Who is responsible?

Given that Tony and his team of Howard has-beens and tea-party apprentices will likely romp it in later this year - I am curious about who is responsible for the distorted and lop-sided nature of our politics.  Who created this mess - and who owns it?

* Is it our Labor politicians who seem unable to engage and communicate effectively?

* Is it our Coalition politicians who's fantasy and imagination might sometimes appear believable?

* Is it our "world class media" - who think that stroking the right wingers while "making shit up" will keep them relevant?

* Or is it the actual voters themselves?

Well it might even be a combination of all these things - but in my view the biggest culprit is us.  As Julia once famously said - "We are Us" ;-)

Yes we the voters are so remote, so disengaged, so uninformed and so uncurious about what is going on with our polity that we are likely to make some very poor choices when next we push a pencil in a polling booth.

Howard taught us to go for greed when he expanded middle class welfare - all funded by windfall revenues from the first act of the mining boom.  The only thing that mattered during his period in office was how much we could personally extract from these programmes.  The "baby bonus" symbolises how out of control this was - a $5000 lump sum paid to anyone who managed to produce a baby - just surreal!  The nation now has a fleet of 4wd's on the never-never, roaming around carrying mums and their babies as a result.  Unintended consequences - not very many ;-)

The beneficiaries of this largesse now have great difficulty in understanding the "National Interest".  For a decade the only thing that mattered was their "Personal Interest" and they knew that it was closely aligned with the Coalition and little Johnny.  Naturally they are leaning toward Tony and the Coalition in 2013.  They don't much like him but they think he will resurrect the handouts that rusted them on to his predecessor.  Little do they know.

All of which is why the Labor government has had a difficult time over the past 5 years.  The "National Interest" is a foreign concept to many voters -  and important challenges like climate change are just not things that they worry about.

We know this because Tony has become brave enough to stand up on national television and promise to abolish the "carbon tax" when he becomes PM.  It says a lot about Australians that they will happily vote for a man who puts their short term personal interests ahead of the biggest and most dangerous threat to humanity ever.

His ignorance of the climate threat and his resulting inability to deal with it is the main reason why he should never be allowed near the levers.

And it seems like I am not the only one who thinks he is unsuitable for office.