Oz Federal Election 2013 - Discussion and Comments

[drsmithy]

The irony is that the Liberal party is ALWAYS in minority govt federally. The coalition federally made up of: the Liberal Party of Australia, the Liberal National Party of Queensland, the National Party of Australia, The National Party of WA and the Country Liberal Party (NT). While it looks kind of coherent from the outside it's only a few years ago that the National party formed a government with Labor in South Australia and they have often threatened to do so in other states.

Ah, yes, the Liberals and the Nats. Faux Free-Marketeers and Agrarian Socialists do make an odd couple, until you realise they're two opposing parties united by their homophobia and desire to keep women in the 19th century.

 

[drron]

The ALP cant have it both ways on the economy.They claim that they prevented a severe recession by increasing Government spending.That can only be because the spending increased GDP.
If GDP is increased by Government spending then Income as a percentage of GDP drops.The actual income dropped for only 1 year.The rise in Federal Government income has risen every other year and by more than inflation.The Rudd/Gillard Governments have been blessed with a much bigger mining boom than Howard.The terms of trade have been at record levels.
Also remember that Howard/Costello also had a year when revenue collapsed considerably in 2001/02 after 9/11.
As for savings at least the Howard Government set aside $70 billion to be for future requirements of the Federal Government.How much have the Rudd/Gillard governments spent on infrastructure.The NBN hasn't been anywhere near the planned total spent as yet.Gonski remains a future liability.BER was $16.2 billion,Pink Batts $2.5 billion.

 

[Skyring]

The ALP cant have it both ways on the economy.They claim that they prevented a severe recession by increasing Government spending.That can only be because the spending increased GDP.
If GDP is increased by Government spending then Income as a percentage of GDP drops.The actual income dropped for only 1 year.The rise in Federal Government income has risen every other year and by more than inflation.The Rudd/Gillard Governments have been blessed with a much bigger mining boom than Howard.The terms of trade have been at record levels.
Also remember that Howard/Costello also had a year when revenue collapsed considerably in 2001/02 after 9/11.
As for savings at least the Howard Government set aside $70 billion to be for future requirements of the Federal Government.How much have the Rudd/Gillard governments spent on infrastructure.The NBN hasn't been anywhere near the planned total spent as yet.Gonski remains a future liability.BER was $16.2 billion,Pink Batts $2.5 billion.

I have to laugh at some of the polemic being pushed here by the Rudd-boosters. We're only a few travel junkies talking amongst ourselves. Perhaps a dozen regular posters. We're not going to swing any electorate, let alone influence an election.

Rhetoric will have no effect here on who is Prime Minister in a month or so. We can be as honest and free in our discussion now as we can be once the votes are cast.

I love that time in the election night broadcast when the polls close in WA. Richo and the other talking heads are no longer obliged to root for their team and they can admit mistakes, praise the other side, whatever. The sprays happen - remember Cheryl Kernot once she realised that the people of Dickson had turned against her, just because she live on the Gold Coast and was as loyal to the Democrats as she was to her husband. Or Maxine McKew who had been royally shafted by Rudd and was the victim of more voter backlash.

People feel the urge to unburden themselves of a lot of untruth, deception and illusion.

The ALP, over the past six years, has little to show for sound economic management. All that crowing over avoiding the worst of the GFC - that wasn't Swan pulling infrastructure out of his bum, that was the miners pulling gold out of the ground.

And now they aren't pulling quite so much out. The income is drying up, and Swan's cold consolation is that he isn't the one trying to explain how come the wheels have embarrassingly fallen off.

I have to laugh at the idea that the pink batts, the school hall fiasco, the NBN pie in the sky and the $900-buy-a-flatscreen giveaway saved Australia. That's not infrastructure. That's a lick of paint and a lot of waste compared to the infrastructure projects the USA was working on in the Great Depression. We're still drawing energy from the Snowy Mountains, and the Yanks are powering half the West from Hoover Dam.

When Rudd was kicked out the first time, he stood and wept as he listed his legacy. It was a lot of speeches, a lot of promises, a lot of thought bubbles. He'd spent two and a half years talking about stuff and that was what he was leaving us. For delivering on his grand vision, that was Gillard's job.

And she stuffed up on that, relentlessly pointed out by Abbott and even more relentlessly undermined by Rudd. There are going to be some extremely pointed political history books and memoirs published over the next few years, and apart from Rudd's autobiography, they are all going to highlight the incredible campaign of revenge, disloyalty and selfishness that we saw as Rudd and his minions undermined our first female Prime Minister.

