OUR VIEW: ARE our politicians out of touch, or simply too important to concern themselves with normal life?

These are a couple of the questions thrown up in the wake of revelations this week that Federal Government departments spent $1.43 million, in the four months to October, to find out what people are thinking and what the media is saying about it.

And although the opposition can say it spent less on the same subject when it was in power, the real question is why spend anything at all?

A good politician - and yes, there are some - knows the people she or he represents.

They maintain grassroots contact with them.

They help them. They talk to them.

And those MPs know what the media is saying about them and their party's style of politics, in government and in opposition.

Those MPs - and the Sunshine Coast has, by and large, good federal politicians - are the conduit for communication.

It is their job.

And it is the job of the "higher ups" - people in positions of power in Canberra - to listen to them.

If the system really is so broken that pollsters and monitors are trusted before the people's representatives, it is time for a change.

In a climate in which everyone's belts need to be tightened, this has to be one of the places to start tightening.