Oz Federal Election 2013 - Discussion and Comments

[Pushka]

WA has been funded by the rest of OZ for 2 centuries, about time you guys repay the favour.

I'm in SA not WA. I'm not old enough to comment on the last 2 centuries but I pay my dues to the contribution of WA at the moment.

 

[whatmeworry]

But till then i guess we can let the Melbournites carry on about them being the sporting capital of Australia (the world... the universe...) and the Sydney Siders carry on about being the cultural capital or whatever... Yawn... And that's with out the inhabitants of Brisbane thinking they are the new Las Vegas or whatever they carry on about...

Sorry but us guys from MEL call ourselves Melburnians. Say Melbournite in MEL, we straight away know you are a foreigner who doesn't the correct grammar for a resident of MEL.

Sydney has no known culture to speak of other then the weekly gun crime culture.

Brisvegas is like Radadelaide, one of them funny nicknames they made for themselves...

 

[ReLoad]

it's hard to imagine that anybody could screw things up quite so much as Gillard.

Work choices.

 

[Pukka]

Re: Where will you be election day (September 14th)

I never knew FF.com.au was a political Blog? To say I am disappointed is an understatement. I come onto this blog to seek information about flying not politics!

Yes who would have thought a topic called Oz Federal election 2013- Discussion would be political

Muppet

 

[amaroo]

If TA wasn't leading the Libs and someone a bit more electorally popular was it would be an annhilation.

Agreed. However, don't forget - even Keating won an election.

 

[BrentH]

Work choices.

Touché.

It was the one big self inflicted wound.

But even unpopular border protection measures, GST, the wharf disputes, and other workplace reforms had been handled masterfully by Howard and Co.

By comparison, the ALP has been a series of self inflicted gunshot wounds - often in "how could you screw that up?" circumstances.

Mining Tax, Pink Batts, school halls project, the East Timor solution, carbon tax, the backfire of closing Nauru, Malaysian Solution, Carbon Tax, the announcement of Labor's first aboriginal candidate, leadership speculation, leadership spills, replacing a leader with someone far less popular, leaks, Media reforms, Obeid, announcement of an election [9?] months out, the WA election, hung parliament, plain packaging (although this eventually turned out OK)...

Perhaps the exception to this has been the NBN (which is fairly widely popular), although that appears to be becoming a political liability of late...

 

[TheEmu]

Touché.

It was the one big self inflicted wound.

But even unpopular border protection measures, GST, the wharf disputes, and other workplace reforms had been handled masterfully by Howard and Co.

By comparison, the ALP has been a series of self inflicted gunshot wounds - often in "how could you screw that up?" circumstances.

Mining Tax, Pink Batts, school halls project, the East Timor solution, carbon tax, the backfire of closing Nauru, Malaysian Solution, Carbon Tax, the announcement of Labor's first aboriginal candidate, leadership speculation, leadership spills, replacing a leader with someone far less popular, leaks, Media reforms, Obeid, announcement of an election [9?] months out, the WA election, hung parliament, plain packaging (although this eventually turned out OK)...

Perhaps the exception to this has been the NBN (which is fairly widely popular), although that appears to be becoming a political liability of late...

I would have the NBN very firmly in the 'stuff-ups' list from the word go

 

[james4321]

I choose to believe that he will actually be a very good PM and that history will view his long incumbency very kindly..

Well good luck with that ..... I choose to believe that Abbott, Bishop and Pyne (in particular) are a bunch of mediocre - at the very best - players who seem to look good only because of incompetence of their opponents. When they are exposed to the harsh spotlight there will be nowhere to hide. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the Australian public to get sick of their arrogance.

 

[drron]

The ALP may soon be wiped out come September 2013 but for the town of Whyalla, you show some resilience you old town. After Tony declared that you will be dead and buried come July 2012, you are still here come today.

But have you looked at the share prices of 2 of the major employers-Arrium and Bluescope-down over 80%.

 

[drron]

Oh yes - that is entirely possible. You would expect the swings in NSW and WA to be very very large, WA isn't an issue as the ALP almost have nothing left to lose there already but NSW/QLD are a problem as any swing against the ALP will result in the loss of seats. Getting a swing towards the ALP in say TAS and SA is a big ask for few seats but VIC is the ALP's only hope.

Most of the opinion polls since 2011 have predicted anywhere from a mild loss of seats for the ALP all the way through to a total decimation for the federal ALP. I haven't seen any that could be construed as the ALP gaining lots of seats. Its all academic anyway as it will only take a few independants to lose their seat and the ALP couldn't retain government anyway.

Any swing to the ALP in TAS is a big ask with the opinion polls in Bass suggesting a 27% swing to the Libs.

 

[Pushka]

Or maybe just karma.

 

[Rallo]

it's hard to imagine that anybody could screw things up quite so much as Gillard.

