Christine - thank you for the most extreme examples you could think of. no I do not think those people should be in parliament. What about some other rich people though? What about Dick Smith? You always know that Dick Smith has his heart in the right place, should we exclude him because he has money?

I notice also you mention the heirs, Anthony Pratt and James Packer rather than the people who actually knew about business, in Richard and Kerry. No I do not want spoilt heirs who have inherited their money out of luck in my parliament, I dont support putting Paris Hilton in parliament either. But Richard and Kerry Packer were two brilliant minds that I would have loved to see get a chance on the floor of the Senate or House of Reps.

Would you exclude Bill Gates from sitting in parliament because he has too much money? I doubt it.

Am I saying I think only rich people deserve seats at the table, no of course not. As Mark so kindly pointed out, robust and diverse parliament is the way forward. But what I am saying is that to leave out the minds who have been able to think outside the box and employ thousands of people in the process, is a silly notion. You should at least want their input. Where better to get an idea about how to boost employment than from someone who employs a thousand people?

My main gripe is that the article doesn’t have an author. People shouldn’t be writing opinion if they’re unwilling to put a name to it, even an psuedonym.

We should instead populate parliament solely with academics who are aware of the theory of how to successfully run a business and an economy, rather than with people with long term track records of business success.

We should always tax the rich at 95% for every dollar they earn over $250,000 because anyone who earns that much is obviously fleecing other people out of money and could never actually be earning money legitimately.

How dare our politicians amass fortunes in private enterprise before deciding to give something back by going into public service.

This whole situation is appauling.

Personally, I think all the talk of politicians needing to be “in touch with” us is a bit creepy. And a furphy. No-one can be in touch with everyone in that way. We all have our own perspectives. If a rich man (by which you mean “richer than you”, so it’s really just envy, yeah?) isn’t “in touch with” you, just because of a differing bank balance, then presumably we shouldn’t have male politicians because they wouldn’t be “in touch with” women. Or female politicians because they wouldn’t be “in touch with” men.

I don’t want my leaders to be “in touch with” me. I want them to make sound, coherent decisions about the future of the country.

Let’s take everything into context here. If Turnbull is as rich as has been said in BRW magazine, then perhaps we may feel as though he isn’t in touch with those of us who are well, earning less than say $250 000 a year? (Most of us in other words) We’d be kidding ourselves to think that all the pollititians that make it as far as Malcom Turnbill has don’t have any sense of self richousness and enjoy the power this sort of position commands. It’s different to something you get in the private sector, and if someone has beaten the private sector in their mind, then moving to the public for a change isn’t out the question.

I’m certainly not saying that’s what Turnbull has definetly done, but we can’t assume he, along with many other pollititians haven’t done it either.

Who wrote this post by the way? Come on Crikey, get your act together.