Australian Federal Elections 2010

Dr Joo-Cheong Tham, a legal scholar and campaign finance expert at the University of Melbourne, has just had his new book published by UNSW Press called:

'Money and Politics: The democracy we can't afford'

The book highlights in Australian politics, the massive private donations made to the major politcial parties - Labor, Liberals, Nationals and The Greens. It highlights that some $60 million has been spent on election advertising toward the 2010 federal election, of that $40 million by Labor and Liberal parties - no wonder they get re-elected.

How can minor political parties, new political parties with no election history and so no AEC funding, or independent candidates stand a hope of getting elected, when such wealth bias exists in the Australian electoral system?

Australia simply does not have free and fair elections. The AEC only facilitates a duel contest between Liberal and Labor, which have similar ideologies and policies anyway. No wonder there are so many informal votes and so many who have become disenfranchised with Australia's electoral system.

Dr Tham questions the secrecy of the funding of the parties' campaigns, and why Australians have to wait until February 2012 to have this information disclosed to the voting public - "a full year and a half to find out who paid the piper at the 2010 elections.".

Dr Joo-Cheong Tham

Dr Tham in his book, examines the weaknesses of Australia's rules on political donations, and to call for an overhaul of our campaign finance rules. He offers serious proposals for electoral reform across Australia. For the many of us dissatisfied with the current state of affairs, his suggestions are vital reading.

An outline of his book has been provided in an ABC Radio interview today on the programme National Interest by presenter Peter Meyers with Dr Tham. The programme is called The democracy we can't afford. It ought to be available for replaying by podcast on the ABC from tomorrow.

In the meantime, the following related websites should be of interest:

UNSW Press

Dr Joo-Cheong Tham's profile at University of Melbourne

2004 Election Funding Payments (AEC) (2007 seesm to be still not available and this is 2010!

'Election funding transparency: Australia has a lot to learn' on Inside Story website

'Election funding 'broken', by journalist Brian Robins, Sydney Morning Herald, 1st February 2010

Democracy For Sale - search for donation information

"The growth lobbyists will tell us that we can solve our problems by converting to “clean coal” technologies or nuclear power, building more high rise, producing desalinated water at $10 litre (who knows?), installing “smart” electricity meters, piping water from the Northern Victoria to Melbourne, importing more food on more and bigger ships etc." Federal Candidate, Jenny Warfe writes, "I'm looking forward to a different way of 'moving forward.'"

Editor: Headings introduced by candobetter.org editor

Honouring our Provision of Asylum obligations

Firstly, I believe we must honour in word and deed our international obligations to provide asylum (1) for those who seek it, especially in view of our present international military activities. What’s more, the few thousand refugees who gain Australian residency each year make no significant difference to our population growth, so are irrelevant to the following discussion.

Dick Smith’s recent ‘Population Puzzle’ (2) documentary has brought population impacts into the mainstream so now seems like a good time to discuss one of my policies:

*
Develop a population plan informed by best available relevant science. Migration program should focus on political and climate asylum and reunions. Remove reliance on skilled migration by re-skilling and training Australians.

Neither the ALP or the Libs understand the mathematical realities of growth

As Dick Smith discovered to his amazement – there is no plan and neither major party seems capable of understanding the mathematical realities of growth.

Population growth in most developed countries is declining, but Australia’s growth rate has been rising fast. It’s currently 2% per annum - more than twice the world average and higher than most other developed or developing nation, eg: India’s 1.4% and UK’s 0.4%. At 2% per annum, Australia will almost double its population by 2050. Melbourne is set to double to 8 million in the next 50 years (3). Impacts of our growth rate are being felt in inadequate public transport services whilst tollways and freeways continue to expand; water restrictions; stresses on our coastline, oceans and waterways; loss of productive land to new suburbs; loss of marine and terrestrial biodiversity; destruction of our natural and built heritage for continuing urban expansion – and the accompanying carbon emissions and climate change. Surely the elephant in the room is the world’s inability to deal wisely with our own expansion?

