No! Yes! and this is why.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Bryant

Yes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It doesn't matter what side of politics. I agree with you 100%.
However, not all politicians are ego driven maniacs, and a lot of them work harder than you can imagine.

Australia is not the same country it was when the Labor Party was first formed (1891). Neither is the average Australian. Therefore there is little point in Labor or any other political party going back to its roots. Political parties have to remain relevant to the times in which they exist.
I agree with you that internal politics within the Labor party have been divisive and it is clear that Labor will need to get its house back in order and regroup. The Rudd/Gillard saga is now over and the Party will move on.

With regard to lawyers, both sides of politics have more than their fair share of lawyers. Even Jaymes Diaz is a Lawyer.
https://www.nsw.liberal.org.au/jaymes_diaz

With regard to unions, the amount of good that is done every day by trade unions goes under reported. I work for a union. Every working day I help employees who for some reason or other, have not been paid and are about to default on their mortgages, or, who have been injured at work and are facing being sacked because they can no longer work to full capacity, or are being harassed by managers because they are pregnant (just some of many other issues).

I also think Australians need to look at the roles that Rupert Murdoch, Alan Jones, Ray Hadley and the other pedlars of Hate Mongering played in convincing the Australian electorate that the Labor Government was incompetent. I do not recall any Government in the history of Australian politics that sustained such an onslaught from the Main Stream Media. Rupert Murdoch stands to profit enormously now that the NBN will not be delivered to each and every house in Australia.

Now Mr Abbott and the Liberal party have the chance to demonstrate what they can do for the Australian people.

Hi Banjonut. Infocus is actually paraphrasing/quoting from Tony Abbott's victory speech Sept. 7th 2013.
This is the sensitive and caring person who now represents Australia on the world stage.
He was the target of this speech from the then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihd7ofrwQX0

I think that is what democracy is all about. I lived in Brisbane during the Joh Bjelke-Petersen 'Gerrymander' era:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh_Bjelke-Petersen

Sir Johannes "Joh" Bjelke-Petersen, KCMG (13 January 1911 – 23 April 2005), was an Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived Premier of Queensland,[1] holding office from 1968 to 1987, during which time the state enjoyed considerable economic development.[2] His uncompromising conservatism (including his role in the downfall of the Whitlam federal government), his political longevity, and his leadership of a government that, in its later years, was revealed to be institutionally corrupt, made him one of the best-known and most controversial political figures of 20th century Australia.

Bjelke-Petersen's Country (later National) Party controlled Queensland despite consistently receiving the smallest number of votes out of the state's leading three parties, achieving the result through a notorious system of electoral malapportionment, or gerrymander, that resulted in rural votes having a greater value than those cast in city electorates.[3][4] Yet Bjelke-Petersen was a highly popular figure among conservative voters and over the course of his 19 years as premier he trebled the number of people who voted for his party and doubled the party's percentage vote, reducing his Liberal coalition partners to a mere six seats in the 1983 election. In 1985 Bjelke-Petersen launched a campaign to move into federal politics and become prime minister, though the campaign was eventually aborted.

Bjelke-Petersen was a divisive premier and earned himself a reputation as a "law and order" politician with his repeated use of police force against street demonstrators[4] and strongarm tactics with trade unions, leading to frequent descriptions of Queensland under his leadership as a Nazi police state. From 1987 his administration came under the scrutiny of a royal commission into police corruption and its links with state government ministers; Bjelke-Petersen was unable to recover from the series of damaging findings and after initially resisting a party vote that replaced him as leader, resigned from politics on 1 December 1987. Two of his state ministers, as well as the police commissioner Bjelke-Petersen had appointed and later knighted, were jailed for corruption offences and in 1991 Bjelke-Petersen, too, was tried for perjury over his evidence to the royal commission; the jury failed to reach a verdict and Bjelke-Petersen was deemed too old to face a second trial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

That would indeed have been the most likely outcome.

