Be of stout heart, Belly. In Queensland Campbell Newman is doing his best to make Labor look like the less bad alternative.

While that is true David be it known that state has a history of liking tough men.
Even one who ran every word in to a meat mincer before uttering them.
Bill Shorten,a man I honestly regard as a HERO and a future Prime Minister, [also gets blame from me for dumping Rudd] went shopping!
If his average Aussie mind explosion, we all do it, was based on an insult to Julia he should note.
Bill stay away from pubs clubs service stations ALP branch meetings too!
An alternative exists.
Have once worked for you bloke I had a very good education in health and safety.
Thanks for that.
Get ear plugs, cover them with ear muffs, then just maybe, you will hear no one insult Ms Gillard
Also try a Walkman under all that, volume on full ALL THE TIME!
Take no risks! reality has a way of getting its message heard.

Sadly that was not funny.
As we near the re opening of Parliament, the seeming waste of meeting after meeting to, not remember who got boat refugees wrong.
But to fix it, end the deaths at sea, to stop the bleeding, amounts beyond our belief, spent on paying for this problem,
We aid the failure of our politicians, on both sides, to resolve the issue.
We unhappy and discontented with that other side, both of them.
Refuse to look at our own side.
And as flotsam and jetsom wrestle in the mud , neither sees the opportunity.
It begs to be seen, first day back in the house, the side that backs down, can show clearly some leadership.
Yet we must wait, until one or the other, hopefully both,are swept away by a beach cleaner/new leader.

A last thought, one week from Parliament re opening, and a new low [it does not appear we could achieve that] in our politics is about to take place.
Maybe this session, by by the end of the next for sure, this country will be shaken by the up heaval in that place.
As we,all of us grow increasingly weary with both sides, the simple fact each ,leaders for sure but party's propping each up too, have been helping the fall from grace.
Observers of politics, those who value public opinion, know it will take years to wipe out the bad taste we have over this constant squabbling.
The storm is needed, if only to remind our politicians we exist, it is our beach not theirs they have sullied.
Watch this space we live in interesting times.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-09/abbott-says-electricity-price-rise-reason-a-furphy/4187906
The cracks are appearing.
Tony is the man he has always been, but is no longer in control, unable to hide that man.
Not good news for Labor, the first side to produce its new leader, providing it is not the wrong one, will leap so far in front it may not be possible to catch them.
The storm approaches

Belly, look at every Federal and state leader over the last few years, both Lab and Lib. Every single one of them has received condemnation for being hopeless in their leadership, if not overall, then certainly regarding multiple significant decisions.

But not all of them are completely drongos. They are for the most part pretty highly intelligent and capable people.

So what does that tell us?

It’s the policies and the political direction that matters, not the leaders!

No amount of leadership shuffling is going to get us very far. It might make the critical difference at election time by changing balance of votes just enough to determine the outcome. But it is not going to help either party in the slightly longer term, if they just continue to bumble on with the same old bullsh!t policy platform.

I’ve expressed the sorts of policy changes that I think need to happen earlier in this thread.

They can happen most effectively with a Carr-Thomson Labor leadership. They could happen just as effectively within the Libs/Coalition. But the best leadership for that is not at all obvious, although Turnbull would have to be a much better bet than Abbott.