Where's the logical end point to this?

I think every nation on Earth needs a plan based around some concept of carrying capacity. This might be a long way off, but a good start would be to restructure the UN as a real global government, extinguish domination by the USA and its allies, all countries to be represented equally and global defence and armaments expenditure to be significantly re-allocated to humanitarian and environmental restoration activities.

1994 Australian population carrying capacity Inquiry

In 1994 Australia did look at its carrying capacity in the Parliamentary report: Australia's population "carrying capacity”: one nation - two ecologies (4). But – the idea has gone nowhere since - buried it seems under the rise to power of the growth lobby, including the Business and Property Council of Australia – the few faceless entities who benefit from more of everything, and ably assisted by media commentators such as Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman. The growth lobbyists will tell us that we can solve our problems by converting to “clean coal” technologies or nuclear power, building more high rise, producing desalinated water at $10 litre (who knows?), installing “smart” electricity meters, piping water from the Northern Victoria to Melbourne, importing more food on more and bigger ships etc.

Climate change and paving habitat

Mr. Rudd was right. Responding to climate change is one of the greatest moral challenges of our time, but dealing with that challenge whilst we continue to expand will be all the harder. Until our political leadership has the guts to ignore the ramblings of Andrew Bolt et al we will be stuck in a reactive policy merry-go-round. As our natural heritage disappears it isn’t good enough to fall back on a “19th Century zoo mentality” and list yet another species as critically endangered (what’s the point if we pave over its habitat?) or propose a National Park to save a piece of our land or sea, when what we need to do for the safety of the planet and all who live on it is to reduce the impact we humans are having on the land and oceans.

Psycho-social and economic disconnect from Environment

It’s my view that since the industrial revolution humans have become the only species on Earth whose population numbers, at least in the “First World” are no longer prescribed by the environmental constraints that controlled us for thousands of years and other species for millions of years. Now, especially in the West we have become increasingly disconnected – both physically and psychologically – from the environment which sustains us, allowing us to consider the environment as a resource for our use and exploitation rather than our habitat. But the standards we have constructed in the West and our addiction to growth and its underpinning consumerism have come at huge cost to others on the planet. Poorer nations subsidise our wealth, providing consumer goods made with cheap labour in harsh conditions, and many such country’s lax regulations allow their environments to become degraded and their endemic species to be obliterated.

Capitalism can work well without growth

But, there is another way to organise ourselves. As even capitalism loving Dick Smith says, “capitalism can work wonderfully well without growth”.

We can get along very well in a steady state economy – indeed our quality of life, not just the quality of our possessions – might even increase. There’s quite a bit written about it, and it’s all pretty inspiring. See: http://steadystate.org/

Inhumanity of Growthism and Paying the Ferryman

I reckon if we don’t want to consider our population and growth impacts we aren’t being humane. Already, with 6.5 Billion people on the planet, over 1 billion can’t access clean water. With 9 billion people by 2050 how can we possibly address appalling realities like that? Sometime soon we are going to have to pay the ferryman.

I’m looking forward to a different way of “moving forward”.

NOTES

(1) And on-shore processing centres

(2) http://www.abc.net.au/tv/populationpuzzle/

(3) The Age August 5th 2010 http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/make-plans-for-population-to-double-within-50-years-20100804-11fn5.html

(4) Australia. Parliament. House of Representatives. Standing Committee for Long Term Strategies

Male Gang-Gang Cockatoo under threat in Hornsby and Ku-ring-gai from encroaching Sydney urban sprawl. © Ian Montgomery, Birdways

Australia's greatest social, environmental and economic problems are 'root (cause) driven' by immigrated (human) overpopulation.

Human overpopulation (from immigration and record migrant births) is putting unsustainable pressures on Australia's economy (demand driving higher prices, interest rates, raising the cost of living, reducing housing affordability, unemployment, record consumerism driving import demands and a spiralling trade deficit.

