AT SEA EN ROUTE TO NORWAY

Thursday 19 Aug

All today and tonight will be taken up with cruising up to and entering the Songefjord to Flam. So this is a very relaxing day to recharge the batteries for the adventures that lie ahead. A welcome party for new Holland America passengers was conducted yesterday and the champagne flowed freely. Again today a Mariners' Lunch was provided with an address from the Captain and again the champagne was free. Most passengers enjoyed one glass but M asked for another of course. Again we have met very interesting people at breakfast and at lunch. The Americans are very interesting to talk to with the Presidential election a major topic including the hi jinx of Donald Trump. 

It is pretty clear that the democracies of the world are fed-up with their politicians. The adversarial nature of partisan politics, the insincerity of its leaders, the win at any cost mentality, corruption in the misuse of entitlements, the snout in the trough perception, populist appeal rather than real leadership, all seem to be common themes in the U.S., Canada, UK and Australia. Trump in the U.S. And Palmer in Aus have tapped into the public's cynicism of the current political processes of Government. 

One American proposed a solution which I think has merit. He suggested that our parliamentarians be elected for a fixed maximum term - perhaps six years - but then cannot stand for re-election. I think he is right when he says they might take a year or two to learn the job and the rest of the time truly representing the needs of the electorate without having to focus on winning the next election. These ex-politicians would need then to return to the real world of living with our current health, education, and employment conditions rather than retiring on super pensions and benefits. Of course the U.S. already has a fixed term President so this suggestion is possibly a corollary of that concept. 

I can envisage such a structural change in Aus reducing the partisan politics we currently suffer from. Surely good Government is a government of good ideas, surely we can acknowledge there are talented people on both sides of the current divide, surely we can achieve better laws through greater consensus and consultative processes rather than through adversarial politics. Let's have a maximum fixed term for our Prime Minister and fixed four or five year Parliamentary elections as well. Surely we can do better than the mess we have seen from the last two Parliaments of divisiveness, mean and tricky politics. Rudd and Abbott are failed leaders of good Government by any unbiased standard and the future of our country has been put at serious risk under their leadership. The hung-parliament of Gillard, although fraught with treachery and political game playing, gave a glimpse of what a Govt can achieve when forced to consult across party lines with record levels of legislation passed along with some major reforms. It's time for change; but who will have the skill and courage to take it on?