Back to 1996 with John Roskam

[Paul Keating] may yet have the last laugh on Saturday night. But not in the sense that he'll win the election — although that's not beyond the realms of possibility.

Rather, the Prime Minister's triumph rests with the truth that the only way the [Coalition] can beat him is by running a candidate on a platform that is practically identical to his own. In terms of policy inclination as well as personal style, there's a bigger difference between [Ralph Willis] and [Paul Keating] than there is between John Howard and [Paul Keating]. Saturday night might not so much be the ending of an era but its continuation under a new leader.

[The Coalition] might ponder what therefore will be the point of its victory. Members of the [Coalition] expecting that their party will satisfy the commitment to be the party of the "[right]" won't want to consider too closely what it means when Labor's tax policy is basically the same as that of the Liberals. The Greens can talk all they want about being the true party of the "left", but this rhetoric is hollow while their preferences go towards electing ALP candidates.

The dilemma for [the Coalition] is that because it has presented itself as conservative and safe, as soon as it does something that is neither of these things it will alienate the voters who delivered it government. Peter [Reith]'s comment that the ALP will change all its policies once it's in power wasn't an expression of his humour — it was an expression of his hope. What he forgets is that [the Coalition] will have been elected to keep things as they are. Change is the very last thing being demanded by voters in marginal seats.

The [ALP] might soon be starting some soul-searching of their own. As they begin arguing over [Paul Keating]'s legacy, they'll begin from a position that sees Labor more than happy to endorse the scale of the Liberals' taxing and spending policies.

Given that above all else in the mind of the public the Liberal Party stands for fiscal prudence, when it is the ALP promising to cut public expenditure and reduce the size of government, the Liberals have a problem. The problems get worse when it is appreciated what else has been lost. The principles of federalism and constrained government have been a core doctrine of the party since Menzies. Now they exist in name only.

The [1996] federal election could, for the moment at least, signal "the end of history" in Australian politics. Aside from some inconsequential differences, the major parties are characterised by the extent to which they agree. "Vision" hasn't featured in this campaign — possibly because the Liberals and Labor share the same vision.

There are few groups more disappointed by this policy convergence than the country's academic and intellectual left. And there are few groups that will have had less of an impact on the election outcome. The totemic issues of the left will not determine the election result...

It is ironic that it will be the votes of those the left disdains that could determine the election result. The ... rise of the families who aspire to own a McMansion and who are willing to take large mortgages to do so, has been the social phenomenon of the decade that has done the most to raise the ire of the left. Anyone concerned about keeping their job and paying their mortgage has been castigated as materialistic and voting out of "self-interest".

By using the phrase "working families", [Howard] has effectively repudiated this sort of mindset while acknowledging as legitimate the concerns of "working families". Indeed, the entire campaign against [Howard] is based on economic self-interest.

Those who hate [Keating] and everything he stands for have for [13] years deluded themselves with a convenient fiction. According to them, the Prime Minister is to blame for everything from the failure of the [L-A-W tax cuts] to the fact that the Japanese still hunt humpback whales. If only it was so simple. The frustration of the left is that to a large extent John Howard merely reflects that attitudes of his, and their, fellow citizens.

How [Paul Keating] changed Australia will be debated for years to come ... someone such as Paul Keating who had the arrogance to imagine ...

[Click here for a pathetic retread of the above, like Costello trying to dish it out in Question Time.]

Predictions 2007

At the start of the campaign I predicted the shape of the Senate and broad numbers for the House. Now, I'll be specific about which House seats I expect to change hands.

When I say "change hands", I actually mean that the member will be from a different party to the incumbent. Parramatta NSW is "notionally" a Liberal seat according to psephologists, but it's actually held by Labor and will continue to be held by Labor after the election. Other seats are "notionally" this way or that, but I say: "notionally" my arse.

Where I make no reference to the Labor candidate below, you can assume they are barely competent and thus able to surf the Rudd wave all the way to Canberra.

Labor gains

• Bass (T): the ultimate weather-vane seat swings back. When Labor start to fade it will go Liberal again, but not this time.



• Bennelong (NSW): people want a local member and the incumbent can't offer that. The Koreans and Chinese are concerned about health and education, and the local member isn't really. Nobody wants a byelection in 2008 which is all the incumbent has left to offer.



• Bonner (Q): the incumbent is a dunce, hasn't achieved anything and you won't miss him once he's gone.