Human overpopulation (from immigration and record migrant births) are putting unsustainable pressures on Australian urban society (creating ethnic enclaves, fueling racism, causing road congestion, overloading public infrastructure - water supply, energy, hospitals, roads, schools, childcare etc).

Human overpopulation (from immigration and record migrant births) is putting unsustainable pressures on Australia's environment (river flows, sprawl destroying bushland and killing off wildlife, sprawl invading arable land).

Perhaps Sydney's Gang Gang Cockatoo deserves to be made symbolic of the environmental harm driven by the pressures of excessive immigrated population sprawl. An endangered Gang Gang Cockatoo population is found in forested gullies in Sydney's northern suburbs. It is threatened with extinction by encroaching urban development resulting in clearing of forest and woodland habitat for more human housing. [DEC]. The Gang Gang surely has a supreme moral right to be protected from extinction than the rights of invading humans.

Yet both Gillard's Federal Labor & Abbott's Federal Liberal talk of 'sustainable population' is mere hollow headline spin. Both are committed to economic growth, because they know no better.
Both are committed to encouraging skilled immigration because if is a cheaper bandaid measure for industries not prepared to invest in local vocational training. Both have deceitfully chosen a joint campaign of media distraction on a miniscule refugee issue.

Both are only using the phrase 'sustainable population' as a slogan for vote catching.
The LibLabs have become irrelevant.

The Greens immigration policy is mainly about encoyraging more asylum seekers and vaguely "support(s) skilled migration programs that do not drain critical skills from other countries and do not substitute for training or undermine wages and conditions in Australia."

The Nationals are just adopting a combined Coalition policy - committed to blind economic growth, a vague interpretation of what 'sustainable population means and a nominal reduction in annual immigration from 2% to 1.4% (170,000 p.a.) while "liberalising" arrangements for temporary business visas (457s).

So where are there immigration policies for Australia that seriously address the problem and subsequent immigration harm being caused? My own policy would be to effect an absolute moratorium for 24 months, during which time an independent commission assesses the triple bottom line (TBL) impacts and establishes true TBL targets and maxims for (1) population, (2) immigration, (3) supply minimums on a per capita basis for TBL outcomes - e.g. infrastructure minimums like '1 hospital bed per 5000 people' within a 30 minute car journey, etc. Such maxims set quantifiable limits on Australian social, environmental and economic values.

Of all the currently registered political parties in Australia, only the following have a serious policy committed to reducing Australian immigration:

Australia First Party (NSW) Incorporated

Australia First immigration policy reads:

"Australia First Party agrees with the notion that our primary reason for immigration should be based on Australia's need, i.e., the only justification for immigration is net value to Australia. We will make sure that immigration takes into account social cohesion, employment opportunities, urbanisation and environmental issues.

Our policy on immigration is "zero net" which means the number of immigrants we will allow in each year will equal the number of people permanently leaving Australia per year."

One Nation

One Nation's immigration policy reads:

"To restrict immigration except that related to investment and for this to continue at least until Australia’s unemployment crisis is resolved."

Secular Party of Australia

Although not advocating reduced immigration, the Secular Party of Australia does advocate reducing the Australian birth rate and has some comparable initiatives:

The Secular Party of Australia's immigration policy reads:

"Global population is a significant issue in dealing with many environmental problems. Australia is a dry but relatively rich country, and has a low population compared with our neighbours. Australia's resource wealth will enable us to maintain a privileged position in the global community. The Secular Party is opposed to policies that encourage a higher birth rate. It is the policy of the Secular Party to abolish the baby bonus.

The Secular Party deplores xenophobic attempts to demonise refugees and asylum seekers. We support continuation of an immigration program that is both economically beneficial and environmentally sustainable, and which provides sufficient allowance for our humanitarian obligations. We note that migrants to Australia must agree to respect certain values, including the equality of men and women, as part of the Australian Values Statement in the immigration application form. It is the policy of the Secular Party to consider means by which migrants may be required to respect these values that they have already agreed to."

is not registered with the Australian Electoral Commission for the coming Federal Election.

