Oz Federal Election 2013 - Discussion and Comments

[Skyring]

The trendline has only "slowed if not stopped or reversed" if you _start_ drawing it at 1998.

No. There's a steady rise all through the Twentieth Century, which flattens out in 1998. That's fifteen years of no increase - and no, that's not cherrypicking an outlier high start point and another outlier low end point, that's straight through the middle of the dataset. How long does it take you to accept reality?

I think we both know the answer to that one. Cheers.

 

[BadgerBoi]

Looks like Clive Palmer will now only be able to get 99 seats at the election

Clive Palmer's Bendigo candidate quits after a month to run as an independent - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

50 for one buttock 49 for the other - probably not adequate.

 

[NM]

I never knew there was a "flat earth" theory. Could you provide a cite ?

Believe it or not, there are actually some people who believe that the earth is flat. But we all know that is impossible. If it was flat, the water would spill off the sides. So it can't possibly be flat. It is, in fact, quite bumpy on the edges, keeping the water from spilling out.

 

[drsmithy]

No. There's a steady rise all through the Twentieth Century, which flattens out in 1998. That's fifteen years of no increase - and no, that's not cherrypicking an outlier high start point and another outlier low end point, that's straight through the middle of the dataset. How long does it take you to accept reality?

I think we both know the answer to that one. Cheers.

I already posted a graph once showing the "reality" of the temperature increase since the '70s. Which carries on the same trend that goes on for more than a century earlier. Here's a refresher.

 

[tgh]

Your problem Drsmithy , and you are not an orphan , is to argue Gaiaa time in human terms.
"For more than a century" is an almost immeasurably small time.
The rise and rapidly approaching elimination of the Imperial Animal will be but a miniscule blip on the Gaiia timeline..

relax.... enjoy....

 

[drron]

There are of course other temperature graphs out there.here is one showing the NASA GISS data when first produced in 1999 and when adjusted in 2012

 

[Skyring]

In just one week, Rudd's PNG Shambles has four times more unlawful arrivals than in the five years of Howard's Pacific Solution.

With 21 September looking good for an election, that's 10 800 boat people likely to be piled up by that time. Apart from the inevitable deaths. How many people are going to be in limbo - or in hell?

 

[cove]

Two full months after the May budget and the numbers are proving to be all wrong again. More spending thought bubbles and falling revenues from a sick economy is making life pretty difficult with lots of businesses failing and post war baby boomers retiring in droves.
The guy running NBN has resigned and that unplanned project is in disarray.
Well that is the way it is.
A further interest rate cut will prove just how sick our economy is at the moment.

 

[drron]

In just one week, Rudd's PNG Shambles has four times more unlawful arrivals than in the five years of Howard's Pacific Solution.

With 21 September looking good for an election, that's 10 800 boat people likely to be piled up by that time. Apart from the inevitable deaths. How many people are going to in limbo - or in hell?

With apologies to the Rocky Horror show.

It's just a step to the right
Then a jump to the right
with your hands on your hips
You bring your knees in tight
But it is the Pacific thrust that nearly drives them insane
Let's to the Tampa warp again.

 

[Moody]

Two full months after the May budget and the numbers are proving to be all wrong again. More spending thought bubbles and falling revenues from a sick economy is making life pretty difficult with lots of businesses failing and post war baby boomers retiring in droves.
The guy running NBN has resigned and that unplanned project is in disarray.
Well that is the way it is.
A further interest rate cut will prove just how sick our economy is at the moment.

Budget estimates are a moveable feast, and in the past there was not as much naval gazing about always balancing the budget. Sort of leads to business uncertainty and policy on the run which you obvious agree are bad things.

But where there are longer term trends the expenditure has to be brought into line with receipts, as you can't continue to live beyond your means (regardless of what the USA thinks). The biggest mistake Labour made was to promise a surplus well in advance of the economic reality, and then continue to think they could trim expenditure to achieve it when only amputation could have delivered that outcome. We all want a surplus but seem to fail to understand that it involves the federal government taking more money off us and giving back less. Hands up all of you that will vote for that! OK - you liars can put your hands down now.

NBN is a major investment with lots of circling sharks and vested interests. If the leadership is not able to navigate those waters then it is sensible to make changes, but that doesn't make the project more or less worthy in itself.

And if there's one thing that Honest John told me that I truly believe it's that low interest rates are the sign of a good government. On that basis Labour is two or three times better at running the economy than the Coalition.


Please don't tell me you are one of those political revisionists who now call John Howard a liar.....

 

[Moody]

In just one week, Rudd's PNG Shambles has four times more unlawful arrivals than in the five years of Howard's Pacific Solution.

With 21 September looking good for an election, that's 10 800 boat people likely to be piled up by that time. Apart from the inevitable deaths. How many people are going to be in limbo - or in hell?

"PNG shambles"? Nice ring to it - you should write copy for Fox News.

So refugees are now flocking to board leaky boats in Indonesia so that they can get a free transfer to PNG? Doesn't make sense to me but neither does the rabid right-wing claptrap that people regurgitate on this forum, so it must be my reality that needs adjusting.

