Perhaps Stephen is too young or has a selective historical memory but in the 1996 election campaign John Howard and the Liberals deliberately made much of the fact that they didnt have any real detailed policies in place.

So why the seeming outrage at the lack of examination or questioning of the policies of the Labour Party during the recent election campaign?

And lets remember too that Howard and co never ever mentioned their far reaching Work "choices" legislation in any election campaign. Why? Because they would never have been elected with such a policy.

Stephen

This is a sad article. I wondered where your voice has been for the past decade.

i almost feel sorry for this guy. he gives a good description of why simulated politics in a parliamentary state is boring, and leads to depression and passivity.

but it's the only game in town if you want to pretend to be a citizen. best to get a hobby where input gets results. i recommend gardening.

“No, I found it tough because there was nothing that inspired me to vote.”

I can certainly empathise with your feeling of emptiness and loss, Stephen. I did not, if fact, cast a formal vote in the lower house, and stuck with the Senate. Not voting is a powerful tool, if only more people would use it.

Normally a Liberal voter, I decided that Tweedledum and Tweedledee had really come to town, and my sitting member (Liberal) is a real dropkick, anyway.

You are totally correct. The campaign was a most boring and insincere exercise in blatant vote-buying, sans policies. The frenzy of the balloteers and media was the most disgusting and irritating that I can remember, and John Howard – until now the best PM since Menzies - really blew it.

Ideally, I would have liked the Coalition returned, with them then moving back to the right where they belong. However, I can live with the ALP – for not too long, I hope – and am, actually, looking forward to the stuff-ups and disillusionment of the ‘true believers’.

Judging from you comments on the ‘sorry’ nonsense and Kyoto, we are opposites; but I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to read your article which makes sense, irrespective of the beliefs of the reader – if the reader has the sense, that is.

The amount of handwringing and whining about how bland the conduct of this most recent election has and continues to amaze me.

What did everyone expect?

Brazen and outspoken policies? Speeches that challenge us and make us think about where we are and where we'd like to go?

Not in Australia- not anymore anyway.

Face it- Australians are VERY conservative voters. With most media heavily invested in the conservative point of view by virtue of their owners personal interests and the natural inertia inherent in our reluctance to change government, then Labor was ALWAYS going to run a 'nothing controversial' campaign.

Aside from that, there seems to be a large amount of agreement in the community about the correct way to run the country. The time, we are told, or great divisions in the ideology of running nations is over.

Market/democracy is the winner, end of story. Fukuyama's 'The End of History' said so.

The only places left in the world where fiery orators proclaim and declaim great changes to social fabrics is in developing nations like Bolivia and Venezuela. The rest of us are stuck with the same broad policies from both sides. The major differences are limited to whether or not the 'winning' ideology has room for social justice or is it just a robotic juggernaut crushing everything else in the name of 'efficiency'.

Yes, Rudd may eventually turn out to an inspiring visionary. Or he might turn out to be a cold clone of Howard. Either way, we are never going to see it in our elections because, as a nation, we won't allow it.

Don't blame the pollies for being who we allow them to be. To change them we need to change ourselves. Let THAT be where we ask the hard questions!

The author got one thing right - many people voted against Howard rather than for Rudd. In my case I would have voted for Ghengis Khan if by doing so I helped get rid of that odious little man who reduced our once proud workforce to beggerly status, allowed children to rot in tropical hell-holes, yoked our foreign policy to that developed by the by the American neo-conserative right, put no meaningful government funded projects into force in his eleven years of rule, pandered at every opportunity using taxpayer money to the bible-bashing nut case fringe, and made Australia an international joke with his idiotic antics on the world stage. The man could not even walk ten steps without falling over. One more look at those skinny knees and I would have thrown up.

Unlike this writer I did find Kevin Rudd and the ALP inspiring, particularly since they did post plenty of policy details on their website in comparison with the Liberals who posted little more than wall to wall anti-Union mug shots. I found his capacity to persuade and the willingness of the fractious left to be persuaded truly awesome. His self-discipline, equanimity and courtesy, and that of his team, was masterly throughout this past year, and particularly during the campaign proper. Now that the fear, smear and negativity of the Coalition has brought them down and we have a new government I am delighted with the quality of our elected representatives. We have a truly talented ministry. Already we are warmly welcomed by the world as full participants in Kyoto. I am convinced that this government has an agenda for social justice and inclusion. Rudd has already demonstrated a capacity to reassure and unite a community like the disparate left behind him so I am optimistic he will fulfil his promises for the country at large so far as economic constraints allow. And yes, I would have voted for any party which could bring an end to the Howard era. It's exhilarating to know that the alternative looks so promising.

I find it interesting that the oft repeated claim that the ALP ran a positive campaign and the coalition a negative one seems to go unchallenged.