• Bowman (Q): see Bonner.



• Cook (NSW): the Liberals in that area are riven and the incumbent MP is retiring, leaving a candidate who can only deal with voters in the abstract. Labor have chosen an aspirational local who'll win the seat.



• Corangamite (V): suburbanites have tipped the balance away from graziers, and the Liberals would not dump the wizened and inert incumbent, thus the Libs will lose this seat for probably the first time since Scullin.



• Deakin (Vic): No reason not to vote Labor, really.



• Dobell (NSW): Water. Wrong move to have poor old Ken Ticehurst play political hardball with water, and any political party that tries to do this aywhere else will cop the same fate.



• Eden-Monaro (NSW): the rest of the country needs Mike Kelly more than it needs Gary Nairn and Peter Phelps.



• Fadden (Q): Possum says: "Fadden has a large number of new residents, pretty rotten housing affordability and is low-to-middle ranked in the other categories". And the sitting MP is retiring.



• Flynn (Q): It's there for the taking.



• (Nat) Gippsland (Vic): Two coal/ electricity/ welfare hubs moving into the electorate, the botched post-mortem treatment of local boy Jake Kovco, and repeated vision of the local member on TV looking hapless on horse-flu should see Peter McGauran on his way back to the farm for good.



• Grey (SA): The hub of Australia's nascent nuclear industry may vote against its own future - or will it?



• Hasluck (WA): this seems convincing.



• Herbert (Q): members of the armed forces and Aborigines to use this as a referendum on Howard.



• Hughes (NSW): Bye bye Danna.



• Leichhardt (Q): Rising interest rates, the country's best-run Aboriginal community are going to give the seat to Labor and A Girl Called Charlie just can't reverse it.



• Lindsay (NSW): the Libs have nothing to offer these people any more. Jackie Kelly's journey to becoming the Jeanette Howard of the lower Nepean is almost complete, and the replacement is a nobody like her opponent so Labor will get the benefit of the doubt.



• Macquarie (NSW): Rural farmland redistributed out, two coal towns distributed in, and a Labor warhorse keen for one last challenge.



• McEwen (Vic): Fran Bailey has been swanning around like Lady Muck on tourist junkets and her own constituency has become estranged.



• McPherson (Q): Demographic change and a sitting MP asleep at the wheel, Labor build on state gains to sneak this one.



• Moreton (Q): Gary Hardgrave should've been turfed by the Liberal Party, but he hasn't so the voters will do it for him.



• (Nat) Page (NSW): Demographic change, retiring Nat, benefit of the doubt goes to Labor and so will he seat.



• Paterson (NSW): Thanks Bob. The Hunter ALP is the laziest in the land but they will still take it from you. You wouldn't want to hang around in Opposition anyway.



• Petrie (Q): No reason not to, really.



• Ryan (Q): classic small-l liberal seat, tired of Howard and the spiv manning the branch office.



• (CLP) Solomon (NT): Tired of being treated like dills, Darwinites? Stop voting for one.



• Stirling (WA): Labor have chosen the right candidate, the incumbent is a hack who should go into state politics.



• Sturt (SA): Having worked really hard to drop his small-l liberal credentials and snuggle up to Howard to get a ministry, Chris Pyne will find it too hard to un-snuggle.



• Wakefield (SA): 'cause there's a swing on, that's why.



• (Nat) Wide Bay (Q): One of the poorest electorates in the country, held by a flat-footed goober from the Nationals. Labor might be on the nose over water, but this will be another of those that sneaks past the pundits.

Nationals gain

Calare (NSW). That's it. Massive seat redistribution, popular sitting member passes away. The exception that proves the rule of decline.


Independent gain

Forrest (WA). Not quite ready to embrace Rudd, and the Liberals have chosen the wrong candidate, so step up Noel Brunning and hope you like all that travel.


Woulda, coulda, shoulda ...

• Berowra (NSW): Like Bennelong, the rusted-on Liberals are in decline as young families move in with big mortgages and few facilities, with both love for and fear of the natural environment. The sitting member is an absolute certainty to retire during the coming Parliamentary term. Had Labor picked a hardworking local, or a Maxine McKew, Whispering Death would be gone. The swing will surprise pundits.



• Boothby (SA): Andrew Southcott is a duffer but Labor managed to find a bigger one.



• (Nat) Cowper (NSW): potentially a real bolter, but Labor chose the wrong candidate.



