there's a pattern and a future ...

From my earliest recollections (apols to any short serving PM's I have missed)...

Whitlam >>> social reformer, free universities, no financial sense, sent the country into spiralling debt

Frazer >>> dry, methodical, uninspiring, couldn't break though on emerging industial relations constrictions

Hawke >>> a Labor moderate despite a union background, engaging, instigated consensus and accord between unions and business which laid the ground work for a decade of solid progress, recognised the need for industrial relations reform, empowered Keating as treasurer who proceeded to float the dollar and bring in compulsory super, both of which set the nation on a trajectory to the financial strength that looks to have faltered only over the past 5-8 years

Keating >>> another Labor moderate, vision and passion for country, probable architect of much of the national progress under Hawke, brought Australia closer to Asia, saw the fruits of his dollar and super initiatives begin to bear fruit, cut down in his prime by Australia's disturbing tall poppy syndrome courtesy of bad press and public opinion

Howard >>> dry, methodical, uninspiring, extended industrial relations reform begun under Labor, safe financial hands, managed ripening fruit planted by the previous labor regimes, sold national assets, paid back debt, returned the country to budgetry surpluses despite introducing what many now say was overly generous middle class welfare, despite nothing nationally being truly broken was brought down by the nation's infamous tall poppy syndrome courtesy confected labor class arguments around ongoing industrial relations reform and swayed public opinion

Rudd/Gillard/Rudd >>> Australia got what it euphorically voted for in 2007 with this duo, micro management, lost national focus, escalating class warfare, gender warfare, aussies against aussies, no vision, no passion for country, power based on dreadful compromises with greens and independents, blowout in lower to middle class welfare, nationally debilitating new carbon and mining taxes, Swan the treasurer venomously antagonistic and unsupportive toward business big to small, deficit after deficit, a legacy of long term unfundable welfare promises and deteriorating terms of trade, the nation brought to a fibrillating loss of confidence and direction, voted out by a seriously frustrated nation

Abbott >>> dry, methodical, principled, seriously unpopular courtesy of character quirks and pathological hate from Labor, greens socialists, national and much of mainstream media, prepared to hold the line with unpopular policies designed to repair the nation's finances and to offer a fundable future, albeit a less generous and less comfortable one than the population would like, his long sought time as PM has come at what history will probably show to be a watershed moment at the peak of the age of entitlement. I doubt Abbott will blink.

There's pattern to history.

Imo, extremes of left labor and right liberal politics have unbalanced and then rebalanced national progress and the national psyche.

Imo, the x-factor is the power of social media and its ability for the seriously motivated to concentrate and influence public opinion.

Aussies have every opportunity to reflect on the past 3 decades as well as current and emerging national and global circumstances and make an informed decision at the next federal election.


Dex