It is time we faced two unpalatable questions: Are our political parties up to the challenge? And has Australia’s political establishment outlived its usefulness?

The 2016 election campaign confirms a trend long in the making. . . Political parties are a shadow of what they used to be. . . they have become largely dysfunctional.

Political parties, in Australia as in other parts of the Western world, are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate the turbulent currents generated by globalisation.