Its policies are:

"1. Adopt a formal national 'population policy' to stabilise Australia's population at around 23-26 million through to 2050. (Since we are at 22 million, this would mean a moratorium).

2. * Adopt a balanced and sustainable migration program, with annual immigration at around *50-80,000, being equivalent to total annual emigration.

3. Reject any selection of immigrants based on race.

4. Maintain Australia's current annual refugee intake of 13,750, within the broader immigration quota.

5. Phase out the Baby Bonus and re-direct funds to an appropriate parental leave scheme that promotes greater female participation in the workforce.

6. Tie foreign aid wherever possible to the improvement of governance and economic and environmental sustainability, with a particular focus on women's rights and education and on opportunities for couples to access family planning services."

"The Stable Population Party was due to be officially registered on July 24, but Julia Gillard called an early election on July 17 and prevented us from standing candidates under our party name." [SPPA website]

Serious immigration reduction policy for Australia is overdue. The longer we allow more and more arrivals, the closer Australia is approaching social, environmental and economic crises.

If Gillard is not a rehash of the hollow Rudd, who hoodwinked us into the false hope of the 2007 pork barrelling and spun that hollow 2020 Summit; Gillard's absence of maxims and deadlines for Australia's population/immigration targets only confirms voters ought to realistically presume more of the same.

Tony only wants to stop the boats. He is quite happy for the other 99% arriving by plane to keep coming.

Ordinary voters need to detox from this election bender. Only the political parties, their advertisers and their media allies stand to benefit. Like the pubs and clubs that own the pokies, they control the outcome and the punters lose.

Voters need to stop hoping things will improve under either LibLab party. After 21st August, we won't enter a new era. It will be more of the same. The media phasing will run to formula. First they'll flog reality TV labelled as 'Decision 2010', then there'll be celebration and paralysis by analysis, followed by a month of new government honeymoon hope, before inevitable criticism returns and the eggs start flying again. [I wish that bloke waiting in the Canberra café had been a better shot!]

If only voters for once would accept that after the election things do not improve either way. If voters vote non-LibLab for genuine change, there is a slither of hope that voters may get what they wish for - 'change'.

But who else is out there? With such a political vacuum, why are there so few choices, so few alternatives, so few leaders? The LibLab's have their oliogarchic system sown up with their donated millions providing campaign supremacy, their safe seats, their gerrymanders, the electoral system's prejudice against newcomers and small players, and the mainstream media bias allowing only the LibLabs their time in the sun.

So we cop the same old LibLab pendulous crap. In living memory is has been Holt > Gorton >McMahon> Whitlam > Fraser > Hawke > Keating > Howard > Rudd > Gillard... All LibLab. All like tired re-runs of M*A*S*H* once the ratings finish.

According to some of Australia's most widely published journalists and many opinion polls, the Liberal and National Parties were thrown out of office largely because of voter objections to their policies, notably their anti-union "Work Choices" laws.
Despite this, less than three years since Australians repudiated the ruling Federal Liberal and National Parties' policies and laws, the same polls and commentators say that they may soon become the government again. There are issues behind the issues which the mainstream doesn't cover.

According to some of Australia's most widely published journalists and many opinion polls, the Liberal and National Parties were thrown out of office largely because of voter objections to their policies, notably their anti-union "Work Choices" laws.

Despite this, less than three years since Australians repudiated the ruling Federal Liberal and National Parties' policies and laws, the same pollsters and commentators say that they may soon become the government again. There are issues behind the issues which the mainstream doesn't cover.

According to some of Australia's most widely published journalists and many opinion polls, the Liberal and National Parties were thrown out of office largely because of voter objections to their policies, notably their anti-union "Work Choices"laws.

Despite this, less than three years since Australians repudiated the ruling Federal Liberal and National Parties' policies and laws, the same pollsters and commentators say that they may soon become the government again.

