Biggest rort of all slips under the radar

Now, party policies and campaigns are developed by expensive polling, focus groups, market analysis and consultants. This explains why the major parties look and sound alike. It explains why policies developed at party head offices are often at odds with long held party beliefs and local aspirations.

Do not expect this rort to end. It is the major parties who benefit most from public funding and it is they who decide these matters.

For the Howard Government continued reliance on public funding undermines its free market credentials. For Labor, confronted with declining trade union membership and revenue, public funding has been a lifeline.

At least Mark Latham in 2004 had the courage to adopt a different policy approach to parliamentary superannuation benefits and to force the Howard Government to end that rort. But Latham had real beliefs.