As the dust settles on this week's Leadership insanity, people are starting to think about what is wrong with the system we have in this country, or in fact Democracy itself. While we tut and sigh about the various bad behaviour tied up in all of this, and we ridicule the people we see exposed and undermined in the glare of the 24/7 media spotlight, we have to ask ourselves - "Who's fault is this?"
Three years' ago the nation applauded the savage removal of a man whom; three years before that Australians cheered to the electoral finish line as if a new messiah. We cheered him towards the defeat of a man who's legacy is now seemingly revered as a Golden Era of Good Government.
Three years' ago Australians congratulated themselves on the election of the first woman to the highest office in the land, and delighted in the promise of a new female style of leadership. Three days ago some people sneered and air-punched when that same woman was knifed in the back - because she was a woman. There's been all manor of disgust at the Machiavellian antics, and yet it is all we want to talk about. We complain that the media only write about and ask questions about Leadership challenges but the journalists write about that stuff because they see the newspaper sales figures and web site traffic spikes every time they do.
Kevin Rudd always had a platform for an insurgence because his poll ratings were so high with marginal voters, and yet three years ago his colleagues assassinated him because his miserable polling so clearly showed he was a popularity liability. Conversely the liability that has just been sacked came to power on a wave of consistently high polling.
Six years ago we sent a party into power demanding that they do something about climate change, shut the detention centres, fix the education and health system and ensure a fairer distribution of the resources boom bounty. Now, six years later a government that has delivered a price on carbon, taxed the miners (albeit ineptly), dismantled offshore processing (before we asked them to put it back again), introduced billions of dollars of new funding for schools and arranged national insurance for those with disabilities - is being decried for having done those very things. We demanded the best internet pipes in the world but we don't want to pay for them. We decry the poor state of political debate and yet we refuse to listen to a woman taking time to explain complex education policy and instead listen to a man who monotonously repeats things like "great big tax" and "stop the boats".
This country clearly has the healthiest economy in the OECD (albeit off a very low base) yet all we do is complain about the economy.
Of course I know it is more complicated than this, and these things aren't all the same people. But many are the same people. ("We" after all, "are us".) The polls and the media appetite is what drives all of this, and people who measure that stuff look at the average.
We tore down a woman who said she wouldn't introduce a tax on carbon and then had to as a compromise to make a hung parliament - elected by the average of the people - work. We tore her down for being inconsistent. For not staying true to her principles and beliefs. For saying one thing and doing another.
They do say you get the government you deserve - and this is what we have because they are only doing what we tell them to.