If media 'prediction' comes true, Labor will have turned into a one-term government party and the Liberal and National Coalition will have effectively become the natural parties of Government.

The mainstream media are like obedient cattle-dogs barking at the heels of the public, herding us en masse one way, then sending us wheeling in the opposite direction, yet somehow we always end up back in the same dull paddock with lousy feed and the same old farmer Brown.

Animal Farm

Julia Gillard has incurred the farmer's wrath because she has publicly rejected former Prime Minster Kevin Rudd's "Big Australia" policy to hugely swell Australia's population, mostly through immigration. The press have called her 'populist' (oddly, their greatest insult) , insinuated that she is racist, and trotted out article after article saying how terrible it would be if our population stopped growing. They have also tried to condemn her on the pretext of her allegedly ruthless deposing of Rudd. The unfavourable treatment of Gillard over this and other issues may be the reason why opinion polls and some widely published journalists are predicting that Labor is now more likely to lose than to win the election.

Manufactured media dramas overshadow major democratic and environmental issues

This swaying of an election by emphasisizing in a negative way such aspects of the campaign is an illustration of just how the media can unfairly decide the outcome of elections. Those, who have been persuaded to vote against Labor through exposure to this repeated narrowly focused media-disapproval, may not have based their decision on far more critical policy issues, including the need to strengthen and preserve democracy and our long-term sustainability as a civilised and prosperous society, which are both issues at stake. Mainstream media focus virtually ignores democracy and ecological sustainability.

Julia Gillard's ousting of Kevin Rudd could provide a way for the Labor Government to much better govern in the interests of ordinary Australians than under Kevin Rudd's leadership. Under Kevin Rudd's leadership, a lot of policies which were harmful to the interests of ordinary Australians and which had never obtained their informed support, were being imposed dictatorially. The most resented, we are learning as the population debate explodes, was Kevin Rudd's decision to unhealthily bloat Australia's population to suit some vested commercial interests. Successive recent governments,
including John Howard's, had been ramping up population growth, but Rudd opened up the throttle to a rate where the harm to existing Australians and the environment was plain for all to see.

Ruddbank and Building the Education Revolution

In addition, the Rudd Government was criticised for crudely implementing major programs of Government expenditure.

The most widely criticised of these crude schemes was in relation to the squandering of money on school infrastructure, which has been blamed on Julia Gillard, because she oversaw the grandiosely named $16.2 billion "Building the Education Revolution" scheme. The main basis of this criticism was that projects which could have delivered to many schools, simply through through repairs of or the extension of existing buildings, using local firms and labour, were scrapped in favour of arbitrarily selected new buildings delivered by large, remote construction companies.

This program should really have been criticised within a larger policy, as a mutation of Rudd and Swann's
Ruddbank bill, which was thrown out of Parliament at the last moment. Ruddbank was Rudd's first reaction to the global financial crisis. He saw banks pulling out of financing more property development, and thus the pins being pulled from under the construction and development bubble which Australia has been dangerously reliant on now for years. Rudd and Swann rose to power from humble political beginnings in 1986 when they worked in Wayne Goss's office in Queensland. There they traded ALP investments until they had built a huge ALP self-financing tradition on land-speculation and finance largely in property, banking, and insurance. Rudd and Swann are wed to that kind of economy; so was the ALP under them. Those financial attachments have driven laws in parliament to privilege development and infrastructure finance with public money, and to exclude democratic rights to oppose unwanted development.

If the mainstream media hates Gillard so much, can she be all that bad?

It is hard to believe that Gillard's government will not remain bound by those financial ties, however the fact that Gillard has piped up about not being a big population person makes her government unusual. Many of us wonder if she is sincere and if she is able to deliver democratically on this.

Perhaps the biggest indicator that she may be able to is that the mainstream media are so consistently opposed to her. Going by their disapproval of her population statements this is because they truly believe she may cut down on population growth and the huge immigration program they have been responsible for marketing on behalf of the corporate sector and their own corporate investments.

