I fear you are spot on Arjay. Totally rooted are the ALP.

I really can't understand this obsession with political populism over policy. It's just become style over substance.

All a popular PM has to do is basically do nothing and he/she will stay in power because nobody would have anything to complain about. Menzies managed it a while ago.

I wouldn't care if the PM was an ugly eskimo transsexual with Tourette's syndrome as long as he/she delivered proper and effective legislation for the benefit of the community.

All the ruckus about factions and powerbrokers is not unique to the ALP. Only the truly naive would believe that the Libs don't have their own extremist groups and political hatchet men working behind the scenes.

Maybe we should just take the inevitable step and award the top job to whoever won the Gold Logie for the previous year and be done with it.

Wobbles,

I assume you're alluding to groups like the NSW Uglies who were responsible for the dumping of Turnbull and are the power base behind Howard, Bishop, Ruddock and Abbott? The same group that was founded by an alleged Nazi propagandist and anti-Semite and now run by a member of Opus Dei? The same bunch that also controls the Young Liberals and the NSW Womens Association (among others) and controls at least 30% of the Federal Party?

Labor may have it's Union Boss legacy but the Liberals are especially under the influence of right-wing extremists who culled the party of moderates over the last decade and left us with the reactionary rubbish we see now.

Fun times ahead for us all!

wobbles, do you allude to Rudd there, with the Tourette's reference?

Do you know if he is a trannie, for sure?

I was looking at JUlie Biship on Q&A the other week and she suddenley looked like a full on trannie, with her smirk, teeth and hair. Very odd feeling I had.

Look, let's just have TNT run the show on a three year contract, and close parliament down for a while, just to see how well things go.

Sad to say, we might find we need even the goons we have once big business has cleaned out the drawers.

Obama is the classic polly of image over substance.Everything he promised has not come to fruition.End the wars,withdraw the troops and more freedom for the people.

Obama did the exact opposite.He expanded the wars brought in Preventative Dentention,legalised assassination of suspected terrorists and brought in the National Defence Authorisation Act.

The USA is now virtually a police state and we will follow.

Arjay,

It's not just Australia but I think the whole world is inevitably heading toward becoming a Police State.

With 7 billion (plus) people squabbling over rapidly diminishing resources, a free-market capitalist system that depends on scarcity to operate just won't work when it comes to controlling masses of increasingly discontented and hungry people.

Whether it will be a militarily controlled one or another run by mega-corporations for profit remains to be seen.