Three ingredients

John Hewson ,GST and a cake

 

[Pushka]

Three ingredients

John Hewson ,GST and a cake

Four. It was the icing that did him in wasn't it?

 

[Skyring]

Gough seemed to do a pretty good job of it. Not many a PM gets sacked.[/QOUTE]Yeah. I was just thinking of Gough. He was losing ministers at a steady rate. He misread Joh over the Vince Gair Affair, and again over the Pat Field thing, and he royally misread Kerr. Arrogance reaps its own rewards.

As we're seeing with Julia Gillard. She might think that the leadership question is settled, but nobody else does.

 

[Skyring]

Three ingredients

John Hewson ,GST and a cake

Hewson was never Prime Minister. Keating won in 1993, but the voters booted him out with a vengeance in 1996, setting up Howard for a long term.

We're likely to see Gillard turfed out with similar ferocity. Her poll ratings are going nowhere but down after this latest debacle.

 

[Alanslegal]

If the amount of media venom pointed at Julie Gillard and Labor was reduced by even 2% I bet their polls would bounce up quite a bit but until we get some objective reporting Labor will be falling into that sinkhole. From the reporting we have seen little if any substance from Tony Aboott other than pandering to whomever his audiences is targeted at. He can yell and scream, bounce and shout around, drive trucks up and down the Pacific Hwy for show, wear facial moisturiser because he thinks it suggests he is pro-woman (I do hope he at least cleanses and tones before that) but how will the PM-in waiting tackle the real issues? I have seen/read little ideas and vision that he will take Australia forward. Stuck in conservatism-land will only get you stability - nothing more, nothing less. How will he tackle the 'ageing population' issue that needs to be tackled now? This is a big issue, as the population ages and has longer longevity not only will it affect health policy but also have implications of taxation, superannuation, labour, immigration policies and unless these are addressed now, we will see a lot of ageing population living a below than reasonable life - or future governments struggling to meet the financial burden of this sector of the population. Children born this year will have a median life expectancy of close to 85 years old, so this is a real issue that the LIBs need to consider come 14/9.

 

[Pushka]

But at the moment,the media are simply able to report what is happening because Labor people are crawling out from everywhere to dump on the current situation. They don't even have to embellish anything.

When Gillard calls for the writs, only then will Coalition have access to Treasury to determine the true nature of our financial position and then determine what he can do. He has to be spare on the detail until he has facts to work with.

I'm hoping that the coalition won't mess around with our super funds and limit contributions like labor has just done. The one time I have access to funds to put into our super fund, and have to because of our age, and the labor sees fit to stop me.

 

[casanovawa]

WA has been funded by the rest of OZ for 2 centuries, about time you guys repay the favour.

I don't know about 2 centuries, before federation i don't know what the funding model of the individual colonies would have been...

But the thing is, the factors that have seen a boom in WA, the oil, gas, gold, iron ore, and much of the other mineral wealth have always been here, there has just never been the investment and focus on the State to discover and then the provision of infrastructure to exploit these as its been considered a bit of a backwater... The money was pumped into the car industry on the East Coast, Snowy Mountain Scheme and any other numbers of big industry assistance or projects of national importance... I don't recall anything of that sort here in WA, i mean maybe a railway across the nullabor (not sure when that was laid), the Ord River scheme maybe in the last 15-20 years or so??

Asia also wasn't as big a potential market for much of the last century but certainly will be this century...

I don't think anyone in WA is saying if we're rolling in it, we want to keep it all, its just finally there is a bit of a money about for much needed infrastructure and some development of Perth and maybe even the development of another city or two in the north of the State (which is promising for allowing further development of the north of the State) and we are now having money being taken out via redistribution through the GST... While we may only have around 10% of the population, we are close to a 1/3 of the land mass of the country, that must mean we have some greater infrastructure challenges...

 

[casanovawa]

Sorry but us guys from MEL call ourselves Melburnians. Say Melbournite in MEL, we straight away know you are a foreigner who doesn't the correct grammar for a resident of MEL.

Sydney has no known culture to speak of other then the weekly gun crime culture.

Brisvegas is like Radadelaide, one of them funny nicknames they made for themselves...

Oh there is a whole range of other things that people from Melbourne are called, i was just trying to use one of the more polite ones... But that's cool, i don't want to be mistaken for a local, so i will just use Melbournites still...

 

[browski]

But at the moment,the media are simply able to report what is happening because........

........because they pretty much just make it up.
For the last 5 years there has been NO credible challenge to the PM. None. Rudd wanting to be PM is not the same as having the numbers.
But to see the continual lies in the News Ltd papers and to see those lies taken as truths by simple folk (many examples seen on this forum) has been disappointing.
Just because a lie aligns with your political hope, does not mean it should not be condemned.

Thankfully, people are finding alternate ways to get their info, but it will still take a generation before that turns into a majority trend.