Indeed, her object may actually be less a democratic one than to avoid incurring more public debt through more taxpayer funding of shortfalls in infrastructure finance at a time when no private institution wants to invest in infrastructure expansion. She may be responding to ALP corporate advice that the so-called Global Financial Crisis is only just beginning.

So, should we trust our instincts which tell us that to vote for the people the mainstream media most objects to, and therefore vote Gillard back in?

Would the Libs carry on Rudd's infrastructure investment policies and exploit Labor's bad state laws?

On the other hand, What would happen if the Liberal National Coalition regained majority in Federal Parliament?

The question this article raises is, could we be better off with a Liberal government? Or would a Liberal government simply do the same thing as the Labor governments, relying on the suppression of democracy at law which has been accomplished at parliamentary level by Labor State Governments in their efforts to promote infrastructure expansion in tandem with international immigration?

To our knowledge, the only Liberal opposition which has actually criticised the way that Labor has gone about financing infrastructure expansion and population growth with tax-payer money and suppressing democratic objection by changing laws and abolishing local government power, has been the Queensland Liberal-National Party. See "John-Paul Langbroek and why the Liberal National Party won't survive unless Labor Governments reform." This article, whilst supporting Queensland Liberal-National Party leader, John-Paul Langbroek's condemnation of the structural corruption of government in Queensland, and proposing useful ways to combat this corruption, also acknowledges that it is perhaps only the Liberal-National Party's need to survive which drives these reform attempts. Despite these doubts, what else do we have to begin to deconstruct the diabolical machine that the Labor Party has constructed against democracy?

Langebroek's bills need to be repeated in every state and Federal parliament and supported by all parties. Yet we hear almost no discussion of them.

Role of Media and of Internet Censorship in Australian politics

The ability of the public to monitor what is going on and to act to make the government and opposition politicians represent them better lies in the quality of the mainstream media. Much hope in this regard lies in internet-based alternative media and our ability to harnass this for public benefit.

An important related issue is Gillard's decision to delay internet censorship and the Liberal Government's policy platform of cancelling it, with the support of the Greens.

Even though the Liberals opposition to mandatory internet filtering is a welcome development in Australian democracy, many voters will still have to weigh this against the likelihood that a re-elected liberal government will act similarly to the last Liberal government of which most current Liberal members of Parliament were members. That government behaved undemocratically and in many instances against the interests of most Australians, particularly poor Australians. The most striking example was its anti-union "Work Choices" legislation.

In fact the issue of mandatory internet filtering is bigger than just the question of censorship; it is really about government-monitoring and control over every Australian's behaviour on the internet and goes to the heart of intellectual and personal privacy. As James Sinnamon said, "If a government really wanted to outlaw child pornography over the internet, it would do much better to make it a criminal offense to consult certain sites, and publish the addresses of those sites and its reasons for outlawing them. In that way it could avoid the extraordinary financial, bureaucratic, hard and software outlay required to monitor every click made by 22 million plus Australians on the internet, whilst achieving the same objective."

This needs more discussion.

The reasons The Greens remain a marginal alternative party are:

1. They exclude those not ideologically 'green', so alienation keeps them alienated from the mainstream

2. They do not translate their idealistic ideology into pragmatic shovel-ready policy initiatives with dollar values and immediate costed implementation plans; so they remain perceived as a futurist think tank, not regarded as a real-time alternative executive government.
Take the dominant election issue of overpopulation. The Australian Greens have an Immigration and Refugee policy listed under their category 'Care for People'. But they also have a Population policy under their category 'Environment'. This categorisation may seem odd, but the logic is that population is an underlying driver of environmental damage.

I have read The Greens population policy. It logically is grouped into 'principles', 'goals' and 'measures' (or policy initiatives).

