14 days Parliament sits and the race to the bottom resumes.
Each side lead by the wrong person, each trying to turn small wins in to mountains.
But headlines are unlikely to be absent.
The Slipper fiasco, in constructed and planed nature will bring headlines till Christmas.
The failure of carbon tax to frighten the chooks.
Both could see a rise in Labors polling, but will not not under Gillard.
Like two battered bits of flotsam washing again a sea wall the two leaders will rise and fall, not ever achieving acceptable heights.
Will this storm wash them both away?
We can only hope so.

Yes but Belly, policies matter much more than leaders.

And the party that needs to change its policies is the party that is set to go down at the next election if they don’t!

Labor has got to change. Liberal with win without changing… although they will immediately and interminably be on the nose and will not be likely to last more than one term.

A major change by Labor may not win them the next election. It may take time for the voters to be convinced of their sincerity. But they’ll then be set to romp it in at the next election…. if they change in the way that I have suggested numerous times on OLO::

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13874#239756

Lucky for Labor, they’ve got the ideal person waiting to become leader, who can make this sort change happen and in a sincere manner - Bob Carr.

I had no intention of starting another thread on politics, yet.
Yesterday I got an e mail, anti Labor, and from a mate, he even said he knows I am welded on ALP.
It challenged me, Ludwig does too.
My views are firmly held, the two running our country, lets call them flotsam and jetsom, are as unpopular as one another.
Oh make no mistake, I think Labors policy's are just great, NBN, disability plans, health , pension increases.
Carbon tax, mining tax, Labor continues to be the only reformist party in this country.
Try avoiding the polls, but know it is pointless, Tony Abbott remains as unliked as he ever was, *The Mad Monk* lives, still and forever.
Gillard, stained forever and beyond saving, by her method of getting her job, floats too among the rubbish slapping up against the shore.
Both party's forget voters are not fools.
I stand by my predictions, think both leaders are intent more on their own survival than voters wishes.
But if you try, just read the headlines, sniff the air, both are facing a waterloo moment, both will not survive.
Peter Slipper affair is not likely to implode in this sitting, but it will, and if not some other event first will impacting the Abbott front bench.
Yet Gillard? a leader would prosper right now, just on what is out in the public record.
However she is no winner.
Time for my party to tell us is it private property? our do we the foot soldiers get a say.
Power brokers if they claim ownership let us know,why be a member if dictatorship is the end result?
Kim said 30 seats? bit optimistic big fella!

Dear Belly,

Could it be that both leaders are inadequate because the way of selecting leaders is not good? They are both selected by manoeuvering among a few parliamentarians with neither the party as a whole or the general public having any say in the matter.

Belly, the carbon and mining taxes are policies implemented in the right direction. But they sit so starkly at odds with Labor’s insistence on exerting ever-more pressure on our whole society, environment and financial wherewithal with their policy of extremely high population growth.

This also makes it forever harder for us to redistribute wealth in terms of health, education, pensions, disability allowances, etc.

I agree that Labor has lots of fundamentally good policies and desires.

Now, if they could just do what I so dearly want them to do and develop an overall sustainability strategy, they would DEFINITELY be able to develop all of these sorts of policies much more effectively.

The enormous demand to spend taxpayers money on duplicating services and infrastructure for ever more people would no longer be there which would mean that big money could be put into achieving real improvements for a stable population.

Please Belly, give this some hard consideration. It really is the answer to their woes… and it is what the country so desperately needs.

I’d love to see you come to fully support the idea of a Carr-Thomson Labor government which is net-zero-immigration and very strongly sustainability-oriented.

All of Labor’s good policies of the types that you mention would sit very comfortably within such a regime.

Dear Belly,

I find that despite all the criticisms I could not possibly
support the Liberal Party - especially under the current
leadership. We may be able to criticise the current Labor
leadership - however, as I've said in the past - at least
the PM has survived in a very toxic environment (difficult for
any leader - Liberal or Labor) and is getting on with
achieving some massive reforms.

If you take a look on OLO, the Shadow Minister
has started yet another thread - this time against unions.
No surprises there - the Libs have been ranting against
them for decades. And who's responsible for what's
happened with HSU - is still under investigation - including
the Liberal connection and whether Thomson was set up. The truth
will eventually come out. Yet, Shadow Minister is telling us how
the unions control Labor - and this from a man who supports a party
that's so strongly controilled by vested interests.

The message dressed up to attract us with simple slogans like
"The unions are corrupt," or "The unions have too much power,"
are smoke screens behind which lurk philosophies that are
both difficult to swallow and certain to cause this country a
good deal of harm, should they be taken seriously.

The conept of the Libs is the politics of money and power.
It's the ideology of greed, filled by an unbridled
commitment to individualism. It leaves no room for social
equity, compassion or the idea of an egalitarian society.

The Libs believe that neither government nor associations of
working people (unions) should be able to restrict the
proper application of capital (money) in the economy.
People, in their view, either sink or swim. And if they sink,
well that's too bad. Because according to them, welfare is
not good for business.