Shortly after the ALP’s resounding victory in the 2007 federal election, psychologist-activist Steve Biddulph wrote a triumphalist missive for the Sydney Morning Herald assuring us that “Rudd and Gillard are not in power for power’s sake” and that together they would make Australia “a better place for the people in it”. Moreover, the irresistible charm of “Kevin and Julia, as Australia already calls them”, might actually “herald the end of the Liberal Party itself”. According to Biddulph’s scenario, by 2014 federal politics would be a battle between Labor and the Greens, conservative politics having “withered away”. Sideshow: Dumbing Down Democracy is Lindsay Tanner’s take on why the fairytale went wrong.
To continue reading this article, click this link: http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2011/7-8/the-labor-sideshow
