Successive governments have sold out their constituents' interests

They see double standards everywhere. They can’t access their pensions early if they happen to qualify for one. They know they or their kids only have to work an hour a week to be excluded from unemployment lists. They feel the effects of underemployment, but rarely does their government or the media mention it.

They know their contribution to gross domestic product and household spending is built on the back of uncertain employment and a credit card.

They just don’t believe their governments. They become cynical of a government that causes so much pain with cutbacks supposedly for the good of all in its first few budgets, then cynically restores part of those cutbacks (or hands out bonuses) to key voting groups when the political imperative demands.

They wonder whether the apparently so precious "surplus" is created only for the Stock Market’s gratification, for the money traders and stock jocks playing a glorified casino that has nothing to do with raising capital to build things and provide jobs for the kids of ordinary punters.

So is it any wonder Australians are increasingly disillusioned with government? Is it any wonder that more than 40 Independents have defied the party-bias of preferential voting in recent years to enter Australian parliaments?

Between 20% and 30% of the electorate is now placing its primary vote with other than the three major parties. Because our lower houses aren’t proportionally representative that vote is not yet represented in a similar proportion of seats.

However, voters will more and more seek out those representatives who have no other agenda but to represent their interests honestly and fairly, believing the sum total of Parliament and government should be made up of its component parts, the ordinary people, and not the dominant and powerful interest groups.