Dear Belly,

You wrote: "My love comes in my view from an understanding of my opponents true nature."

Presumably your opponent is the Liberal Party, and your love is your love for the ALP. If that is not your definition of your opponent and your love please correct me.

If I have presumed correctly your love for the ALP is a consequence of what you consider to be the 'true nature of the Libs.' Therefore your love for the ALP has to do with your feeling about the Libs and not the nature of the ALP.

PLease tell me where I am wrong in the above.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/the-powerful-spin-of-abbotts-wrecking-ball-20120518-1yvlu.html
This link, in my view, is quite right.
But too supports my view Labor is contributing to its problems.
Gillard, and her close supporters, are unable to focus on voters and their views, not Abbott's faults.
Unsure that they knowingly insult those voters not already ALP or just do not understand it will be them who un seat us.
Gillard did, forever, chase many away by being seen to knife Rudd.
She never tried to explain herself on carbon tax.
Yes Abbott twists the truth.
But Labor expects others to uncover his miss deeds.
AG after Gillard we need a salesman or woman not another failure.

Dear Belly,

I don’t think Gillard is a failure. She has been masterful rather than mistressful in appealing to the independents in taking government after what was a tied election. However, due to her narrow margin she is constrained in what she can do.

The article you referred to mentioned the environmental problems that we face. Rudd in talking of a big Australia seemed oblivious to those problems. In my mind he had to go. Keating with his economic rationalism seemed blind to the interests of working people.

Labor is in a box. The heritage of Keating and Rudd is simply indefensible. If voters are appealed to on the basis of what the party has done they will reject the ALP. It has not served the interests of the workers as a labour party should. It has accepted militarism and ties with dictators. Even where Gillard has tried to make Australia better by her agreement with Wilkie to do something about problem gambling she has been constrained by the NSW members who get support from the gambling ‘industry.’

The ALP cannot run on its recent record. Whether or not Gillard would like to make the ALP an instrument for serving the interests of the working man, opposing militarism and creating an economy consistent with a sustainable environment she cannot because of the many interests within the party opposed to those aims. I don’t think anybody else could do any better. All she or anybody else at the head of the ALP at this time can do is to attack Abbott and the Libs as they are simply worse.

The problems of the ALP will not be solved by replacing Gillard. Kelvin Thomson, the ALP member for Wills, is acutely aware of the problems of our unsustainable population increase and is a guiding light of the Sustainable Population Association to which I belong. However, I don’t think he could do any better in Gillard’s place. He would still have to make the compromises that Gillard has had to make to keep Abbott and his troglodytes out of power.

FP72E,
Labor gaining in the polls?

The latest Galaxy poll for the Courier Mail does not show that.

In fact it shows Rudd, Swan and Emerson all gone if an election were held now.

Just thought I would mention this.

Dear Banjo,

The point is that the election is still quite
some time away regardless of how much Mr Abbott
and his colleagues keep wanting it sooner.
And, as you know in politics - things can change
in a flash. Seemingly unwinnable elections have
been won in the past and winnable ones have been
lost. We'll have to wait and see. Remember Mr Abbott
won his party's leadership by only one vote. It will
be interesting to see what sort of party support he
gets - if his ratings start to go down in the polls
prior to the next election. Will he remain as party
leader. I wonder.

Lexi,
You are right about things in politics changing quickly.

Ep72 was enthused enough to start this thread on the strength of a small gain in one poll so I thought he/she should be reminded of that.

This poll shows not one Labor member remaining in Qld, but who would expect that to be so?