"And they asked the representative group if they wanted a republic; ninety-eight said yes, one said no, one abstained and the crowd went wild.

"Then they all acclaimed in unison “we, the appointed, are the true representatives of the Australian people and, while you are at it, bring back death duties”.

“The fervour and froth, which made the 2020 like an Amway conference, has to acknowledge that what they portrayed was a very strong view of one side of the political divide and if we had 10% of the candidates coming from GetUp then it is only fair we should have had a proportion of candidates who were formerly supporters of Pauline Hanson extolling some of their views.

“It was too good to be true and I believe in the hangover after the party, the Australian public in general, who to be honest are not over enthused about the whole process, will ask was that truly a reflection of my views and ideas, or was it a handpicked group with a predetermined outcome? But, to be balanced in my assessment, there is a strong view that people want a more streamlined process of Government. However, if you are going to turn down the relevance of State Government you will have to turn up the relevance of Local Government because people do not want centralisation of power because what you end up with is the channelling and sanitising of views, so apparent in the 2020 conference.

“Surprise, surprise, Mr Rudd said a majority of ideas proposed were already part of the Labor Party platform and, really, when you get to the end of the day the hoopla seemed to be in very close orbit of the esoteric.

“I am going through the papers now to see if we are going to build a new railway line, port or develop a new form of industry and I do not seem to see it. I was also looking for part of the big ideas session that told us how a predominately service based employment force in Australia is going to survive when the mining industry goose that lays the golden egg flies off. Even at a more mundane level, I was looking for the big idea that was going to deal with the fact that working families are struggling to pay their fuel bill. I suppose the working mother will get solace from the fact that the oil companies have got my cash but, yee-haa, I got the republic."

Ends