Oh - I see. They read the Australian political commentary daily from their hovels and realise that a hot shower and a flight to Manus Island is a better alternative than being straffed by the Australian Navy (or whatever Tony Abbott has promised this week. I think upon forming government he will take the country to DefCon4 and mine the beaches, but I may be paraphrasing).

Yes - lots of pull factors in the PNG solution. What was Kevin Rudd thinking of when he launched that tree-hugger policy?

[Never thought I would see so much unintended humour on this forum. Better than an episode of "Would I Lie to You?"]

 

[cove]

Moody I suggest you put Macro Business on your reading list especially to do with China shutting off over production in nineteen industries. This will affect Australia so we really need to have all of our governments get back to balanced budgets.

 

[eastwest101]

Moody I suggest you put Macro Business on your reading list especially to do with China shutting off over production in nineteen industries. This will affect Australia so we really need to have all of our governments get back to balanced budgets.

If those proposed production cuts eventuate into reality (and predicting any part of the Chinese economy is pretty difficult) there will be consequences for commodity prices everywhere from oil/gas and most of the metal prices, making the treasury predictions of australian growth and investment look even more heroic/implausible than before, and they were already implausible a month ago.

 

[Limewood]

If i read this right, the Fed. Govt' will pay PNG zillions in $ once the boat people facility is built but we don't know how much, the PNG Gov't will account for all $ received, yet PNG has not consulted with the local's where it is to located. When some boat people turn up on Australian shores from PNG the Aust. Gov't will compensate the QLD Gov't for costs I guess!. Doesn't sound like a good Rudd deal to me.

 

[cove]

Rudd is not able to do "good deals".
They will miss Martin Ferguson as he was one of the few who knew which way was up.

 

[Limewood]

Rudd is not able to do "good deals".
They will miss Martin Ferguson as he was one of the few who knew which way was up.

Seems all smoke and mirrors from Kev'y now the real troops have departed. I asked a number of friends who are dead set labour voters their view now Rudd is in the chair, all but one said not voting labour still, polls or media say different.

 

[Moody]

Moody I suggest you put Macro Business on your reading list especially to do with China shutting off over production in nineteen industries. This will affect Australia so we really need to have all of our governments get back to balanced budgets.

Overall - yes. But year-to-year ...no.

Imgine, if you will, that during the GFC the federal government had decided to run a balanced budget. We would have dived down into a deep recession that we would still be feeling the pain of now. Even the Coalition would have run into deficit (though not enough to avoid a recession).

We can argue all day about how big the stimulus package should have been, but no sane economist would have said that balancing the budget at that time was a good idea. Admittedly sanity is in short supply here ....

 

[cove]

Not really.
China was the big saver for its trading partners once our big 4 banks stabilized with the help of the US Fed and the Government guarantee.
A lot of the rest was weird **** dreamt up by wankers and now we are indebted with nothing to show for it other than some ill thought out school halls.
Your share of paying back the $900 handout is bit closer to $60,000 per taxpayer (rough estimate and it will end up more).

 

[medhead]

Policy on the run:

Sweaty palms are showing

An Abbott government would put a three-star general in charge of the boat people co-ordination committee in the bureaucracy. It was an effort to look tougher than Rudd not by changing policy but by putting a general's tin hat on top of it.

It was flim-flam. It was conceived in haste, without consulting the shadow cabinet. "I can't see it making any difference at all," said a former chief of the defence force, retired admiral Chris Barrie.The government mocked the idea. Defence Minister Stephen Smith observed that the present co-ordination system was run by a two-star commander. Abbott's policy amounted to replacing a two-star commander with a three-star, he said.​

The second sign emerged on Friday, in an entirely different realm. In essence, the Coalition appears to be running away from a tenet of responsible national budgeting, one introduced by the Coalition itself.​

Treasurer Chris Bowen has said the government will keep its pledge to return the budget to surplus by 2016-17. So that means it will have to make up the shortfall. This puts the government in the difficult position of needing to announce $6 billion worth of spending cuts or increased taxes in the weeks before the election.

So it's the government's predicament but it seems to have worried the opposition into thinking that this will also put pressure on it to similarly tighten its spending plans.

The opposition's response? Joe Hockey has declared that the Coalition will not recognise the Treasury and Finance statement, the PEFO. In other words, it is preparing to reject the statement from the only authorities that have possession of the facts. It is a rejection of the umpire's call. This is a startling reversal.

Two months ago, Hockey said: "We have always said that the only numbers we can actually rely on are the numbers released by the secretary of the Department of the Treasury and Finance, 10 days into the election campaign. Because they belong to the public servants rather than these numbers which belong to the government."

But now Hockey says: "We're not going to cop the Treasury being bullied by the government into producing PEFO numbers that are closely aligned to the government's".

This is not credible. It looks very much like the Coalition preparing the way for it to reject the official numbers so it can keep flexibility in its policy or, worse, make it up as it goes along. Hockey wants the government to respect a stricture that he himself will not.
​

 

[HarryB]

Yes, what was the name of the accounting firm that did the numbers for the Coalition at the last election? They did pretty well so why would you trust the Treasury numbers?