2012 will “trigger the start of a year-long debate on the Australian economy”, says Julia Gillard.

She says Labor is the party most interested in helping “working families”.

The Opposition will reply that, in fact, the Coalition likes working families best.

Both will promise to more services and handouts, while collecting less taxes than the others.

Ho hum.

* * *

Both parties assume that in a good society, mothers go out to work.

“Working families” means conscripted mothers.

Babies and toddlers spending most of their lives not knowing where their mother is.

Possibly not knowing who their mother is.

“Bringing the budget back into surplus” is less important than bringing mothers back to their offspring.

Most young mothers want to stay home with Junior. Multiple polls have proved it.

We need a party whose policy is to give men, especially fathers, preference in jobs — and that the wage of a man working full-time will always be sufficient to feed a family.

If the Catholic bishops consistently taught this — and had proper research done to demonstrate that it is not a pipe-dream . . . .

That would revolutionise the spiritual welfare our younger generation.