If, to quote from the homepage, the problems lie with 'Big Parties, Big Business and Big Media', is there so much emphasis on the one individual ? Believe it or not, there are parts of the country that prefer Howard to journos (but don't forget that it was while campaigning for gun reform in front of country people that he wore a bullet resistant vest. But that was years ago, and nobody in this country remembers past the budgie cage lining from last week.

Quite frankly, if I judged ALL criticism of Howard by the mindless schoolboy sloganeering (examples from reader reviews include 'Howard and his oligarchy', 'ashamed to be an Australian', 'our own 'Austrian housepainter'') that comprises most of this site, then I would have to assume he was a saint.

I know that ain't

I am angry, I am upset to the point of tears, I am terribly sad. This morning I was reading in NHJ about the extraordinary security measures taken when Bush visited Canberra and I have just witnessed, in Adelaide, the extraordinary measures taken to protect JH.

I went to the Festival Theatre complex to book some tickets and saw half a dozen kids on the footpath with home-made banners and at least half a dozen police. Walking in towards the theatre I saw the white car, number C1. Some Liberal function was happening.

When I came out I hoped JH might cross my path (no one thought me a threat apparently), but he didn't. I saw that the protestors had moved and police had followed them. I stood next to them and heard that they were forbidden to make their protest and had to move on.

Six teenagers, none of them resisting or shouting, were just trying to reason with the police. But six police were not enough. Along came a white car and out gets a plain clothes - what?

Margo, having returned from 18 months in Palau, where I became for the first time an SMH and webdiary fan, I am stunned. Having devoured the book in 24 hours, I am still shaking my head that through our lack of awareness our democracy is disolving like sugar in water. The insidious nature of the erosion of individual and NGOs right is appalling. It makes me shudder.

I view Howard as Gollum in LOTR 3, his power addiction is terminal to all around him. The vulnerable 'articulates' in society (feminists, gay, indigenous, socialists etc...) and the environment suffer .

All I can say right now is Mr Latham 'Get well and help Australia recover!!.' I will take Margo's sugestion and vote independent first, Labor second - the first time ever for a small l liberal voter. Thank you Margo!!

Max Suich, old time media heavyweight, suggests today in The Age that our media establishment is failing in its duty, primarily due to playing the he said/she said game with the political parties, rather than seriously questioning establishment power. It's a very NHJ message.

And, with the American election heating up, an increasing number of entertainers are taking sides and campaigning for Kerry or Bush. This Crikey piece examines the politics of Bruce Springsteen who has teamed up with a number of high profiles musos, along with moveon.org, to take their message of moderation around the US.

I would be interested in joining / starting a NHJ! movement in Perth. Any others in Perth interested?

NHJ responds (AL): Fantastic idea, Stevan. Any interested parties should contact Stevan directly and perhaps soon enough we can unfurl a NHJ banner from one side of Australia to another!

The web address for Parliament House listed in the book is incorrect: www.aph.gov.org

The correct address is www.aph.gov.au

Yesterday I was attacked by a peacock on the Pacific Highway at Ulmarra (NSW North Coast) while listening to an update on Mark Latham's pancreatitis

It's great to be back home in Australia!

It seems like every day, something quirky and unexpected happens. You only have to get out and about amongst it and before long you get a bizarre situation like the one above.

I'm certainly not the only one to love this sunburnt country. I was driving between Brisbane and Sydney and have never seen that part of the country looking drier. I could have flown but I wanted to drive and reconnect with my homeland. Dorothea Mackellar juxtaposed many images of Australia in 'My Country'. She wrote of the beauty and the terror of this place.

The juxtaposed images and situations this country has a habit of dishing up have always meant that more than anything you have to respect it. The blue ringed octopus may be pretty, but don't pick it up.

John Howard

I am living in Brisbane and was wondering if anybody has started their own NHJ OR SIMILAR interest group? Erosion of our DEMOCRATIC rights are only the symptoms of something much more sinister going on behind the scenes.

As an individual Social Justice Activist I'm doing the best that I can in bringing awareness to the masses by way of personally made advertisement and of course the display (at every opportunity possible) of the NHJ book. I can be contacted at 0422 276 294 or normsense@yahoo.com.au. Thanks - Keep up the excellent work.

Thank you for the bumper stickers sent me - they'll all be on Noosa-area vehicles by this evening. When it comes to getting the George Bush clone of John Howard out of office, I am so happy to be able to do more - to feel empowered. I have a dream of a renewed and reinvigorated Australia. I am grateful, and will leave you with an idiom I love which seems appropriate. It is sheer folly to tear at ones hair in grief, as though baldness will lessen the situation.