The ALP may have outsourced the most negative aspects of their campaign to the unions but the massive campaign around workchoices was clearly negative and clearly part of the strategy of getting labor elected.

Leave the workchoices part of the campaign out and the coalition sounded a lot more negative but then leaving that out might have caused a very different result at the ballot.

R0bert

R0bert

I suppose if a Party were saying they were going to rip up WorkChoices and introduce real fairness into IR, that they were going to give people back their overtime and leave conditions, and that they were going to restore balance into the IR laws, then it's contestable to say that that was a negative campaign.

By contrast, the Howard campaign was about hanging on like grim death to WorkChoices, which they said was 'working well' and didn't ned any further reforms, yet was clearly on the nose with the majority of electors. So this position might be interpreted as a negative campaign in the sense that they were reinforcing something the electorate had said in successive opinion polls that they felt insecure about and wanted changed.

Negative and positive are not neutral terms.

The author says, "I truly hope that positive idealism in Australian politics has not died at the hands of pragmatism."

Firstly, I don't think you could ever really kill off idealism. A particular episode of it maybe, but never totally.

Second, there's nothing wrong with idealism taking a back seat so long as it does so at the hands of POSITIVE pragmatism. At some stage, the country has to get into the groove of practising what the idealists preach in order for us to ever make progress nationally. This might require idealism to exit stage left for a while.

Although I voted Liberal I am looking forward to the display of 'Economic Conservatism' from Swan and Rudd. I can't wait to see the hand-wringing and whinging from those who think Rudd is about positive idealism.

Who are the Howard haters going to hate now? Brendon Nelson?

Patricia of WA wrote: "Unlike this writer I did find Kevin Rudd and the ALP inspiring". Me too!

While the campaign was somewhat in-your-face and Lowest-Common-Denominator - to me that reflects:

(a) "dumbing-down" of the electorate during the Howard years;

For example, I remember nodding along when Rudd said we need more maths teachers. How can so many people not understand simple arithmetic of compound interest on their mortgages? Or how more than 60% in polls thought Howard/Costello were "good economic managers"? Because they have been told what to think in 30-second soundbites and slogans for nearly 12 years? I don't think its because they actually know the first thing about it, and incapable of forming an "informed" or "educated" opinion on it. Its no wonder Labor had to do the same thing, Aussies have been conditioned into 1st grade level of understanding.

(b) and second reason? Innate conservatism of the Australian people, or a majority of them anyway.

When so many supported the wedging tactics, Tampa action, quite comfortable with Children Overboard and the NT Intervention (or didn't care one way or t'other, as long as *they* get their 'pork'), its no wonder they wouldn't accept anything "inspiring". They would probably happily vote in Mugabe, Pol Pot, Pinochet etc as long as they get their "lollies".

I think swinging even that small percentage of voters to something slightly left of Attila the Hun, was a task of Herculean proportions, and a truly 'inspiring' effort

The thread interests me, it is to me the raw pain and refusal to understand Australian voters we are going to see much more of from both this conservative voter and many more.
It was not the left or even Labor that stormed the lodge, they may have started the first stone rolling but it was former Liberal voters that fired up the landslide.
Middle Australia rejected lies, fear, and 3 years of lost opportunity's from a warn out morally bankrupt team.
To fail to understand that is to not be in touch with voters.
To ignore it is to remain on the opposition bench's for a very long time.
To wait for Kevin Rudd to do a John Howard, forget his voters is to wait in vain.

As stated you should have read the policies on the ALP website where plenty of details were available for the world to see.

The media in general did a woeful job of reporting the election because they focussed on 'gotchas" to avoid analysing anything other than pre-conceived notions.

An example is the stupid mantra of $31 billion tax cuts when no such policy exists. There is a tax cut legislated and rammed through the senate that starts on 1 July next year, then there will be minor cuts for the next 2 years and then 3 years of "maybe" which is clearly articulated in the policy, yet the media insist on the mantra $31 billion in tax cuts.

Howard took "murdering refugees" to one election and called it border protection, in another he pretended he could control interest rates and gave us serfchoices.

He has no legacy and Rudd has achieved more in 2 weeks than Howard in nearly 12 years.

Look at the posts in threads here in the last 3 months before the election.
See conservatives clearly taking the electorate for granted.
You will see just a glimpse of John Howard's last term in office.
You may wish to avoid it but he lost his seat, and by a landslide that made Lathams look small, his government.
Do not devalue the will of Australian voters.
And never forget Howard earned his end.
workchoices? so many still refuse to try to understand its intent and of more importance its impacts.
It hurt low income earners it divided Australians.
It unmasked Howard.
Rudd will not ever have such an own goal like it or not workchoices gave us a true conservative leader and he will leave office far better placed than Howard.
If I could have one wish it would be to sit and read about Howard in 50 years, history like voters will not Be kind to the bloke.