aime, if a few people like you refused to participate in the laboral charade,and if an election was lost as a consequence, labor might put citizen initiative back on their policy. bringing democracy to australia is vastly more important than the 'dum vs dee' shadow play that passes for politics on this sheep station.

of course it won't be easy- it's a plan to shift real power into the hands of the people. this is politics for grown-ups. but it's not impossible. the 'getup' organization is big enough to deliver decisive votes if they really want to empower people. i'm not sure they are, 'protest' groups normally are adolescents of various ages.

i despise the dems because they have all the weaknesses of the major parties, while radiating 'holier than them'. they would have been the obvious champions of democracy in oz, but chipp was a very limited man and had no goal but a seat and a broker power. he got that, but people came to see the calibre of the party and are less and less impressed.

The Democrats have a problem with common sense and logic.They just do not connect with the majority of people in the electorate who make our economy function.

Which part of out of touch,stupid fools do they not understand?

The problem with The Democrats is that they need other's problems to exist and that their existance is usually outside the "normal" spectrum of the law...

The soup-kitchen line started with abnormality...

Once The Democrats have formed the problems seldom leave...

Firstly I think the Democrats need to work out what they want their role in the parliment to be.
- If its "keeping the bastards honest" then there is no place for forcing the government to breach a policy that was taken to the electorate eg the GST thing. There is a place for blocking policy that was not put to the electorate eg "Work Choices" and participation in Iraq. If it's about keeping others honest then that's a different thing to trying to have their own policies implemented.
- If it is about presenting particular policy positions and trying to use leverage to get those policies implemented by whoever is in power then they need to work out if they are really representing any particular body of voters who may not be better off supporting one of the bigger players. What do they offer that is substantially different to Labor?

From my own perspective I'd support a party that I believed would do it's upmost to get the major parties to stick to the policies and promoses which were taken to the electorate. I've got not much time for a party which looks ALP wanabee's.

Some years ago I received a request for feedback from the Democrats. I wrote to the democrats expressing my concern about what I considered to be serious issues which I would have liked them to pay some attention to. They did not bother with the courtesy of a reply but did place me on an email list in the leadup to the last election. It took a number of requests to get them to stop sending me their electoral material.

R0bert

It never seems to occur to posters here that as a small, powerless nation on the margins of Asia, Australia's room for manoeuvre is limited. We are not going to change the world's trading system. No matter what we do we cannot fight global warming if the big players don't cooperate. No one is interested in any "moral examples" we may set.

All Australian governments of whatever stripe have to perform a series of delicate juggling acts in an unpredictable and sometimes dangerous world. Trade-offs and compromises will always be necessary. There are no magic bullets that will ensure peace, justice and utopia in Australia.

Neither John Howard nor Kevin Rudd are monsters. Nor are they saints. They are, as are we all, flawed human being. Mostly, not always, I think they try and do what they believe to be best for Australia.

What I find most remarkable is the continuity in the direction of policy in Australia since 1983. I doubt that a Rudd government would be much different to, say, a Costello or Turnbull administration. If by some fluke the Greens ever won government they would find, as did the German Greens, that real world constraints forced them to ditch or modify many of their most cherished ideals.

Putting everything to a referendum may sound nice but is impractical. If we put all important decision to a referendum I suspect we'd still have the death penalty and White Australia.

Aime..I'll resist.. the temptation to give a quick one liner... *resisting......*.. ok..

DEMOS will probably cringe for me to say this, but he summed it up rather well. 'Good crocodile' being the operative words.

Yes, democracy, sadly produces competition for many things, and if that competition is driven by 'greed' (as opposed to the persuit of fairness and justice) it will bring horrible results and social breakdown.

Steven summarized it very well, and rather than repeat, I'll add one dimension which I have not seen mentioned yet.

"Todays Revolutionary is tomorrows Tyrant"... i.e. many aspiring political identities and parties are romantic and idealistic. UNTIL.....they gain power.

cheers.