• (Nat) Lyne (NSW): see Cowper. Coulda knocked off a Deputy Prime Minister! Never mind, if Labor reopen the AWB they could pick this up at the byelection.



• Mitchell (NSW): I really hate Alex Hawke, because he hates Australia and he hates the Liberal Party and liberalism, and yet the Liberal Party of Australia chose him to contest their safest seat. An independent with guts and a longterm perspective could take that seat next time.



• Robertson (NSW): Labor chose the wrong candidate. Belinda Neal is just not the sort of person that people want representing them. Barry Jones knew her better than most and when he was presented with her, he flinched and shuddered, as did many Robertson voters. I don't care who she's married to: no more of this person, no more.



• Wannon (Vic): Malcolm Fraser's old seat, now held by the Speaker who won't stick around. One to watch at the inevitable byelection.



• Wentworth (NSW): this time last week it would've been "bye bye Malcolm", but while Wentworth people are notorious flirts they'll take pity on their incumbent. George Newhouse has stumbled a bit, and frankly, he's a bit of a loser! We can't have that, can we? A Labor government won't be that much better on immigration, and Newhouse will be far more effective as some latter-day Rumpole than he ever would as an MP. Besides, the Liberals need Malcolm, and darling simply everybody is voting Labor.

Two silly

First, the weakly Jase. I was getting worried that I was starting to agree with him, then toward the end he came out with some typical silliness:

The one Liberal who is having a very good election campaign is the party's former Victorian president Michael Kroger. Kroger is everywhere — on television, radio and in print. Kroger is everywhere, except the place the Liberals need him most — campaigning for a seat of his own.

And that's how he likes it, and as much good as he'll ever do.

Now that Malcolm Turnbull has turned a seat Labor has never held into a marginal what the Liberal Party needs is cash. Kroger should be taking over from Ron Walker as the bagman and the justification for the party not ignoring Melbourne, its worst-performing state capital.

It's not too late for Kroger, who is only 50, to think about a move into federal politics.

Yes it is. He had his chance in the early '90s. He had another chance when Peacock stood down - Kooyong was his for the asking. Yet again, when Peter Reith stood down he could have brushed Greg Hunt aside - no. You can see why he's such great mates with Costello, can't you? The Hamlet Brothers.

He's rich, he looks good, and he knows the Liberal Party inside and out.

Untainted by the Howard Government, Kroger has a freshness that none of the current front bench has and he knows how to wield the knife.

The hand that wields the knife and the head that wears the crown shall be fed by different hearts. It's some sort of rule, look it up.

If the polls are right, then more than one ex-minister will be a looking for an early exit ...

They needn't look far - looks like the voters are going to replace some ministers with Labor candidates. What on earth makes you think Kroger has any sort of common touch, Jase? Is he really going to sweep on with the fat and greasy citizens, writing polite letters to Labor ministers asking to help this constituent with their social security payments, that one with a visa? Do you really think he'll impress anyone at all north of the Murray? That's the daily grind of politics, Jase, and Kroger knows it's beneath him. Why can't you see that? Don't you understand politics at all?

... giving Kroger the chance he needs to get in and sort things out.

Kroger was a big man in Victorian Liberal politics late last century. Result: a decade of Labor government and that state almost went bankrupt. Jeff Kennett worked out the way to get the Liberals into government: shun Kroger. How important was Kroger in getting Howard up in '96? Not very - the safest place for him was on telly, at least you could see what he was up to and it left the professionals free to work unencumbered.

Feel free to leap to that conclusion yourself, Jase. You've finally got Costello, now wake up to Kroger.

Rudd left himself open to attack by vaguely defining the national security apparatus, but it required a better response than this:

Australia's current system works. Each of the 13 distinct organisations that Labor proposes to bring under the umbrella of its new department, including ASIO and the Australian Federal Police and customs, have adapted well to the post-September 11 environment.

There have been notable successes, including many that haven't come to light I'm sure. Yet, the stumblebum approach to immigration cases in particular makes an assertion like this hard to sustain. Plus, while civil liberties concerns would bog down an effective response to fake militant Islam and other threats, they have a legitimate role to play in considerations as to whether (and for whom) the system "works".

But it was the department's failed emergency response to Katrina that will be forever etched in the American public's mind.

The sight of thousands of helpless families waiting weeks for outside help was a low point in the Bush presidency.

