If thought about carefully one may be excused in coming to the conclusion that the democratic processes of today have become virtually irrelevant. Oh we may have periodic elections....that is granted. The candidates and their respective parties are of different political persuasions....that is also granted. However have a look at the following.
An Opposition Leader's financial income and parliamentary perks is extremely close to that of the Prime Minister's....in the absence of any direct accountability to the country. In point of fact....whilst the Prime Minister is directly accountable to the whole of the country....the Opposition Leader's accountability is restricted to the party faithful. S/he can criticise national policy...can suggest change to national policy but....is not and will never be responsible for any political mishaps which may occur due to misjudgments on political decisions. This position is an added incentive which makes it up for grabs....perhaps more so than that of Prime Minister. This would of course require the candidate/s and his/her party to LOSE the election rather than WIN it.
And yet there is another incentive towards striving to be an Opposition Leader instead of Prime Minister. In the large countries of the developed world..which of course includes Australia, the systems that operate make the political levels non-jurisdictional of the many mechanisms which dictate the social/economic structures of the country. Here in Australia we have by way of examples....bank fees and interest rates. Both of these items may have upward fluctuations which may politically damage the Prime Minister of the day. Yet that Prime Minister has no power over their outcome...not unlike the Opposition Leader. But whilst the Prime Minister is politically damaged...the Opposition Leader remains unscathed whilst earning similiar income and/or parliamentary perks.

instead of rising interest rates when prices go up and hitting the the battler who is trying to pay a mortage to keep a roof over his or her family,s head-; taking the money out of the home buyers pocket and putting it into the coffers of the rich banks.

Why doesnt the government have a system in place to stop some of the blatent profiteering that goes on with the prices of groceries and petrol and such. The battler gets not only hit with inflated prices but also his home loan rate goes up and the money passed on to the banks to boot.

Both governments have been guilty of this the labour party even more so when interest rates went to 17% under them.

Sharkfin, I think it's time we forgot about the 17% interest furphy. It could also be stated that when Howard was treasurer in 1982, interest rates were at a high of 20.39%, but both were in very different economic conditions. For a start, John Howard makes much noise about Keatings 17% interest rates (actually, they rose under Keating to a high of 19.56% at one stage)compared to Howard's 13.5% whilst he was treasurer, but you should stop and remember that finance for housing was rationed at that time and interest rates were fixed by the Government. It wasn't until Hawk and Keating pressed for changes to the financial system that markets became more self regulated and interest rates rose briefly to over 17%. Howard, whilst treasurer did nothing to modernise the financial system. It was work done during the Hawk/Keating years that eventually led to the low interest rates we, as a Nation, have enjoyed for the past decade and for which Howard is only too pleased to take the credit. Howard's track record for financial management during his time as treasurer was appalling and today, we must remember it's not the interest rates that are the bottom line. It's the comparison between disposable income and interest rates where the furphy becomes apparent. During the Keating years and with 17% interest, housing repayments made up just 6.1% of disposable income. Today under Howard/Costello, it amounts to 9.1%. In simple terms, it means that disposable income to service a home loan had been erroded by almost 50% under the Howard/Costello Government in relation to house repayments. Don't believe the lies and snakeoil Howard sells. Hmmm! I wonder why the neuclear "debate" has suddenly sprung up? Could it be an attempt to sidetrack the population's realisation of Howard and Costello's financial mismanagement with an election due next year?

Thank you Wildcat..

I get so irritated with the furphy as you so rightly put it, about the superior economic management of Liberals' Costello.

They are reaping the rewards of Labor laying the economic foundations for growth under Keating, Australias best treasurer.

Its about time Labor started to put to rest some of these myths that obviuosly so many pple believe about the economic managent of the Liberal Party and start to reveal some of the lies they have peddling out there in the electorate about the incompetency of the Labor goverments finanacial credentials.

one cannot alter a fact no matter how fanciful a word one writes to present a view designed to distort that fact. one of the facts to which this applies is that labor cannot manage. let's imagine the past 12 years were under a labor government. just think, the asian financial crisis, the drought in australia, the terrorist events, the tsunami, the bali bombing, iraq, the list is substantial. does any ALP supporter honestly believe that keatinge or latham or crean could have handled the circumstances as well as the team led by howard ?

It does not matter what Labour or the Liberals do...the incumbent government..which happens to be the Liberals....are to remain in power at least for the forseeable future.And why?
Firstly the (Australian) general population is not INTERESTED in politics as much as it were. It was not enthusiastic about them at the best of times......and now there is extreme and complete apathy.
Secondly...all it is interested in is to survive and with the high cost of just living this is quite a hurdle. Tomorrow is an example of how this is true. There is to be a demonstration against the new Industrial Relations laws. Up to approx half a million people are expected to attend. This is out of 10 MILLION workers. Does this tell you something?