The Greens 'population principles' are about factoring the impacts on the environment and society and living standards. They recognise the issue is complex and include issues like women’s rights, unsustainable resource use, inequitable distribution of wealth and power, multiculturalism, international human rights, the shortsightedness of being driven by economic goals, the ageing population and geographical distribution.

The principles and goals are what the Greens are good at.

But getting straight to the 'measures' or policy initiatives for the 2010 election, this is the motherhood waffle, and I quote their 5 vague 'measures':

1. Support, through extensive community consultation, a population policy directed towards ecological sustainability in the context of global social justice.

2. Work to achieve a sustainable relationship between humans and the environment by taking action:
- in Australia, including planning, consultation and a whole of government approach, to improve equity in consumption levels and resource and technology use; and
- globally, to improve social and economic equity and promote programs that empower women.

3. Implement the 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action as endorsed by the Australian Government (this is humanitarian immigration and relevant to refugees not population)

4. Ensure that Australian family planning programs, both domestically and overseas, are adequately funded to deliver services in the context of reproductive health programs which increase the power of girls and women to determine their own reproductive lives, and increase the understanding of men of their reproductive responsibilities.

5. Prepare contingency plans for possible large scale humanitarian migration as a result of climate change.

Translated in simple terms, the above 5 measures mean:

1. A population policy so vague as to be anything they want it to mean
2. Make population environmentally sustainable somehow, ensure opportunities are made fair for all, and empower women.
3. Implement an 1994 international obligation on refugee acceptance
4. Improve family planning education to prevent unwanted pregnancies
5. Get ready for massive future refuge intakes.

Don't get me wrong, The Greens have some good ideas and frankly they are more 'forward thinking' than the LibLabs media reactions. But I don't support The Greens per se.

The are too pie in the sky! They come across as intolerant of compromising their environmental mandate with mainstream values of liberalism and work opportunity.

If the Greens come own from their ivory tower, resolve their cultural impasses and get relevant and pragmatic - then they may stand a chance of attracting the mainstream vote.

Until then, green pigs fly!

But the Greens need to learn from past rejection. They need to recognise that evolutionary pace dependent upon protest votes is unsustainable. Laissez Faire Greenness is delaying Green credibility by the mainstream and with recent trends it may be 2050 before Greens get a leg in.

The Greens need to get real, else bring on an alternative Liblab alternative with more than a single policy platform!

The political vacuum across Australia exposed by the LibLab boomer industrial thinking, and abandoned by the Democrats and lost in the rural wilderness by the Nationals, won't wait for no party.

Australian disenfranchisement with politics will not last long. Australia's political landscape is set to change.

Two weeks out from a federal election and the range and depth and vision on the two major parties - the LibLabs is woefully simplistic and shortsighted.

Both Lib Lab economic rationalist factions are selfishly limited to an 'ends justifies the means' approach purely to get elected. Both are indulging in election-term economics, lobbying marginal seats, pork barreling the swinging voter and trying to differentiate themselves from each other. Neither are relevant to the future governance of Australia.
They are not about the many departmental portfolios they take responsibility for. They are simplistically about two personalities - Tony and Julia.

Tony thinks it is simply about 'ending the waste, repaying the debt, stopping the big new taxes and stopping the boats'. [Tony Abbott website, 28th July 2010].

Julia thinks it is simply about 'moving Australia forward', and motherhood statements like 'securing our future with responsible economic management', 'delivering fairness for working families', an education revolution, and 'tackling climate change' (somehow). [Labor Platform].

It's dumbing down the issues as if the Australian electorate is a crowd watching a football match.

Have a read:

Australian Liberal Party policies

Australian Labor Party 'agenda'

These policies are on the fly, tokenistic pork-barrelling for media sound grabs. They lack robust research and are reactionary. They are outputs of overpaid consultants advising the major parties to focus only on the key 'push-button' re-election issues. They are only about getting re-elected and getting the pollsters to push them a few percentage points ahead of the other.