In Australia, while somewhat on a different scale, state and federal emergency management authorities responded quickly and co-operatively to the devastation left by Cyclone Larry after it hit Innisfail, Queensland, in March 2006.

This is all true, and has nothing to do with averting disasters caused by human destruction. This is a real straw man, Josh.

Even the Americans, despite the problems with their agency, never sought to combine their law-enforcement agency, the FBI, with their intelligence agency, the CIA, in one department.

Yes they did, Josh. The original plan was for the heads of FBI and CIA to report to the head of DHS.

The Yanks have not come up with the right model for defence in an age of asymmetrical warfare, and the British and Canadians haven't come up with the right model either. Who has? If there was one area of government that needs to be profoundly rethought, national security is it - and she'll-be-right is the one policy response that is guaranteed to be absolutely wrong.

Joshua Frydenberg is a former senior adviser to Prime Minister John Howard.

Another reason to get rid of Howard, and The Age too.

With all due respect

Gerard Henderson is wrong in this article. Most Australians always honoured the sacrifices made by his uncle Alan, and those who didn't were few in number and not politically powerful. It's not that there's been some sea-change in Australian society since the 1960s, it's that people have stopped taking seriously those who diminish such sacrifices. The Communist monster is slain, McCarthyism was an unfortunate overreaction, and despite the most vigilant boundary-riding you'll never get 100% agreement on anything. Now can we declare the culture wars over, please?

Liberty and Democracy

Libertarians have solid grounds to be disappointed with the Howard government.

During the 1980s I was targeted by the Hawke Government's youth policy "Priority One", and finding it an utter load of wank decided that what the country needed was a government that stumbled and bumbled its way less into people's lives, and which took less tax to boot. As I entered the workforce I became irritated at red tape and dismayed at the tax take. You had to be clever to understand libertarianism, and it certainly provided something to do while grappling with undergraduate studies.

Time passed, and working in government - facing real issues with really few resources and real obligations to report one's actions for repackaging by PR dollies - cured the infantile disorder for me. Others are still out there maintaining the rage, such as you might find on Catallaxy. While there is still waste and blundering in government, it is important to think carefully about what government does, why it does it, and whether it's right to send people to prison for not wishing to fund this. I used to post there partly to be cheeky, partly to use it as a stone on which to sharpen my own beliefs, insofar as it remained firm enough for such a purpose.

Politically, the movement that gave rise to libertarians was much the same as that which transformed the Liberal Party during the 1980s. The Chicago school, the examples of Thatcher and Reagan, all had a powerful impact as an alternative paradigm for many in the Liberal Party and a few outside it. If you look at Liberal criticisms of the Hawke and Keating governments, much of it is done from a libertarian perspective: lots of stuff about "the nanny state", paying too much tax and so on.

The high-water mark of libertarianism in the Liberal Party was Fightback!, the cluster of policies the Liberals took to the 1993 election. The party and its message was led by John Hewson, who proudly declared himself as a non-politician (an odd boast for a man seeking the ultimate job in Australian politics: non-medical doctors and illegal lawyers are rightly viewed with suspicion), a position that endeared him to libertarians.

Had Hewson won the 1993 election, the Australian government would have been smaller than it is. Howard took over and steered the Liberal Party firmly into big-government populism, dropping his railing against red tape and funding massive increases in government programs - particularly in welfare transfer payments. It's been electorally successful and it has clearly been sustainable in a time of great prosperity. Yet, the libertarians had hoped for more: only in industrial relations has there been anything like a libertarian policy coming out of the Howard government.

Libertarians seeking as little government as possible had to turn somewhere, having been abandoned by the Liberal Party every bit as surely as the moderates. Moderates are still floundering, failing to link up with Democrats, NotHappyJohn, GetUp and other centrist groupings. The libertarians, however, have taken decisive action - but not necessarily to their benefit.

The LDP is an alliance of disaffected libertarians and gunlosers. The one truly heroic act of the Howard government was the reversal of the onus of owning deadly weapons, requiring the gun owner to prove a legitimate interest in owning weapons. Gunlosers have tried and failed for a decade to make the case that they should be allowed to own weapons because, well, they wanna. They have tried to form alliances with small parties focused on seeking to use the environment for outdoor recreation rather than exclusive environmentalism, but they have shied away. They tried the CEC, but they have their own problems and seem determined to spray themselves with voter repellent. Now they've finally found a host constituency: the libertarians!