In hindsight, she had a tough job and she could have benefitted from a united team. One expects the Opposition to oppose, and she had a very effective Opposition pouncing on every trip and stumble. But she was also dragged down by her own. Not just Rudd, though he was the most determined, but also Thomson, Obeid and the rest of those out to get what they could and b*ugger the consequences.

I look forward to reading some of the books written over the next few years. Fifty Shades of Pink, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Good Government, The Ruddfather - these are going to be set texts in Australian Political History 101.

 

[Skyring]

I am not a massively partisan person but i am genuinely interested in policy. If Tony Abbott says he can dump the mining tax, dump the carbon tax, spend billions on "direct action", keep the carbon tax cut cuts, fund the Gonski education reforms, support the NDIS, introduce a massively expensive paid parental leave system and all the other stuff he says he will do then i'd be genuinely impressed if he can produce the numbers. Obviously labor are going mad with their $70b black hole stuff which i am sure is a worse case scenario in the same way that Turbull's "the NBN will cost $90b" line is but at the end of the day you really can't do all those things at once.

The coalition will have to make a choice between a lot of contradictory statements and i'd love to know what they are actually going to choose before we have to vote for them. Some of those choices may be hard but they'd earn my respect. Some, would probably do a lot of damage. But pretending there is no need for tough choices because, you know Howard-Costello we're better and all that, is campaigning for PM of fairyland.

I have to say that the same thoughts have been running through my mind. I'm hardly the most original thinker, so I'm guessing that a lot of folk are waiting to hear the Coalition numbers.

There are three ways to go. Reduce spending. Increase taxation. Dance around and wave the hands in the air.

I guess we'll see a lot of the latter from the Coalition, but it probably won't matter - in electoral terms - because there's going to be even more from Labor.

Howard did well on the issue of trust in 2004. He won a term that in hindsight was probably one too far. Blame Latham for acting like a dick - nobody was going to trust him.

But Rudd campaigning on trust? I can hear the roars of laughter and they aren't coming from the Coalition bunker - it's Gillard and her front bench hooting from the back seats.

Perhaps not laughter and hilarity so much as howls of outrage and disbelief. Trust Rudd? Only if he is handcuffed to his desk and supervised every few minutes with a whip.

 

[Skyring]

Well, he has had an easy ride for three years so hopefully he is taken to task on his promises. Talk is cheap, lets see if he backs it up with something other than sprouting slogans.

This is an election campaign, HarryB. Slogans is what we are going to get, because neither side can actually deliver any concrete.

What are you expecting the Opposition to come up with? They don't have their hands on the levers, they can't crank out a few billion to tide us over, they can't order the troops to work double shifts, they can't do anything but outline their plans.

Likewise Rudd. He's in caretaker mode and apart from a wonderful stint as a flying Foreign Minister - announcing a leadership challenge from a hotel in Washington, how surreal was that? - he didn't have his fingers on the buttons either.

It's going to be slogans and promises for five weeks. From both sides and more fertiliser being heaped on from the Green end of the garden.

Buckle up your gumboots.

 

[Skyring]

The irony is that the Liberal party is ALWAYS in minority govt federally...

If he is saying "I will only form a Liberal party only government" he will need extra 20 seats!

He might get them.

But yes, from the Liberal point of view they are usually a minority. They pretty much have to depend on the Nationals. Howard had enough seats to govern in his own right after Keating was booed up the bum in 1996 (75 Liberals out of 148 HoR seats), and likewise Fraser in 1975 when Whitlam crashed and burned. 68/127. Fraser actually increased this majority in 1977. 67/124.

In 2004 Howard came within a whisker of an outright majority with 74 seats from 150. He didn't need the Nationals to govern, but as is usual, the coalition agreement remained intact, as it has since the disaster of 1987 when Libs and Nats rounded on each other and Bob Hawke reaped in the rewards.

 

[amaroo]

And it seems numbers are something that confuses you. If income and production(GDP) has increase, income tax also increasing means nothing. I'm sorry but try comparing to an actual base rather than cherry picking numbers that are bovine excrement.

Keep torturing the numbers medhead - you have a special knack for it!

 

[amaroo]

The 2007/2008 financial year budget was delivered by Peter Costello on the 8th of May 2007. If you really want to fact check that you can read the whole exciting hansard speech here:

Last week was a clear example of what happens to a budget 80 days after it's tabled. Rudd, was sitting in the chair for 2/3 of the year......and from memory, he started playing with the books from day one.