The offerings are hollow. The LibLabs are short-sighted simpletons. They reveal the lack of ideological vision once characteristic an inspiring of politics over 30 years ago. One has to return to the Whitlam era to recall ideological vision in Australian politics. These days the LibLabs have created a political vacuum in Australia.

No wonder many Australians just tune out. We've heard it all before. We've seen the promises become conveniently forgotten and dishonoured. We've seen successive LibLabs grow on the nose four years down the track.

Where are the long term strategic visions, direction and investment plans for this great nation?

Where's the badly needed long term investment into the big picture issues?

Here are some of Australia's big picture issues that demand longterm political vision:

* TRANSPORT: Public transport infrastructure - a national fast rail network for both freight and passengers;

* ENERGY: Transition strategy into clean and renewable energy;

* POLLUTION: Carrot and stick strategies to reduce pollution particularly in industry and private transport. (climate change and greenhouse gas emissions pare just fancy words or 'pollution');

* DOMESTIC INDUSTRY: Strengthen Australia's domestic industries to restore international competitiveness, stem the flow of industrial entrepreneurship and investment offshore and to curb the unfair market controls by big business over small business;

* EDUCATION: Vocational education (TAFE) aligned to industry needs for the next 20 years, where industry is made to financial contribute and play a key role, to realign the local skills shortage epidemic;

* Public schools to bring the educational standards up to private school standards so as to address the Dickensian class inequity across Australian schools;

* University funding so Australian universities are not beholded to international student fees for their financial survival;

* HEALTH: New major hospitals to fill the chronic bed shortages in all capital cities, and nationalise health with training and infrastructure to stay one step ahead of demand, and to address the inequity of rural health.

* INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS: Fair financial compensation for the stolen generations and the stolen wages to redress the 20th Century government treatment of Aborigines as slaves;

* Strategies and resources to address the indigenous inequity of access to essential public services and to address the shortcomings in life expectancy and living standards

* Constitutional recognition of the prior occupation and sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their rights and obligations as owners and custodians
and to self determination, political representation and equity in developing and implementing public policies, programs and services that affect them. (Refer The Greens policy)

* SUSTAINABLE AND ACCOUNTABLE IMMIGRATION: Not a population policy, but a sustainable immigration policy - one that is accountable to the full social costs (costs of living, public infrastructure supply, homelessness and unemployment), one that is aligned to our Australian value system, one that is accountable to the full environmental costs, and one that is accountable to the complete immigration lifecycle - where new arrivals become self-sufficient and integrated into the broader community;

* ENVIRONMENT: Strategies for sustainable crop selection, sustainable agricultural practices (irrigation, fertilizer, land clearing, salinity, runoff), Murray-Darling irrigation buy back and local community transition support, new national parks, sustainable forestry that makes the AFS certification a national minimal standard, sustainable fishing initiatives.

* THE ARTS: Arts and culture policy to provide opportunities and encouragement of Australian home-grown talent

* DEFENCE: A defence policy that is wholly about defence of Australia aligned to the interests of our immediate regional security and peace in the Oceania region, not the current offence policy that is wrongly aligned to the militarist interests of the United States - Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan.

* EMERGENCY SERVICES: Overhaul underfunded volunteer emergency services national-wide (ambulance, fire and those dealing with bushfire emergencies, storm emergencies, and other natural disaster emergencies) to give Australians a 21st Century chance of survival and recovery

* POVERTY: Addressing the causes of Australia's growing underclass - homelessness, unemployment, record incarceration and recidivism, those affected by mental health issues and substance abuse, family breakdown and domestic violence;

* ELECTORAL CONTRACT: An electoral contract to make electoral promises accountable to the people

I am sure there are others.

At least the Greens offer alternatives, but they have many shortcomings with their policies too, such as where is the economic case to show that The Greens could run the economy?
This uncertainty is why the Greens don't get a leg in.

A vote for any other party offers the hope of change.
A vote for Lib or Lab, promises more of the same crap.

'A people who are sheep get a government of wolves.'