Perhaps 1776, 1789, 1917 and 1949 all held the answer?

@FrayedBear while I know the significance of those dates, to me 1983 was the turning point. Our labor party, supposedly progressive, abandoned its values, for short term political gain. It is now permanently marginalised - a failure in controlling the centre right, the Hawke Keating dream, and no credibility as a progressive party of the left. It's not the democratic system people have no confidence in, but the political party system. It is twiddle dee and tweedle dum politics. Progressive politics has to lead, inspire, raise consciousness. It's hard but it begins by believing in something and sticking with it. The ALP believes in nothing, except electoralism. And it's a failure at that too.

@David1955 Yes, I agree whole heartedly with you there, Labor lost its way with Hawke and then Keating, after that the rot settled in, though I will say that during the Global Economic Crisis Rudd did do the best he could manage to keep our economy afloat with financial package idea but since the Bill Shortonballs era the whole lot has gone down the tubes.
And, as for the LIBERAL Party, well, in my opinion the word Liberal in association with them is one of great misnomers of all time since the meaning of the word "Liberal," to put it simply, is to be "Generous to a fault, etc," and that IS something that the Liberal Party can NOT truly be accused of being.
Sorry, made a typo earlier to type 'can NOT' but forgot to proof read before posting. Have corrected that typo now.

@Triphid yes, in fact Menzies chose Liberal for a reason. Despite his fawning love of Britain and the Conservative Party he was cunning enough to know that while Australians are conservative they don't think of themselves as that. They think they are moderate and reasonable and liberal minded. Menzies forgotten people and all that. Australia has changed dramatically since 1944 but that truism still applies. "I'm not a conservative but a liberal" is the catchphrase. It's not a Liberal party but a right wing conservative party. We know that.