Successive governments have sold out their constituents' interests

Most of these orchardists had traditionally voted National Party, yet now see their plight as not dissimilar to those former Labor voters in Lithgow. In many respects they, and thousands of farmers and workers around the country, are soul brothers in the search for a new political representation.

Most Australians have grown up with an expectation that a hard day’s work will reap its rewards. They believe in an egalitarian society and recognise that to maintain it the government will have to play a role, by way of services, and where needed, regulation, market protection, subsidies and grants. The majority also want a fair tax system that progressively taxes income, not regressively taxes consumption.

They see these core standards eroded in recent decades, as government-sponsored greed takes over from government-supported need.

They want, by and large, to hold on to hard-built public assets such as their telecommunications network. They also believed it was an eminently fair market place when there was a Commonwealth-controlled bank and a state bank and insurance company.

They certainly want a regulated minimum Australian ownership of key industries. They are suspicious of governments that court all foreign investment as inherently good in its own right, and they deplore the loss of icon trademarks such as Vegemite and Arnotts Biscuits.

They are also suspicious of Governments that claim corporate control is healthier than public ownership when Government-owned Singaporean companies buy into our airlines and Telcos.

They believe we are too small to compete with the critical mass of the United States or most European countries, yet (for the moment) too "developed" to compete with the cheap labour costs of many Asian countries. Apart from those closely engaged or employed in international markets, they don’t readily recognise any benefits of globalisation and free trade.

They fail to see why environmental and labour standards shouldn’t be included in trade deals.

A growing number of ordinary Australians, rural dwellers too, also despair at our environmental degradation, and see no urgency from Government to fix it.

Especially in rural areas, they wonder why they can’t deal directly with people they once knew as "public servants" but who are now most often nameless and faceless voices who hang off the end of a phone at a distant call centre.

These disconnected and disillusioned are told by Labor or Coalition Governments that interest rates are low, inflation is low, unemployment rates are low so everything is OK. But very many, perhaps a majority, don’t feel OK. They believe powerful interests beyond their control are screwing them.

They also know their elected representatives, for the most part, support different sets of rules for their own entitlements and behaviour than they legislate for the rest of the community.