The libertarians could have made common cause with civil libertarians: people concerned about David Hicks and the terrorism laws. However, in their new alliance with the gunlosers libertarians seem overly fond of military hardware as the only solution to all foreign policy problems. Besides, civil libertarians tend to be big on social justice, a phrase that causes gunlosers to reach for their missing weapons.

It's inherently unstable because there really are more important rights to assert than the unfettered claim of weapon ownership over all else. Libertarians have to make one of two cases: either what existing services should be cut, or (harder to do while maintaining a broad constituency) develop an alternative paradigm for government along with a method for funding that. Instead, they've retreated into snark: assertive independence with a hectoring tone worthy of any nanny. Take this yobbo, for example:

Unlike most other candidates in this election, I’m not going to ramble on telling you stories about how much I’ve done for the community

Casts some doubt over your suitability as a community representative, and your regard for those who do work hard and achieve much for people.

I am standing in this election because you pay too much tax.

Not that he can or will do too much about that, or is terribly specific about what the wastage is. I like how he, with the mindset of the nanny state he so wants to escape, has made a value judgment about my finances. Click through to this and you're 'rewarded' with guff like this:

Paternalist campaigners argue that more liberal availability of alcohol will lead to social problems. However, most civilised countries allow the relatively free supply of alcohol and they don’t suffer any catastrophic social meltdown.

This not only ignores alcohol regulation in other countries, it also assumes that "catastrophic social meltdown" is the only basis for introducing regulation (and with such meltdown, regulation becomes impossible).

Where have I read that before? Oh yes: the Greens' campaign is predicated on the idea that they had the balance of power in Tasmania and WA, and they didn't melt down - so vote for us and the country might not melt down all that much! The LDP is asking voters to commit another member of the Milat family to a public institution, and the less said about THIS the better. It's a poor and desperate source of appeal, and it shows aspiring small parties why there's little to gain and much to be lost in dealing with the LDP as currently configured.

There will be a certain amount of wary sniffing by libertarians with the Liberal Party in opposition, particularly if the Rudd government and the Labor states reshape the federation profoundly. This will ultimately come to nothing, in terms of influencing the next Liberal government.

Until the libertarians can divorce themselves from the gunlosers, until they can develop some honest responses for government against market-distorting behaviour that were unknown (if not absolutely then certainly in today's scale) before the end of World War II, they can't be taken seriously as a political force. That, and my guess that organising libertarians politically is like herding cats into wet paper bags for the purpose of fighting their way out of them - and their problem(s) become obvious. If you vote for them, you'll have to share their problems and a whole lot of others besides.

The joke's on you

The job of a journalist is to expose the differences between what those in power say, and what they do. Jase provides his own say-do gap here.

then the killjoys moved in to snuff out all the fun — those mirthless warriors in the war against wit who have succeeded in banning all humour, candour and plain speaking in politics.

Not that politicians are to blame. The funnier you are, the more you get beat up

Beat up by whom, Jase? By you, and people like you. You could break from the pack, become a real journalist and actually write a story on something other than POLITICIAN DEPARTS FROM OFFICIAL LINE SHOCK, but you don't. Because you don't, you don't really have any right to write (or even "pen") a story like this.

A likely consequence of Kevin Rudd winning this election is that he will turn the country into one giant Sunday school.

Who in a Rudd cabinet, one may ask, will be the minister responsible for cracking a joke?

Looking at Labor's front bench, the chuckles are unlikely to come thick and fast.

Well, if the politicians are going to be this dull there's nothing for it but to get off your backside and write some stories.

As for Peter Costello, if he is leading the Opposition, we can forget about any more jokes from him. He'll be so miserable the most he'll be able to muster is a wan smile. The minders have already told him to pull his head in on the gag front.

Yes, because Peter Costello is a politician and wants to maximise his vote, Jase. Very few people would rely on Peter Costello to bring the funny: fewer still among the Liberal MPs seeking an extension of their tenure in office. What Costello has done here is avoid the smart-alec image that turns off thousands of voters. He can't afford to be turning voters off, and it's your job to point that out - not demand that he perform like a seal for your bemusement.

Costello would have done much better if he'd taken the gloves off and given his opponent Wayne Swan an old-fashioned whacking with lashings of ridicule and invective.

No he wouldn't, you've botched it again. Swan would have looked like the responsible Treasurer and Costello like a self-satisfied tosser.

Tony Abbott was vilified last week for using the word "bullshit" but was anyone really offended?

