"How To Kill A Country: Australia's Devastating Trade Deal with the United States"
Author: Linda Weiss, Elizabeth Thurbon and John Matthews
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
(audio file available)

Not to "cheer" anyone up too much, but if what these chaps suggest is accurate (and I tend to think it is, because I'm already reading about the effect on our copyright legislation - and the costs there of) I think Australia could be considered a 52nd state of the Union (Canada having already been absorbed by the same process we are being seduced with).

I want to know where the responsibility for good governance went in my country. And the USA and UK ... they all seem to be on something that is all to the betterment of a small coterie of individuals, rather than to the betterment of wider community as we have come to expect in many ways from our governments.

I suspect that it all goes back to the days of Margaret Thatcher who couldn't see past the fact that not everybody is gifted enough to make their way in the world in the same way she did ... and those politicians who are now at the top of the tree were first influenced by her attitude of "I made it, so should they" with no regard to the fact that not everyone is the same (thank goodness) nor are the opportunites always available to allow someone to reach their full potential - sometimes life gets in the way of all those plans.

That is probably far too simplistic a point of view, but it something I have had more than one person observe to me on this topic too.