Yes Severin, I am shaking in my boots already after hearing Nick Minchin telling the Australian voters how we have allowed a fundamentalist socialist conspiracy with the forming of the Labor/Green alliance.

Sheesh....you gotta love 'em. It is almost as if they have not heard one message that this election demonstrated and if they keep banging their heads on the brick wall or sticking their necks in the sand and shaking their heads 'no, no, no we will not see, we will not see'.

I only hope if the Opposition continues on this path of destructionist thinking the voters will punish them at the next election. But even if they do, methinks denial will still prevail. Old dogs and all that...
:)

Come'on you bunch of Chardonnay sipping socialists, just think back a couple of years and how The Rodent was the enemy.

Oppositions are there to oppose and try to win back government. Why have an opposition that cooperates with things it doesn't believe in.

Are you lot really that fooled by the Gillard consensus rubbish? Seriously? Do you think she wouldn't be sticking the boot in massively if she was on the other side of it? Do you think she'd be talking the same if she had a majority? Come on.

Certainly the only reason that our political parties to exist, is to properly govern so that all the resources at hand are used to obtain a prosperous future for the people of Australia. There is no doubt that this has been furtherist from the minds of those people who have been given the priviledge of being elected into the House of Parliament. Will they continue to prostitute their positions as usual, as they have done over at least the last 40 years, you never know, do you, they may at last grow a bit of respect for this important position and shock all of us by actually trying to make Australia into a very prosperous country again, Just what do you want, or expect?

"Oppositions are there to oppose and try to win back government. Why have an opposition that cooperates with things it doesn't believe in. "

Houlley, why would you think a more consensus approach means cooperating with "things it doesn't believe in."

That is the point of opposing, what is not the point is doing it when there is no real 'opposition'.

pelican,

Do you really see that Julia has 'got the message' like she says, or do you think she's just in a different position to Abbott, and wants to spin her current position of bent over with hands behind her back as a voluntary stance.

I really think you're being one-eyed to think that the Labor party, or Julia, is somehow a bundle of wholesome consensus seeking non-partisan junkies.

I grant you that Howard-light did a good deal of consensus policy before the last election, which is what I don't like to see.

Maybe it's second nature to you latte elites to form a consensus on things you don't believe in. Like Labors asylum seeker policies and new found support for private schools and chaplains.

No I didn't think Julia got the message in entirety and I was equally outraged as my fellow latte sippers about the 'real' Julia 'pretend' Julia fiasco.

It was a crock and goes to show exactly the very little difference between the two tweedles, but you have to pick one of them even if via preferences and the Coalition is the scarier of the two IMO.

All this nonsense about consensus is just sour grapes and I imagine exactly the same Julia conciliatory consensus rhetoric would be coming out of Tony Abbott's mouth if the situation was reversed. The positive side is there is real chance here for parliamentary reform but old wounds and dogmas are going to win over if we are not ever vigilant.

As for Katter - he took the easy way out. Support the Coalition knowing the other two Independents were going to Labor so he still looks good to his Conservative colleagues but does not have to take any responsbility. And would his choice would have been different with Kevin Rudd as PM? He says so, but that just means he is fickle on policy issues. And what happened to the praise heaped on Labor for the improvements in his area re the energy grid etc and the potential of the NBN to improve regional Australia. That is not worthy of hero status for me.