Both the Labor and Liberal parties are an integral part of our current oligarchy therefore there will be little to differentiate them.They will attempt to sell some sort of difference to fool the proles but it is like putting lipstick on a few of the pigs.

Political change in Australia will have to come from the bottom up.With the current prevailing complacency and unconsciousness I am not holding my breath waiting.

What is needed is some profound shock/s.The global situation suggests that to be not too far away.

Manorina “What is needed is some profound shock/s.The global situation suggests that to be not too far away.”

Ah yes as I have been warning, well quoting really, Per Lenin,

“A revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation”

And he would know and doubtless the labor left will be queueing up to be his (Lenin’s) contemporary “useful idiots”

Sooner or later the left are just going to have to come out and declare their true colours.

Maybe, as mikk suggests, come out and join the greens, they did infiltrate that movement years ago anyway.

Mind you hounian suggests “Socialism, fascism and religious fundamentalism have, between them, committed almost all of the genocide and sheer misery that the human race has had to endure throughout its recent history. Good riddance to the lot of them!”

I must admit I do like that idea
Tristan might compare the outrages of Stalin to Pinochet but
Just look below the surface of that deceit

While Pinochet might have killed people in their hundreds

Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot and the dingbat in North Korea have done the same but in the millions

“Then maybe we'll see how liberalism, socialism and democracy are really meant to look like!!”

The problem is, Tristam’s “model” sets up the opportunity for the Stalin’s, Lenin’s, Mao’s, Pol Pot’s and the dingbat’s in North Korea to take over.

Better to stick with libertarian capitalism

It might not be perfect but at least you get the chance to criticize it and perhaps even change it,

socialism pursues the goal of establishing a leveled “Status Quo”,

then dogmatically seeks maintenance of the “Status Quo”,

Capitalism suffers no such delusions.

DISCLAIMER, i am no fan of the liberal/national coalition but at least they are not as completely, totally and utterly corrupt as the labour/green coalition.

Mark Latham was quite correct. The labour party is beyond any hope of rejuvenation. There are many out there who would say that there is nothing lower than a paedophile, but, there is. They are the politicians, bureaucrats & journalists, who protect them. Anybody foolish enough to believe there is anything good about the labour/green coalition should try googling "heineraffair.info".

The Fitzgerald inquiry barely scratched the surface of corruption in QLD. It was shut down just as it got to the really interesting stuff in local government, with barely a word from anybody in the labour/green coalition or the media. The Goss labour government changed corruption from cash in brown paper bags to "corporate dinners with the minister", in other words they just made it more sophisticated & modern.

The socialist left in all states & territories has been at the forefront of every attack on the family, promoting social unrest, dysfunctionality, dependence on welfare & drugs, so as to promote there new growth industries of DV & "social talk". There is no such thing as a "social worker". My children along with millions of others over the last 3 or 4 decades were abused by official government policies, executed in a cold, evil, deliberate manner by successive, labour/green coalition governments federally & in all states & territories. Then these criminal thugs, dare to apologise about past abuse, that occurred over 40 years ago in order to spin doctor or cover up what they have been doing since then.

At future elections number the greens last, labour second last, liberals third last, nationals fourth last, & put every minor party from "Australia First" to "Family First" to "Fred Nile's Christian Democrats" or even the DLP & every whack job independent ahead of the major parties. Your vote can never be wasted as we have preferential voting & maybe then the major parties will realise how sick we are of them all.

The Age Comrade Giles stated that, "'I'm really pleased to report ... that no specific allegations of branch stacking were brought before the committee,' Andrew Giles, one of the members on the committee investigating the allegations, told the conference".

A pseudo-reply for "yes we know but we won't do anything about it".

I am becoming a fence sitting libertarian, I can't see myself as anything else.

Good article from The Age.

And just what is a socialist, sturmbahn fuehrer Beljac? Is it being a communist or believing that a safety net is a good thing or somewhere in between?

Seeing that
- state labour parties are privatising more utilities than Maggie Thatcher,
- there were no howls of outrage when China legalised private ownership of property a few years ago and
- the ABC doesn't open news bulletins to the cheery tune of the International (though the Howardites will claim you can clearly hear the slogan "Marxism rules, Capitalism sucks" when it is played backwards)

I suspect that most Australian socialists just feel that a safety net, public services like schools and hospitals are a good thing. To paint every socialist as a communist is just plain ludicrous.

Yes branch stacking is a bad thing but lets not stray off topic with wild accusations.

If we want to have a real democracy we should have proportional representation in both houses. We'd end up with more than two major parties which means a lot more coalitions and compromise. Once we get to the point where this term's opposition party is next term's coalition party politics will get a lot more mature. Not just opposing every idea for the mere sake of being the opposition party. No more endless slagging and name calling. It would be a big step closer to a real democracy. Sadly I don't think our politicians are up for it.

Just a comment on Col Rogue's statement re: Pinochet versus Stalin...

If you want to take the sheer scale of slaughter - then again - take the slaughter of leftists in Indonesia (500,000), genocide in Guatemala (300,000), the Vietnam War (6 million killed), or WWI (more than 15 million killed)...

I could go on - but the point is that allegedly liberal and democratic regimes can be as murderous as allegedly socialist or communist regimes.

Furthermore - I am more sympathetic to the kind of socialism/social democracy we've seen in places like Sweden, Denmark, Holland... Although I belive also in a more radical implementation of economic democracy and participatory democracy than we've seen there...

At the end of the day, though: only when ordianry people truly seize power - hopefully in a liberal, democratic and social democratic context - will they be able to prevent the wars and the slaughter rationalised by those with power - often for cyncial geo-political reasons...