But when that man finds himself sitting on a hot stove,  a minute seems longer than an hour. 

It’s all relative. 

In the times we live in, our local, state and federal politicians understand the hot stove of political turmoil. 

Once upon a time,  if you won an election with a handsome majority you could reasonably expect to be in power for more than one term. 

You were given time by a more patient electorate to get your game together and the necessary period to reap the fruit of your long-term plans.

 No more. 

State governments which absolutely decimated their rivals, are unceremoniously turfed out of power at the very next opportunity. 

One-term governments are the flavour of the moment and prime ministers, constantly besieged by near- death experiences are shown the exit sign before they’re able to rearrange the furniture in the lodge. 

Why is this so? 

Why does an economically and culturally stable nation turn over political leaders faster than economically distressed, culturally divided war-torn Europeans?  

Why is this happening?

Are we being besieged by a highly consumerist fast-food political appetite?

Is it like the way we don’t fix electrical appliances, we just buy another one.

Is the internet, 24-hour news, twitter,  Facebook and instagram accelerating the political process? 

Are we now part of a more vibrant and immediate democracy. 

We don’t like the budget, so we  can respond to it with a previously unknown immediacy. 

We can turn the heat up on politicians, we can apply new types of pressure or flex our knee-jerk reactions.

But perhaps it is just that because of the ideological similarities of the major parties, the stakes in Australia are quite low. 

The cost of exiting a leader or a government is just not that high. 

The virtue of not having extreme parties, of not being ravaged by civil war or deep social unrest, is that we do not have to pay too heavy a price for our electoral errors.