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Friday, October 21, 2011

Broken-down machines

Posted on 7:05 PM by Unknown
This was my piece in The Drum, published by the ABC. I've had a couple of pieces posted there before but they have been copies of posts on this blog.

Basically, I said that the party machines are too busy working on perpetuating their own power to help anyone else get into or stay in government. This point is echoed by Bushfire Bill, who refers to the conventional wisdom thus:
... no matter how ridiculous, bizarre, uncosted, contradictory or outright unhinged an Abbott utterance may seem, wiser minds will take him quietly to one side after he is elected, and impress upon him the responsibilities of government by rational exercise of executive power
There are no "wiser heads". There used to be, but Abbott got rid of them. No "wiser heads" in Labor either, just factional chuckleheads. That's why egotistical leaders careen around unchecked (except by a bullet in the back of the neck from those close enough to deliver such a blow) and parties are reduced to uncritical fan clubs of said leader. That's basically the point of the article.

There were 103 comments. Most of them came from the horse-race calling perspective, whether/when Rudd was going to challenge Gillard or Turnbull Abbott. Such people missed the point entirely. I remonstrated gently with one such commenter and gave up thereafter.

Anyone want to comment on the issues I actually did raise?
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