Oh Belly of the Crystal ball. Up there in New England, there are lots of Prophets living at Nimbin. Tarot Cards, rule. The fact that they are mostly an exercise in self delusion is irrelevant. They are a peccadillo. They harm no one. Well not seriously anyway. A little dreaming is just fine.

Rudd has got to keep one promise. To govern under the Constitution. Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard did not, and Rudd is not yet.

Rudd has got to keep one promise. To govern under the Constitution. Yesterday the Melbourne papers said he was under a warning. Perform or perish. Thing is Gillard is not making any such promise.

Abbott has a chance according to the papers down south, and that is an amazing turnaround. I have never since the last six months of Whitlam, heard so much personal dislike expressed for a Prime Minister as I hear as I go around at the moment. If Abbott accepts that the Constitution is the paramount law of Australia, is a Christian document for a Christian country, and walks humbly before his God, he will continue to rattle the Rudd.

Christians from all walks of life, want a Christian leader. Abbott fits the bill. By his fruits so far, Rudd does not. However he could smarten up. Lets hope so. As he does not rely on your Crystal Ball, he may need another kind or two of them.

Peter the Believer:"I have never since the last six months of Whitlam, heard so much personal dislike expressed for a Prime Minister as I hear as I go around at the moment"

Neither have I. It's much more pervasive than it was for Howard or even Keating, who both polarised opinion pretty well themselves. Not many have a good word to say about Rudd except the rusted on and even Belly is more about solidarity than any genuinely held belief in his capacity to do anything useful.

Power without glory.

Dear Belly,

The current Government had won the election
with a program of best intentions which
unfortunately despite all efforts the
Opposition was determined to undermine at
any cost and blame the Government for not
achieving its aims. Despite that the Government
pursued a lesser program that they felt was
essential for the country and its people and
postponed obvious programs until after the
elections. Programs that the Opposition were
again determined to undermine.

It would have been fruitless, a waste of time
and money to pursue programs before the election
that had no possible chance of being passed by
the Senate.

The major problem that the Government encountered
was the global financial crisis, in part caused by
the Bush Administration and its supporters, with
the backing of the previous administration. The
problem had to be attended to immediately and
fortunately for the Government - Australia managed
to survive the disaster.

The Opposition has no excuse to ignore that fact and
yet it continues to blame the Government for having postponed
some of it's programs.

Kevin Rudd has the credentials to deal with our largest
trading partner (China) and represent Australia on the
international stage. Unfortunately, Tony Abbott has no
such credentials and his party has no credible policies
pursuing an election campaign simply on negativity.
Despite their promises of presenting policies just
before the election - which will give no time for the voters
to evaluate and vote.

It appears that the Liberals are banking all their policies
on fantasy projections, hoping to mesmerize the public in
voting for them. In the past two and a half years the
Opposition had absolutely nothing to entice the support of
the voters.

It would appear from the casual observer that dissatisfied
elements within the Opposition have finally banded
together and begged Malcolm Turnbull to return to the fold
simply because after the election they will need a good
leader. Because Tony Abbott has as much chance of winning
as a snowball in hell.

I think you should all calm down.

In our system, the people don't get the party they want because they have to compromise with all the other people.

For the same reason, politicians don't get to push the policies they want, because they have to find a mix acceptable to a majority of the people, whilst competing with other politicians. This compromise is the essence of democracy.

This compromise may cause the fans of left and right to complain that no one represents them, and whine about the system (as is apparent on this thread). However, it is also why the fans of both left and right don't have much to fear from radical politicians running rampant.

As the history of politics in this country, and most countries shows, the successful parties, left or right, pretty much stay the course of their predecessors with only the odd tinker at the edges, and that's because however great the differences between party leaders, neither of the main political parties will allow leaders to wander far from the electorate's wishes. Gough Whitlam's Labor party may be the only one who tried, and when he was called to account (however unfair the background to that occasion may have been) the electorate made his government pay for wandering off on a reform program that exceeded the electorate's appetite.

Abbot would be a terrifying proposition as a dictator, but as a PM in our system, at worst he is "mostly harmless."

Dear Kalin,

I don't agree with your statement that Tony Abbott
would be "harmless" as PM.

Unless of course you don't consider cuts to
health, education, social services, and so forth,
damaging to our country. And you also believe in
the ideology of greed and the politics of money
and power, leaving no room for social equity,
compassion, or the idea of an egalitarian society.

People, in Abbott's view, either sink or swim, and
if they sink, well that's too bad. Because according
to Mr Abbott welfare is not good for business.

If you want to vote for a Party and a PM who has
nothing to offer apart from negativity and
condemnation, that's your choice. But heaven help
the rest of us if these people get into power.
The country will definitely go down the gurgler -
and in my view that's not at all "harmless."

The failure from Mr Rudd to call an election on the 'greatest moral challenge of the century' shows that he is full of spin. They have had every chance to have a double disillusion election but they lack the courage of any conviction. In fact Mr Rudd more than likely realizes that Mr Abbot's description of man made gw was pretty accurate. Foxy and Belly will defend their beloved party to the death no matter how many lies they tell, deaths they cause, incompetence they display and promises they break. The hatred of Abbot and the blind ideology leads them to unbending loyalty. Pretending that somehow the conservatives are less compassionate is just a smokescreen and proof of blindness.