What the hell are the ALP doing? Nothing, that's what.

I'm back. Slow month or so. Should be a more regular poster again.

Wow alot has happened in the past month or so. Some unbelievably important pieces of legislation have passed, and being drafted at the moment - Telstra sale, Trade practices amendment, anti-terror laws, and the industrial relations sledgehammer. They are coming thick and fast. I hope to go through each of these in coming days and weeks.

With these very controversial and radical policies this should be the time where the ALP make significant gains, but as you can see from these graphs the ALP have at best stagnated in the polls. The question is why?

The first possible obvious answer is that the wider community actually agree with the radical policies of the Howard Government. I find this highly unlikely as the Australian people have in the post-war period been a conservative lot in the truest meaning of the word.

The second and more likely answer is that the ALP are defunct as an opposition - particularly under Beazley. I have read the Latham diaries and agree with his criticisms of the ALP machine and its current leaders - they lack inspiration, vision and direction. These deficiencies are becoming more glaringly obvious everytime a Beazley, Swan, Smith or Tanner front the media.

Catch this lateline debate last friday with Tanner and Brandis on the proposed anti-terror laws. Tanner should be like a pittbull in his attack on the Government. He was pathetic, defending the ALP's non-stance on this Nazi-like legislation.

You know your party is going badly when your most famous (or is it infamous) leader is criticising the party for not making a stance. Read Whitlam's comments here.

The anti-terror laws are the best example of how badly the ALP are reading politics at the moment. Take this terror Herald poll. It says 60% do not support the shoot-to-kill aspect of the draft legislation. Why? because the state ALP leaders have kicked up a stink - and rightly so! But that's not all that's wrong with the legislation. Read this Media Watch piece - the sedition law changes are scaring the hell out of me. The ALP should be kicking up a stink on this too. Their strategy - change the shoot to kill part to make it look like they did something.

Pathetic.