Wobbles, I must agree, we are a de facto police state now and always have been, from the days of the caveman. If as you say "people squabbling over rapidly diminishing resources" and the distribution of those resources. You will see how long our so called democracy lasts. Those in control will quickly evoke the police state as a necessity to maintain law and order. their law, their order, for the greater good of course. The democratic process is only tolerated whilst it doesn't interfere with real control.

Paul
'The democratic process is only tolerated whilst it doesn't interfere with real control.'

And the democratic processes doesn't interfere with real control. Western democracy is tied up primarily to a trip down to the local school to vote every three years. A small part of a well functioning democracy.

The real influence comes from those with the strongest power base usually tied up in the corporate interests and the military industrial complex (MIC). Even Eisenhower warned of the rise of the MIC and the evolution of war for profit.

Distribution of resources will be the big factor as others have posited but it is nothing new. Political and back-room interference affecting the interests of people (particularly of poorer nations) over self-interest of the few is a feature of not just modern times. It is often only in the historical context that past wrongs or situations are revealed but not soon enough to ensure it never happens again.

A framework that greatly assists in improving government transparency and accountability would help in some way to reduce this phenomenon.

"If Gillard is to survive she needs a coherent narrative, as Paul Keating pointed out. I wonder what that might be."

• Yes indeed, what will be Gillard's coherent narrative? Or is it possible to launch a coherent narrative within the 24/7 cycle of political media coverage?

• In Keating's day and in the last years of the Howard government such narratives were easier to make through the carriage of the well understood polarities and overarching paradigms of the culture and history wars.

• These days, through social media, people are more connected to each other and to issues and do not rely on the narrow casting of political views that Keating and Howard enjoyed throughout their public lives. That modality of narrow casting ‘one idea’ for public debated has been decimated.

• Place this technological chaos a cycle of 3 year terms of government and you end up with a dyslexic muddle of campaigning and policy making that leaves most punters agog, and then fatigued with the complexity of it all.

• Somewhere inside this 'governance' and 'government' happens and it’s no wonder Gillard is focusing on a narrative of telling us that her government is busy "getting the job done'.

• The light on the hill went out long ago and I don't anyone in the Labor party knows how to repair it, or that they care about it at all.

• I believe the break through moment for Gillard (or Abbott) will come from happenstance, rather than a deliberate act of statesmanship or decision making. Some believe this occurred for Gillard this week with Rudd’s excommunication from the Labor party. I disagree.

• In my opinion Gillard and Abbott just don't have the political intuition that Keating, Howard, Hawke and many others had in spades. They could read the political tea leafs, knew the mood of the nation, not through polling, although this was important information, but rather by delivering unto the public themselves as very adept public intellectuals