Cranks and Crazies

An issue that we will need to deal with soon is the fact that our political parties have inserted themselves between the people and the parliament.

These days it's the political parties that *control* our polity.  They decide who gets to sit in the parliament, who gets to call themselves "dear leader" and which policies are offered up to the people at election time.

And because "not paying attention to politics" is baked into our culture - we voters haven't even noticed that anything is amiss.

But even with all that Mr Abbott finds himself between a rock and a hard place because his state Liberal colleagues have selected, endorsed and even managed to get quite a few *cranks and crazies* elected.

They usually populate the Senate - because Australians are apparently less interested in who gets to occupy those seats.  I would love to see a real analysis of Australian voters' knowledge of the Senate - it would probably blow your mind Virginia.

Recently we saw a South Australian Senator implode and there are a few others  scattered across the political landscape waiting for the right moment to claim their 15 minutes of fame.  I am personally wanting to hear the Lib Senate leader from Tasmania tell us his version of the *facts of life* ;-)

We already know that many Australian's will vote against their own personal interest - when confronted with glitter and shiny stuff and Lib BS.  The problem for the Libs is that they thought they owned the crazies - and could control them.  But it appears they were mistaken.

The crazies are just using the Libs to climb the ladder of opportunity - it's going to burn them and the voters who aren't paying attention - but it's hilarious to watch.