 

[medhead]

There's no cherry picking there..

The poster has cherry picked absolute tax collected in their commentary, which is obviously only part of what is presented. They also fail to consider a comparable base in their commentary about the number. My comment is about the posters commentary not the numbers presented.

 

[medhead]

Keep torturing the numbers medhead - you have a special knack for it!

You the only one torturing numbers around here. Plenty of people have outlined the failure of your position. Continuing to cherry pick a couple of numbers and ignoring any comparable base just highlights your biased position. This is the second recent example of your failure with numbers.

 

[medhead]

Well abbott's going to create a million jobs! How? Who's going to do those jobs? Asylum seekers? Are these million jobs net of the slashing and burning of public service jobs?

 

[whatmeworry]

Well abbott's going to create a million jobs! How? Who's going to do those jobs? Asylum seekers? Are these million jobs net of the slashing and burning of public service jobs?

Perhaps One million jobs on work choices mark II?

 

[amaroo]

You the only one torturing numbers around here. Plenty of people have outlined the failure of your position. Continuing to cherry pick a couple of numbers and ignoring any comparable base just highlights your biased position. This is the second recent example of your failure with numbers.

How can posting the actual numbers over several terms of government be cheery picking????????

I say again - THE ACTUAL NUMBERS!

In fact, I don't believe my post stated anything other than - numbers, numbers, numbers

Pretty easy to see the posts that started to claim all sorts of things.......including the normal personal slagging that you regularly dish out!

You should cease with personal attacks and keep the post on subject!

 

[drsmithy]

I have to laugh at the idea that the pink batts, the school hall fiasco, the NBN pie in the sky and the $900-buy-a-flatscreen giveaway saved Australia. That's not infrastructure. That's a lick of paint and a lot of waste compared to the infrastructure projects the USA was working on in the Great Depression. We're still drawing energy from the Snowy Mountains, and the Yanks are powering half the West from Hoover Dam.

The NBN most certainly is "infrastructure". It's a 21st century equivalent of a railroad.

The "school hall fiasco" is, of course, only a "fiasco" to people whose sole sources of information are the Australian and the AFR. Similarly with pink batts.

The $900 handout wasn't meant to be "infrastructure", it was meant to be a quick economic adrenaline shot.

 

[Pukka]

The NBN most certainly is "infrastructure". It's a 21st century equivalent of a railroad.

The "school hall fiasco" is, of course, only a "fiasco" to people whose sole sources of information are the Australian and the AFR. Similarly with pink batts.

The $900 handout wasn't meant to be "infrastructure", it was meant to be a quick economic adrenaline shot.

You can't defend that home insulation scheme. Even the Age described it as a "botched scheme" and Jenny Macklin described it as a "terrible program"

It was a complete waste of money and worse than that actually cost lives

 

[Skyring]

You can't defend that home insulation scheme. Even the Age described it as a "botched scheme" and Jenny Macklin described it as a "terrible program"

It was a complete waste of money and worse than that actually cost lives

Rudd defended it. He said it was only four lives. Made it sound like a good thing because it could have been so much worse.

 

[drron]

Well the Government's own reports into BER showed that for QLD,NSW and Victoria showed that the public sector overpaid by 25% compared to Catholic schools and 55% to Independent schools.
And just in case you want to duck shove the blame to State Governments the best value obtained by State Governments was WA-the only Coalition Government.
See here-
http://foi.deewr.gov.au/system/file...ion_implementation_taskforce_final_report.pdf

Or the easy version-
Building the Education Revolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[drsmithy]

You can't defend that home insulation scheme. Even the Age described it as a "botched scheme" and Jenny Macklin described it as a "terrible program"

It was a complete waste of money and worse than that actually cost lives

Because obviously if Government funding wasn't involved, no-one would have died.

 

[Pukka]

Because obviously if Government funding wasn't involved, no-one would have died.

The government created the scheme which was inadequately regulated which allowed a bunch of cowboy operators to set up overnight and basically milk the scheme using low paid inadequately trained/supervised staff.

So yes I blame the government. It was knee jerk policy as usual

 

[amaroo]

The government created the scheme which was inadequately regulated which allowed a bunch of cowboy operators to set up overnight and basically milk the scheme using low paid inadequately trained/supervised staff.

So yes I blame the government. It was knee jerk policy as usual

Didn't Garrett and his department advised the PM's office of all the short comings........pretty clear why Peter Garrett stuck the middle finger up when leaving the caucus meeting a few weeks ago.