Fragmented government !

Australia has prospered from the regular exchanges between Labor and the Liberal Coalition gaining the numbers to form government.   Sometimes neither party has the control of both houses, and usually the Senate contains several maverick " independents " and this tends to curb excess legislation.

The important thing is to have a united group of people delivering government under the banner of one of the traditional political parties.   We have just seen the mess that results when we get a " hung " parliament and achieving government depends on cobbling together an alliance with another political party with a vastly different platform and opposing views.

It seems that we are heading for a more splintered political choice at this coming election.   Not only will there be independents contesting just about every seat, there will most likely be three minor parties throwing their hats into the ring and appealing for votes.

The Greens have a definite following at both state and Federal level and their extreme socialism will appeal to some supporters.  It seems that at this election we will see both Bob Katter's Australia party and newcomer Clive Palmer's yet to be registered United Australia Party join the hustings.

We need to look to Europe to see what happens when the voters desert the main streams of politics and disenfranchise themselves by supporting a plethora of minor parties.   Countries like Israel and Italy have a history of short lived amalgamations of unlikely bed fellows which disintegrate and reform without ever having the strength to deal with national issues.

Love them or hate them, both of the traditional political parties deliver stability when they have the numbers to govern.   The history of Australian politics mirrors most stable world democracies and delivers a regular exchange between a party with socialist roots and a party with conservative values.   Both are prevented from legislating to excess by the need to keep the voters feeling comfortable with the directions taken - and this is kept to public attention by a free press.

We have seen small single purpose political parties rise and fall in the past.   Pauline Hanson's " One Nation " burst onto the scene and hitched it's star to a contentious issue that was consuming public opinion.   It soared in the support stakes - and then faded into oblivion.

The danger is that Katter and Palmer may bring a host of other single issue parties out of the woodwork, to the detriment of stable government by syphoning support from both the major parties.

It seems to be a case of being very careful of what we wish for !