There is a destiny, which makes us brothers

None goes his way alone,

For all that we bring into the lives of others

Comes back into our own

Requiescat In Pace Prime Ministerial Shame

It is with a profound sense of incontinent hilarity that NHJ! announces the retirement of Australian Political Satire, who this morning cited 'personal reasons' when asked what lay behind his surprise decision to flee public life prior to the next Federal election. Pressed on rumours of a breakdown of his fertile 30-year marriage to the political columnist Underlying Serious Observation - who has also recently announced her departure from Canberra - Satire acknowledged that both he and his partner's careers had suffered lately as a result of what he would only describe as 'current affairs', before adding that in his case he saw 'no point in carrying on now anyway, given that all the most audacious lines have been nicked by the Straight Men.'

Asked to comment on the unexpected retirement, the Prime Minister declined to moralise on what he said were purely 'private' matters, but did urge Satire to reconsider his decision:

Keep up the good work. Your comments pointing out that both Liberal and Labor essentially represent the same vested power interests are spot on. There is only one way to change the status quo...and that is for voters to rattle the cage.

The big parties keep waffling on about the need for stable government, but in reality this means maintaining the status quo. Change can only occur through instability, s what is needed is concerted efforts to elect ndependents, not only to the Senate, but also the House of Reps, State Governments and Local Government.

We are in an age of 'snouts in the taxpayer trough',and everyone is at it. It is my view that voters have forgotten why governments exist (if they ever knew).

Margo, you may be interested to read a letter I wrote to Mr John Howard this evening, August 18. It contains a brief view of my concerns. Keep up your own good work!

The Prime Minister, Hon. Mr John Howard, MP, The Deputy Prime Minister, Hon. Mr John Anderson, MP, For Information: >The Federal Member for Longman, Hon. Mr Mal Brough, MP

An Appeal from a Conservative Voter

Gentlemen,

It is with some considerable difficulty and regret that I have the need to pen this letter, for I feel that in recent months the credibility of our conservative Government has taken quite a battering. I have laboured over the content of such a letter as this for some weeks, but I shall now give it my best shot.

I am acutely aware that the previous ALP government under Mr Paul Keating received numerous letters of condemnation from my desk as their credibility, in my opinion, was completely in tatters. However, since the conservative government came to

First of all, I have been a long time admirer of your views, and was unlucky enough to be too late to get a first edition first printing of your book. I have settled for the second print first edition. I heard you speak on radio 3RRR in Melbourne on the breakfasters show and was moved by your passionate defence of Democracy and your invoking of Menzies, because I only know Menzies as being a stronger truer version of Howard, and at the end of the day Menzies would be mortified to see what had become of his Liberal party.

I was bought up on politics; cut me and I bleed Hansard. When I came home from Primary and Secondary school Parliamentary Question time was on the radio, and the radio was on in every room in the house - including the smallest one. I watched the news, A Current Affair with Willesee and then This Day Tonight.

After 5 hours of Politics 5 days a week it eventually sticks. I knew more about the Whitlam sacking in 1975 than my Grade 5 School teacher. I

I am quite intrigued by this site - I find it honest and containing some truths that are rarely dealt with these days. I used to be a Union official, and in that capacity, enmeshed via the TLC and the ACTU enmeshed in Labor Party Politics.

My very first visit to Sydney for an ACTU annual get together revealed to me the disgusting machinations of the Labour Party in action and, literally, left me speechless. Everything that I saw and heard at that meeting, ran CONTRARY to what I believed, in how Unionism and the Labor Party was supposed to work. In fact it was bloody obvious that the rank and file existed for one purpose only, and that was for the survival and benefit of the OFFICIALS of the connected organisations.

Every motion moved at that meeting was basically designed to further consolidate the status quo. It was a sad and sorry day for anyone who ever believed in any of the promises that are so casually spouted from the mouths of the officials of these organisat

I have a friend in Northern NSW who is a 'Green's' supporter and as a result of reading 'Not Happy John' decided to become involved in raising awareness in his local community. The operator of an ISP in the local area, through whom my friend is sending emails to valid account holders and accepting and willing recipients, is a member of the 'National Party'.

Firstly this operator told my friend to stop sending these emails containing views that he was apposed to and then the operator 'blocked' my friend's emails from being delivered to the receivers. The originating emails are being sent from a legitimate and respected ISP, where there is a valid account.

So this 'National Member', as an operator of an ISP, believes that he is above the laws of the land. He seems to be 'actively' intercepting and 'censoring' email, which is illegal under the Privacy Act and he contravenes the rulings of operation from the TIO.

Has anyone else had experiences similar to this ?