Personally I wasn't by the word itself, and you probably weren't either Jase. The point is that this is a man who turns up late and, instead of apologising, swears. While it's true that the only people offended will be old ladies, consider how desperately the Coalition needs their votes.

Peter Garrett [has] ... also been accused of selling out his principles. Surely we should suspend judgement on this until Garrett has actually been a minister and made a few decisions.

People who are really angry at Garrett for selling out don't want him to be a minister if he's going to sell out. It's your job to explore that Jase, not defend politicians from your readers.

There is humour, anger, sadness and real satisfaction in public life, but you have to hunt for it and not just expect it to be served up to you by press secretaries, which is how Jase operates. Let us be rid of this appallingly inadequate "journalist".

Update: A regular PH reader just sent me the following:

Wow, great blog! I agree with everything you've ever said, thought or done! How do I get an excellent blog like yourn?

PS, I love you.

You could start your own blog any time you like, seeing as you have so much spare time in a campaign that is going absolutely nowhere. It's not my fault that you're going nowhere.

And a time for every purpose under Heaven

The Families First party was created in a specific political environment in the early part of this decade. That time has passed and so too, FF will not have the effect on this election that its supporters might hope or its opponents fear.

Five years ago, the Howard government was shovelling money at Christian schools, and committed Christians such as Peter Costello, John Anderson and Howard himself talked volubly about their faith. Then-opposition leader Kim Beazley was also a man of faith. Yet ... somehow it wasn't enough.

Family First was born out of the Assemblies of God churches: protestations that the AoG and FF are intrinsically separate has yet to be tested by any serious divergence of opinion between the two organisations. In 2004 it experienced a surge in support after Mark Latham became leader of the ALP. Latham followed Whitlam in acknowledging no deity higher than himself, and attacked government grants to private schools.

Fred Nile was caught napping when the wave of support for Christian politics surged and ebbed without him. To his disgrace, he had to resort to neo-Hansonism to get up at the NSW election.

FF were strongest in Victoria, but not particularly strong there. Victorians were non-plussed about Howard but decidedly hostile to Latham. The preference trail that catapulted Stephen Fielding into the Senate were the result of FF being underestimated. Fielding replaced the committed Catholic Jacinta Collins, a zero-sum gain for people who vote on Christian/life issues. Collins is at the top of the Senate ticket for the Victorian ALP in this election, and Fielding isn't up for election. The major parties are well and truly awake to FF.

More than that, they've neutered FF entirely. Fielding hasn't lost that deer-in-the-headlights look, hedging his bets with the best of them but not doing anything apart from standard political stuntwork. His supporters might claim that he's got both innocence and passion like the Jimmy Stewart character in Mr Smith goes to Washington, but (by golly) that character achieved more in is first seventy-two hours than Fielding has or will.

On no issue has Fielding took a firm stand like Brian Harradine did over abortion, euthanasia or porn. On no issue has Fielding brokered a serious deal. He is no Don Chipp, no Bob Brown, no Barnaby Joyce; to drag his party into contention he'd need to be all that and something else again. Nobody believes that crap about fuel taxes. Fielding is a time server like any major-party backbencher, and it is doubtful that he'll be re-elected in 2010.

To come back from the wilderness, Labor had to claw back support from somewhere. The articles Kevin Rudd wrote for The Monthly about his faith, which mentioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer and other matters, was a start. Those Australians who want a Christian presence in politics such as we see in the US have been sorely disappointed in the do-nothing Fielding First, and it's now clear that Christians can vote for Rudd Labor without the affront to their faith that Latham represented. Perhaps it took a Queenslander to see that the Christian vote was not the preserve of wackos, but one that can be balanced with other parts of society.

Why was the Christian lobby unconvinced by Howard? Why are they not rusted-on supporters, handing out Liberal Party material in church and denouncing old-style Labor from the pulpits? Why is Pell, the vainest windbag in public life since Gough Whitlam, so ineffective in getting his policies through the political process? Someone other than Marion Maddox should examine this.

FF has two members of the Legislative Council in South Australia, but so what? Nick Xenophon has eaten both their lunch and that of the Democrats. FF has no discernible future, it won't win any more seats in the Senate and is a non-starter at any other state election coming up. FF may hope to feed on the carrion of the post-Howard coalition parties but there are others better placed to do that, others who can see them coming.

There is a space for religion in Australian politics but FF can't park in that space.