Carry on, otb...

The hem of my trousers is getting a little frayed, and saturated with saliva, but still he holds fast.

Keep it coming - I'm taking notes.

(Fascinating!)

I am looking forward to the next 6 to 9 years under a stable and competent Liberal government, as it will probably take Aus that long to forget the rabble that is labor.

How nice for you, Shadow Minister.

While you have your feet up enjoying One Term Tony's term, you can wile away the hours thinking of more scintillatingly witty schoolkid names to plaster over the Opposition.

Don't let us down!

Ok parrot,

That I will do for Tony's 1st term.

What shall I do for his 2nd and 3rd?

I rest my case....

(Lol)

I'm afraid the brilliance of some of these last comments is lost on me :(

Now, to get back to topic, i.e. a sort of out-of-date "The 'real' Kevin is back", the reality is that he WAS back and now he's gone.

I sincerely hope that the Labor Party (which got my HoR vote, to no avail), can not only have a good look at itself but also at the changing nature of Australian economy and society, and the relationship between the three.

Forty and fifty years ago, I was working in factories and on an Aboriginal Community. Twenty years ago, I was running some Career Workshops for Aboriginal kids and I had to remind them and myself that the jobs that had been around twenty years before were now gone, computerised, superseded, shipped overseas, and a whole raft of new-type professional careers had opened up.

Similarly, the Labor Party has to realise that the old Anglo-Aussie mass-working-class hasn't really existed for decades, perhaps four or five decades. Workers with trades have become independent tradies and subbies, their kids have moved into the professions, and the actual working-class has become far more multi-ethnic. Well, it was already multi-ethnic when I started in the mid-sixties - sometimes I was the only Anglo even back then, apart from the supervisor and bosses. I learnt Greek back then, and can still talk to old ladies on the bus - good times :)

So does the Labor Party try to represent the progresssive wing of the professional classes, if there is such a thing, or leave that to the Greens ? Or do they try to prise the tradies and the ethnics away from the Liberal Party ? Or something else ?

Take for granted that, every generation, it's a different Australia, with a different role and clientele for each party, right or left. The party of Fisher and Watson and Scullin and Chifley - even of Whitlam - was then. What is now ?

Joe