C.J.

You've hit the nail on the head. Labor's lurch so far to the right turned me off - that's when they lost me, particularly on the East Timor Solution.

Democracy is not just about the party system. Parties are in some ways are a hindrance to democracy. The wishes of minorities are being ignored at the behest of whatever party is in power. No party or person has all the answers. We have a system that votes in one party and all the previous government has done is destroyed on the grounds of ideology. This is wasteful and does not make sense. Every new government should be building on the good of what went before it. Things should only be changed if they are no longer needed, circumstance changed or there are better ways of doing it.

Amen Flo.

As I said in Chook analogy the party system is dysfunctional unless we can instill an honest broker...sadly I don't think that is either the greens or the independent*S*

Annabel Crabb (the drum) summed up my take on both parties when she said that keeping parties in line is akin to "keeping an octopus in a string bag "I would add in a salt water aquarium".
Her article encapsulates other reports highlighting the internecine piranhas in the Liberal tent too.

Personally Chooks will be chooks.

Keep up the good work SM, anyone who annoys the likes of mikk and exanimator must be doing something worthwhile.

And I see we have the usual claims by some to ‘bias’ on the site because the left cannot handle a dissenting view, such is the intolerance of socialists. Say something they disagree with and automatically the “foul” card is played. Oh how history continues to repeat itself, leftwing intolerance; there seems to be no depth to which the lefties will not plummet.

To those who think the liberal party showed a poor result... well, it is a better result than Gizzards can claim to have produced and lets face it, with Rudd going off to UN soon, the spectre of a by-election and another loss to Liberals must hang heavily on labor power-mongers.

Of course, as was seen during the election canvassing, Kevin07 is now a loose cannon.

They said he was a man without a faction.

Now the labour factions have to contend with the fall out of his lack of allegiance to anyt of them and I figure Kevin07 is a man who likes his revenge served cold.

Anyway, we will see, Katter, albeit blessed with a singular, parochial mind, will sooner choke than make a deal with labor and i suspect the other indies, except the bilious green will follow him.

Abbott has a chance of making a short term government work for the Liberals but Gizzards has no hope of making it happen and even if she did, she will not last to the next election. The Union bosses will turf her out soon enough.

That is always the way with labor/socialists .... change the leader like they change their underwear... at least once a month.

Poirot “Labor's lurch so far to the right turned me off”

Yep “me-too” all over again... follow the Liberals and pretend their different.

Personally, I voted for the original...

not the “pretend-to-be-look-alikes” who, as Garrett declared in the last election.... “”Labor would simply change all their policies once they got into power.”

Our reliance on voting for a party has made voters lazy. In yester year, the parties did represent the views of many voters. This is not true today. The proof of this is in the number of members each party has. There is no grassroots to form policy in either party. There are scarcely enough members to hand out pamphlets on Election Day. What I do not know is how each party develop policy. We might have faceless men but do we also have ghosts as well. We elect members not parties.

I haven't heard a single person say they voted for the Greens because of their policies. Almost universally, the comment is along the lines of "Labor's hopeless, but I can't bring myself to vote Liberal [or vice versa] so I gave it to the [Greens, Independent, little wo/man in the corner]"

I'm enjoying watching from the sideline.