Flip - I don't like Howard personally - he was my local member for years and I remember him as the most ordinary Treasurer ever. He is persistent and an opportunist who has taken the luck provided by the reforms in the Hawke/Keating era, along with a world-wide economic boom and made the most of it. (See the Herald comments this week on this.)
What I struggle with is his pretense of honesty - his ministerial code of conduct has been a joke, and he protects the Tuckeys, Entches etc of this world whose agendas are narrow. I also despise that the racist, redneck right of this country (Hanson etc) has infiltrated back into the Libs due to political expediency. The children overboard, Iraq situation, asylum seeker, dogs on the wharves approach to reform and government appals me and it is going to get much worse with control of the Senate.
Whilst many of us are well off, we are not a more caring, more compassionate, socially or environmentally responsible country and I fear our social and moral agenda (disguised as Christian and 1950s style) is becoming more materialistic, sefish, greedy and morally bankrupt - the rich are getting richer, the poor are struggling and the disadvantaged in our society are more and more marginalised.
I am hoping for an effective opposition but not holding my breath!
