Engaging as it was to read the correspondence about the Howard years between Tony Abbott and Robert Manne in the Weekend Australian (25-26 October), a deeper and more subtle analysis is needed. More damaging over the long term than Howard's conspicuous "indigenous affairs, asylum seekers, foreign policy and climate change" failures has been the rise throughout our institutions of an oppressive managerialism, and an associated decline in visionary leadership.

The growing fear of withdrawal of funds from organisations has resulted in an emphasis on obsessive control and narrowly conceived perceptions of efficiency, which in turn has led to a widespread loss of any sense of community, creativity and commitment to the long-term and to higher values. The good (in the broadest sense: caring, vision and hope of improvement) has been abandoned. As a consequence, more and more people are leaving or retiring earlier than planned from jobs that once provided them with meaning as well as income.

The sad paradox is that most of the managers - pseudo-leaders - are still in power, and will likely use any extra funds provided by our new government to do yet more of the over-management that has left so many workplaces bereft of meaning. Unless Rudd and his colleagues address this less-obvious systemic cultural change effected by the Howard years, genuine progress will continue to be eroded.