It is good to see that NHJ - the book is doing well and also NHJ the organisation. From where I sit up here on the Sunshine Coast (in the safe Liberal seat of Fairfax, I can only give the cause of unseating John my ethical support. I wish there were some way of unseating our local member as well as Abbott, Downer & Ruddock and maybe Costello.

While I can sympathise with John Valder' desire to rid his party of Howard as a symbolic cleansing, I suspect that the ideological rot is far deeper and it will take nothing less than a time in the wilderness for the party as a whole to cleanse it of the corruption of the far right ideology that has become accepted doctrine. I' sure that he realises as much as I do, that John Howard is NOT a great ideologist or strategist - others have created that framework. At be, Howard is a good tactician - given the scenario, he is capable of playing it for all it is worth, with dogged determination.

The bigger question for John Valder is 'Who are the Liberal Party$s faceless men who have created this new ideology and set up the controls over MPs that are so rigid they remind me more of a fascist/stalinist party machine than anything remotely resembling a liberal democracy?'

Given the way Howard, Downer, Vale & Co. all spout the Republican party line, it would seem safe to assume that the government party is no longer under the control of Australians - it has been GLOBALISED! I guess that is why the US Ambassador feels free to advise both government and opposition directly, in the manner in which Viceroys did in the 19th and early 20th century.

Not that I have great confidence in the ALP restoring our democracy and our Independence - that seems a far stretch. They may at best be less willing accomplices in the selling out of our national sovereignty? If the FTA involves surrendering a significant part of our soverengnty, then why in the hell should it not be put to a referendum for approval?? It looks like it will have impacts as great or greater than many of the past proposed constitutional amendments, yet we get to say bugger all about giving away the whole damn lot.

The real issue, I suggest. is how we can 'control' whatever government of the day is in power to make sure it does not do crazy things, while we get the parties and the political process reorganised. It will take time and will involve economic as well as political readjustment.

That's what was forced on us over the last 30 years because the US took their Dollar off the Gold standard and as the world trading currency, and that has allowed them to print whatever money they feel they need and the rest of the world just pays up. We have to re-impose fiscal disciplineon the $US, then we can have control of our country back and so can the rest of the world.

John Valder, you'd have to agree that this is the underlying reality, but the fact is the US is a straw man - it's broke and if we all stop paying then it will deflate like a punctured balloon.

So we really need to look at how we can (the NHJ groups and all who support them anywhere in Australia) have an impact.

The reality is that it is the Senate that is where the greatest impact on both parties can be had. If we can convince an additional 10-15% of Liberal voters and the same % of Labour voters to NOT vote for the major parties in the Senate then we can do serious damage to the balance of power in the upper house and buy time and the leverage to get change in the lower house.

If there were 20-30% of the senators from alternate groups, then they would have a fair chance of controlling the agenda, unless the ALP and LPA/NP voted together as a block. If they did that very often, they would be signing their own political death warrants.

Unrealistic? Well I suspect there is more chance of making the Senate the people's house in the short term than making major change in the party structure in the lower house. If that can be achieved, then we have a chance of moving the reps voting to mutli-member proportional representation (like Tasmania and NZ) that should produce a more truely