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It would appear that there is a silent coup going on in Buckingham Palace. King Charles seems to have given a bit of responsibility to Prince William and he has been doing things that reduce the power of Queen Camilla. William has sacked a number of Camilla's relations from powerful jobs within the Court. People don't seem to be showing Camilla the trappings of courtesy one whould expect. Queen Elizabeth made a decision that was important in maintaining the Monarchy by permitting William to marry outside the aristocracy. That has introduced fresh genes into the Monarchy, reducing the dangers of inbreeding that dogged European aristocracy over the centuries.

It is interesting that in times of hardship people seem to move to the Right. Over the last half century laws have been passed that are supposed to enshrine the Rights of individuals, but many individuals feel that their Rights have been stripped from them, or are never available to them. Those feelings allow the sort of Right Wing movements to take hold.

The Demographics bloke mentioned Malcolm Turnbull in the context of a centrist party but I have no idea whether he's still interested in active politics or not. The Lib/Nat coalition won't go back to the centre under the current leadership team. Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan as parlimentary leaders and Tony Abbott party president, plus Peta Credin's husband has taken on the role as temporary Victorian party president. It will leave space in the centre and a few unsatisfied Liberal moderates.

Australians don't have Rights, there is only laws that are supposed to protect us. Whenever people say: "You have the Right to do this", they really mean there is a law that gives us permission to do it ... and that law can be changed, unlike an inalienable Right, which can never be changed. PS, I thought that we always moved to the left in hard times. It's hard times now, and mostly Labor is winning power. They hand out more freebies than anyone else, but they can only do that if there's an adequate National income. When that is skint, the right-wing parties start to look good.

Teals are still discussing whether to form a party too. If they did I could picture a few moderate Libs jumping ship. And Teals would poll a lot better than PHONey in urban electorates.

I was listening to the bloke from the Demographics Group tonight on the ABC radio and he was talking about the decline of the major parties. As he said, it's happening in a lot of other places around the world as well. The primary vote of the majors is at historic lows and a couple of opinion polls have even put the federal Labor primary vote below the 30% mark. He was of the belief One Nation would become the official opposition after the next election and that eventually a new centrist party would likely emerge. I think he and a lot of other commentators are jumping the gun on the One Nation as official opposition thing. For sure, recent poll projections show the Nationals without a seat, the Libs with about twelve, Labor with a majority of one or in minority and One Nation with fifty plus seats. But that's on current opinion polls and there's almost two years to go to an election. A lot can happen in that time. Labor could unravel, the coalition could get their act together and win voters back, and One Nation could continue to rise or they could implode and fizzle out. It's still early days. The end of the two major party system seems to be the talk of the town among commentators; I guess time will tell.

Thanks, I'm glad you cleared that one up otherwise there would be a lot of stupid people on Anzac Day. But then again, parliament house flys a really big flag and they're not the sharpest tools in the shed.

No, I was responding to GON's comment about people supporting one nation. If there's a large crossover in the Venn diagram of PHONeys and flag wavers then I guess the (MAGA) cap may fit, but I know correlation<>causation.

Not sure what you're referring to there Marty. I hope you don't mean people are stupid for flying the Australin Flag. Using quotes can make a post intention a bit clearer.

All it means is Australia has stupid people, just like the US. They have a greedy narcissistic psychopath in the oval Office, busily stealing everything that isn't nailed down for himself, his family and criminals who rioted in the Capitol. That anyone here would want the same thing is a poor reflection on their mental processes.

Yes correct Pete, that's pretty much what I'm saying.

And we don't need to pretend to buy non existent submarines, for that.