THE latest March in March rally is today in Canberra and not surprisingly some of the biggest names in federal politics are ignoring it.

Busy man that he is, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was not scheduled to address the rally in front of Parliament House and nor were any of his senior lieutenants.

Certainly Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his ministers have other things they want to do.

Deputy Greens Leader Adam Bandt was to address the protesters, a token presence of elected politics from the party now deemed most likely to lose an election.

It would be unfair to claim these rallies are pointless. But while the Sunday March in March gatherings in capital cities were said to have attracted more than 80,000 people, they were mass demonstrations looking for a purpose.

There were bits of anger over asylum seeker policy, over economic management, over workplace laws. In Sydney Billy Bragg turned up to sing about Gina Rinehart.

Meanwhile, Tony Abbott was relatively comfortable with other endorsements, such as the Liberals’ 55 per cent two-party preferred vote in South Australia and the Liberal victory in Tasmania, to counter suggestions his party is on the way out.

I'm so angry I made a sign #marchinmarch pic.twitter.com/69kxuRg0wO — Amy Gray (@_AmyGray_) March 16, 2014

The only point of march cohesion appeared to be a concerted belief Mr Abbott should not be Prime Minister, which makes the rallies about seven months too late. They should have been out on the streets last September.

Or they should have postponed their action until next September.

It is difficult to argue that this Government should be attacked for what it has done over the past six months, because most of its energy has been aimed at undoing things put in place by former Labor governments.

It won’t be doing much in its own name until the May Budget and the arrival of the new Senate in July. That’s when it might be appropriate for some to march.

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