No, we have not become meaner

Nick Cater - theaustralian.news.com.au:
No, we have not become meaner
Under Howard, immigration, welfare and women in the workforce have increased
February 21, 2006

"To be mean, according to the Macquarie Dictionary, is to be "sufficiently accomplished and determined to make success very difficult for an opponent" which, in a globalised economy, is surely something to aspire to. The trouble with a word like mean is that it means just about anything you want it to mean.
The Macquaire offers six definitions of "mean" as a verb, 11 as an adjective and five as a noun, while the Concise Oxford Dictionary has 5 1/2 dense pages of explanation.
Which is why the Saulwick poll conducted for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald says little about public opinion but everything about the woolly-minded journalists who try to pass such leading questions off as serious research.
After four elections at which the Coalition has colonised the middle ground of Australian politics, the Howard haters are running out of ammunition."

Nick Cater is the editor of The Howard Factor: A Decade That Changed The Nation, to be published on February 27 by Melbourne University Press.