Politicians are the after-dinner mints of society

Second, is there a need for so many politicians? Does Australia need three levels of government? For example, could state governments be abolished and local government be given more responsibility?

State governments are a historical accident going back to 1788 because of the way in which the continent was settled by the different British initiatives at different times. The colonial governments grudgingly conceded some powers to the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 but they retained many powers and responsibilities for themselves. Australia is now over-governed and under-led.

In today's era, it would make more sense to have just two levels of government: a central one and an enhanced role for local government. But such a drastic reform seems unlikely (it would require too many referenda at state and national levels to be successful).

Third, can we do more to educate voters on the deeper forces at work in the global economy? No political candidate is willing to admit: "vote for me, even though I will not be able to do much about the economy". Thus, they all go through the motions of promising to solve the nation's economic problems. We have a politics of gesture: politicians pretend to do something to show the media that they have acted.

These are some of the fundamental questions that need to be examined. They are much more significant than questions such as what Australia should do about a handful of asylum seekers arriving by boat.

But these deeper issues will not get examined. Party politics has become a branch of the television entertainment industry. Television and the rest of the mass media do not tell people what to think - but they do tell people what to think about.

Saturation media coverage tells the public that elections are important, nation-changing events. But on many of the big economic issues – for example, unemployment, interest rates, the rise or fall of the Australian dollar - elections will be largely irrelevant. These issues are not so much decided in Canberra as elsewhere.

Governments are no longer the masters of their economic destiny. Corporations (such as banks) are now the main global economic force. Corporations have eroded the notion of a national economy; there is now only a global one.

There are, then, two worlds of politics. One is in the public spotlight: the politicians as entertainers. The other is where the real business is being done: corporation boardrooms, foreign exchange dealing rooms, and treasury departments.

The role of government has therefore been reinvented (though this has not been communicated to the general public). Government's role is to make sure that the market works. There has been no reduction in the number of pages of legislation going through the Parliament. The pages are different: more about micromanagement than setting the country's overall direction via nation-building.

Politicians are therefore still working hard – but they are only painting on a smaller canvas.