Also interesting that Peter Costello's brother Tim is a Baptist minister and the current CEO of World Vision Australia. :

The politics of the two brothers always appeared to differ markedly.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country

According to the Pew Research Center in 2010 there were 49 Muslim-majority countries.[10] Around 62% of the world's Muslims live in South and Southeast Asia, with over 1 billion adherents.[11] The largest Muslim country is Indonesia, home to 12.7% of the world's Muslims, followed by Pakistan (11.0%), India (10.9%), and Bangladesh (9.2%).[3][12] About 20% of Muslims live in Arab countries.[13] In the Middle East, the non-Arab countries of Turkey and Iran are the largest Muslim-majority countries; in Africa, Egypt and Nigeria have the most populous Muslim communities.[3][12]

Given that the history between the 'Christian'/western based cultures and Islam is 'troubled' to say the least, take a look at a world map. The country with the largest Muslim population in the world lies just to the north of Australia.
http://countrymeters.info/en/Indonesia/

Indonesia Population clock
14-09-2013 09:09:23
248 123 602 (Current population)

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/1647509ef7e25faaca2568a900154b63?opendocument
On 14 September 2013 at 08:56:17 AM (Canberra time), the resident population of Australia is projected to be:

23,181,668

There are very obvious reasons why Australia should want to maintain good relations with Indonesia.

Since the second world war, when Australia was saved from Japanese invasion by it's big brother (USA), Australia has gone into every global scrape alongside its allies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Australia

Australia's foreign policy is guided by a commitment to multilateralism and regionalism, as well as to strong bilateral relations with its allies. Key concerns include free trade, terrorism, economic cooperation with Asia and stability in the Asia-Pacific.

Co-operation with Indonesia is crucial in order to control the the tide of people trying to reach Australia.

Rupert Murdoch wasn't upset at all!

The minimum Wage in Australia is found here:
http://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay/national-minimum-wage/Pages/default.aspx
There has been a recent change of Government in Australia (From last Saturday). It is likely that there will be a number of changes to The Fair Work Act as a result.
Tipping is not expected as the employer is expected by law to pay his/her employees minimum wage at least.

Was Jesus Christ married? I don't know and nor does anyone else alive today. The point of raising this issue is that it is directly points to the fact that the new testament; what was included, what was excluded, was very much shaped by the politics and competing religions of the time. What later became the catholic church of Rome was not at all interested in allowing the ordinary person to have access to the 'gospels'. As such, how do we know that the story of Christ we have inherited was the true story? How do we know that Christianity wasn't hi-jacked very early on by those with an entirely different agenda. How does anyone today know if Jesus Christ was sympathetic to the ideology of the Essenes?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/ The ancient politics of 'spin' were just as active then as they are today. There was a melting pot of beliefs and ideologies in Rome at that time. I'm not saying this article, http://www.viewzone.com/mithras.html is a great work of scholastic merit and achievement but it does provide food for thought.

There was a great deal of filtering of scriptures over the first few hundred years of the emergence of Christianity. A lot of writings were left out of the new testament because They didn't fit with the politics of the new church especially when it was adopted as the official religion of Rome.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/christianityromanempire_article_01.shtml

So what are your thoughts on whether Jesus was married?

In response to marcomarks (I see what you mean - nice clear pictures By the way!) Photosmoke LD13414 and Doddy, Thank for the kind words and advice, I am taking everything on board.
I joined this forum because I want to become a better photographer.
I would love to be able to take at least one picture that I can hang on the wall.
This is my third Sony P&S and it is a very cheap DSC-W510. It is time to move up to something a bit better.
I'm working today so will check back later. Again, Thanks!

Thanks for the advice and the compliment Photog8. Thanks too Dennis 2146, this is stuff I really want to know. I was thinking of investing in an SLR but I might hold off until next year!
It's late here in Sydney so I'll check back in the morning (Sydney Time!)

I am looking to buy a new camera to take traveling this coming October/November. (Shanghai and New York mainly - plus an East Coast bus trip up to Canada.)
I have had the Olympus E-PL5 Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera with M. Zuiko 14-42mm II and 40-150mm Lenses - recommended to me by a local camera store and would like to know if anyone on this forum would also recommend it as a suitable travel camera?
Have attached three Pictures done earlier this year with my Sony P&P for your amusement.

Just north of Sydney - on the Banks of Piles Creek which flows into the Hawkesbury River


The Blue Mountains (NSW) Australia


Very popular Spot in the Blue Mountains - Echo Point Katoomba