as many would now describe it, human rights.

Work Choices ignores the fact that long term shift work, reduces worker life span by up to ten years. Most shift workers will return to day work if shift loadings are removed.

Work Choices ignores the fact that overtime is mandated by state industrial laws, in that it is the state laws that spell out the mandated maximum daily, weekly or monthly ordinary hours of work.

The facts are that workers and employers are prohibited from making a contract, verbal, written, explicit or implied to trade off state industrial laws. The outcome is, that because the parties cannot extend the ordinary hours of work, a separate arrangement must be made to pay for the overtime worked out side the state IR Law mandatory limitations.
This arrangement applies to all employees, whether they are staff on common (Judge made) law
contracts or awards made by Industrial tribunals.

I think Graham has hit the nail on the head with the statement “The government needed not just a better story, but a different one too. Australians needed to see how government performance was improving the world, not just making it richer.”

It was interesting Howard’s claim in the last week of the campaign that he and his government had made us proud to be Australian. I really feel he picked up what I did, that many people were not proud of the way Australia had behaved internationally over the last decade.

I personally know of 5 rusted on Liberal voters (3 were even staunch Hanson fans when she was in favour) who voted Labor this time. Talking to them there was a real sense of thinking of others both Australians and citizens of other countries.

I will admit to some early pride in John Winston Howard, his code of ministerial responsibility, his courageous gun control efforts and yes his striving for jobs for all Australians.

However I was not proud of Tampa nor the razor wired desert camps. I was not proud of AWB, Private Kovco’s missing corpse, nor the berating of Mick Kelty. I was not proud that Australia, the only country in world who managed to negotiate an increase in emissions at Kyoto, walked away from the agreement. I was particularly lacking in pride when Australia tried to rip off a struggling fledgling nation in the Timor Sea negotiations. I was not proud that Australia was condemned by the UN Human Rights body and the World Council of Churches, nor when my prime minister forbade our own Human Rights Commissioner from visiting our off-shore ‘facilities’. I was also not proud when a quarter of the Irish Parliament boycotted my prime minister because of his failings with climate change and humane treatment of refugees. And I had little pride when most international efforts being accompanied by the incessant slogan “Because it is in Australia’s best interest”.

Maybe the electorate has voted for a little more than just ‘their best interest’ and I can only bless them for that.