So, it's kind of strange to find that once again our government has changed leaders. Not because it was a surprise. Abbott has already been challenged once since he became Prime Minister, and put on notice that he needed to do better. He didn't. Rumours have been flying for weeks, Cabinet has been leaking like a sieve, polls have been plunging. What is surprising is that Malcolm Turnbull is prepared to take the job. When Julia Gillard deposed Kevin Rudd in the midst of his first term it went really badly. She couldn't criticise a government of which she had been part, nor claim it did a great job in the light of the fact she had deposed its leader. She was left clinging to the rocks as the waves of negativity battered her from all sides. Why have our recent Prime Ministers (and indeed, Opposition Leaders) had such a short shelf-life? One possibility is that politics these days is not a very attractive career choice, so we don't have the calibre of people
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson