If anyone is super interested, Abbott has released the Liberal's "plans" on how to fix Australia. For those interested in the NBN, nothing much has been said bar an investigation into what would be cheaper.
They should remove him now, but that wont happen, as it will just give ammo to labor.. the same brand of dumb ammo used by the liberals during the Rudd backstabbing lameness.
Why is everyone freaking out about the leader of the LNP? Yeah he's a twat but you're voting for the party and their policies... not just one man.
The concept of anyone voting Labor after their last stint in government is beyond me, you don't have to be intelligent to see how badly they have done. Not to mention the old Carbon Tax....
^ Tony supported a tax until labor supported it and he realised that he could have a political edge by opposing it.
Labor implemented something which works as a tax in the short term. Either way, a tax seems the least damaging way to deal with carbon, which is all that I care about.
Why is everyone freaking out about the leader of the LNP? Yeah he's a twat but you're voting for the party and their policies... not just one man.
If a party can't find a leader that isn't a creep what confidence can I have in that party.... That's why its an issue.. The leader is also the supreme Representative.. He represents our country... do I want that.. representing my country... Hmmm. Ignoring that, I also judge a leader on there ability to lead... oh and not be a complete fucking weirdo.
Not to say that Gillard is any better.. well actually in this case she clearly appears to be a little better.. but her party falls short...
Either way there is no clear good choice, which is why just like last election, voters will remain undecided till last minute.. Unless someone works some fucking magic and makes either candidate actually favorable... which if history taught me anything.. its not going to happen.
If a party can't find a leader that isn't a creep what confidence can I have in that party.... That's why its an issue.. The leader is also the supreme Representative.. He represents our country... do I want that.. representing my country... Hmmm. Ignoring that, I also judge a leader on there ability to lead... oh and not be a complete fucking weirdo..
I agree with you, he is a total twat, but we have to vote on what we're given really... and given the two leaders to choose from there isn't much left to look at other than policies, for me anyway.
Why is everyone freaking out about the leader of the LNP? Yeah he's a twat but you're voting for the party and their policies... not just one man.
His leadership also signifies more about the LNP, in that they kicked out the one dude who actually had any business experience and wasn't a cheap flip flopper like Abbott (just going wherever he can to create a ruckus, as shown in the videos above) because Turnbull supported a policy across the party lines for a pragmatic way to deal with climate change. Abbott's leadership is representative of the LNP's uselessness in practical concerns. It seems more likely that 'any money source, screw the practical concerns raised by the science' worship akin to the US situation is taking root within the LNP, and it's a disturbing thought.
I agree with you, he is a total twat, but we have to vote on what we're given really... and given the two leaders to choose from there isn't much left to look at other than policies, for me anyway.
Even policies are worthless in this day, how many times has a party/politician promised one thing and delivered another... Election time is the worst for it, they often slip of tongue promise something so stupid it just can't be done.. and as citizens we are not expected to be able to compute the logistically ability of that promise on the spot.
Not only that a party no longer stands by its core beliefs... instead they present one thing, and the opposition presents the opposite... its a rare day that you will ever hear either party say "thats a good policy, but we would like do similar but change this". (they can only really agree that boat people = bad.... which lets face it most of us don't really give a shit about)
At the end of the day the majority of people will vote with what ever party they believe fucks them the least... Which isn't how it should be. Australia doesn't need/want a change like they did with howard, they aren't in a terrible position (arguable but lets be generic).
Now married with 2 kids I generally get some form of win initially after any election, but then get shafted again a wee bit later. As a single man I remembered generally always being shafted. Id love to be a small business owner just feel what that kind of political rape would be but I have no desire at this point in my life pursue that dream.
I often ask myself every election "how can i change the current state of politics in australia"... i never find an answer though. This be the world we live in.
here is a novel idea. lets vote on the members merits, and not the prefer party leader, pretty sure the results might result in a better overall leading party
^ Tony supported a tax until labor supported it and he realised that he could have a political edge by opposing it.
But, this is his personal opinion. His personal opinion doesn't enter into party politics. He could support gay marriage to and talk about what he would like to do about it. At the end of the day it would be shot down by the party. Coalition party policy is no carbon tax. Many Coalition politicians on a personal level support a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme, or some kind of plan of some description. Their personal opinions are irrelevant.
Call me selfish, but I'm more concerned about the NBN then boat people.
This is a good thing because boat people are a total non-issue. It has only been made one by the coalition to secure the bigot vote. Gotta keep those brown people out of our pure white land, right?
And with Abbott at the helm Labor is the obvious choice. Put Turnbull in charge and then I'll think about it some more.
The point wasn't that it was liberal policy, it was that he's complete opportunistic slime as a person. Once labor supported a tax, he was out with protesters screaming "no carbon tax", going around using the phrase "big fat tax" when he was directly advocating it multiple times.
Coalition party policy is no carbon tax.
They were pro action until they kicked out their previous leader for Mr Abbott who was suddenly "super anti carbon tax". It's hard to read what his position is now, it appears to just be whatever is most opportunistic at the time.
If the NBN is the only important issue which swings which way you vote. Please vacate the country immediately. Hand in your passport on your way out.
To me it is not the only important issue but probably one of the most important. It is such an awesome piece of infrastructure and it would be a shame to see it shot down just to appease partisans. If the coalition came up with the NBN it would be the greatest thing ever according to its supporters. But because Labor came up with it people just decide to hate it for some reason.
This is a good thing because boat people are a total non-issue. It has only been made one by the coalition to secure the bigot vote. Gotta keep those brown people out of our pure white land, right?And with Abbott at the helm Labor is the obvious choice. Put Turnbull in charge and then I'll think about it some more.
If Joe Hockey or Turnbull were put in charge I'd be voting straight away for them, but at this moment I do not want Tony Abbott leading Australia with his various religious antics and party views that are aimed at like-minded people. If the party can't even give us a solid answer on what they are going to do with the NBN, something that could help push Australia into a more technology secure country then how could we trust him with the rest of the political tasks.
Also the NBN is more a concern to me then anything else because it somewhat helps facilitate my current job and my hobbies.
If you can't use proper. Sentences please. Vacate the country immediately. Hand in your passport on your way out.
Hurrrrrrrrr great comment, A+ would quote again.
fpot - I don't disagree that it isn't an important topic, I think it is very important, infrastructure needs to be updated and properly managed - I just believe if it is the only thing deciding your vote then you need to take a long look at the other policies on offer from both parties.
If the NBN is the only important issue which swings which way you vote. Please vacate the country immediately. Hand in your passport on your way out.
A lot of people will vote because of a single issue. Look at the news, it's boat people, surplus, jobs. It's a bit sad really but there's a lot of shit flying around and do policies mean anything anyway? Are they enforced?
Whatever happend to the site trog was working on, the one that asked a few questions and gave you a party you might like to vote for. That was a good site. I'd like one that compared all the policies of greens, labour, liberals, +whoeverelse. Kinda like comparing specs on a computer.
This is going to be a wipe out for Labor.
The Coalition could score 100 seats.
Its a bit strange to put up a date so far out.
It must be about making sure Krudd cant do a numbers run on her.
It truly is the worst, most incompetent, money wasting Government of all time.
That serial truth dodger has destroyed Labors chances for the next ten years or more. The best hope The ALP has is that she loses her seat so a big broom can go through the Party.
Election September ?
Rudd will be ALP Leader two weeks later.
Man will be on Mars before The NBN is rolled out.
as for her Disability Insurance Scheme ?
How on earth is she going to fund it ?
shes just going to use it to claim The Coalition doesnt care about the disabled.
Its just another unfunded Labor money pit.
There will never be a Disability Insurance Scheme whilst the Budget is in defecit and as we all know very well Labor will never ever deliver a surplus.
Who wants to vote for more of that ?
what are you ?
a glutton for punishment ??
Smart move i say since she is probably counting on everyone being completely sick of phony tony's bitching and moaning negative politics by september. She is probably also well aware that tony would be incapable of going 9 months without making a monsterous cock of himself at some point along the way.
So yeah a long drawn out election where the focus will likely be on letting the libs completely fuck themselves out of the running.
Smart move i say since she is probably counting on everyone being completely sick of phony tony's bitching and moaning negative politics by september. She is probably also well aware that tony would be incapable of going 9 months without making a monsterous cock of himself at some point along the way.
So yeah a long drawn out election where the focus will likely be on letting the libs completely fuck themselves out of the running.
The only hope is if Tony dumbs himself out of the running. He has been doing a good job so far.
I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak.
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I won't be rushing out to get my daughters vaccinated [for cervical cancer], maybe that's because I'm a cruel, callow, callous, heartless bastard but, look, I won't be
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Abortion is the easy way out. It’s hardly surprising that people should choose the most convenient exit from awkward situations.
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I think I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question... it [their virginity] is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don't give it to someone lightly, that's what I would say.
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It would be folly to expect that women would ever approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, their abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.
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While I think men and women are equal, they are also different and I think it's inevitable and I don't think it's a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework
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I want to make it clear that I do not judge or condemn any woman who has had an abortion, but every abortion is a tragedy and up to 100,000 abortions a year is this generation's legacy of unutterable shame
I left out all his science denying climate change ones because apparently he has changed his tune on that to not appear completely insane. There is going to be more gold added to that when the election heats up.
Boat People aren't even a real issue. I hate it's made in an issue and they are labelled as "boat people" in an attempt to demonize them.
I think the main complaint is how much the government just hands to them... and the fact that they carry on like pork chops in the detention/processing centres....
I think the main complaint is how much the government just hands to them... and the fact that they carry on like pork chops in the detention/processing centres....
Instead of getting into a long drawn out argument about why you are wrong, you should just read this instead.
The greens have announced they will be basing their campaign on higher taxes.
Yeah they have really opened the Door to some major criticism by saying that.
I lost all faith in the greens when I heard about their sabotage to local industry in Springbrook.
fpot who will you vote for?
If voting was today, Labor. As I said with Abbott as the opposition leader you'd have to be a real piece of shit to vote for them. I'd also need assurance that the NBN won't be fucked with if I was going to vote for the coalition as well.
I do not want Tony Abbott leading Australia with his various religious antics and party views that are aimed at like-minded people. If the party can't even give us a solid answer on what they are going to do with the NBN, something that could help push Australia into a more technology secure country then how could we trust him with the rest of the political tasks.
This. Abbott is a republican wanna be. do you really want that kind of person as your leader?
Why is everyone freaking out about the leader of the LNP? Yeah he's a twat but you're voting for the party and their policies... not just one man.
Yeah, Pyne is there as well.
Half the appeal of Turnbull is that he is competent and has a clear opinion, the other half is he clearly doesn't like most of the other liberal front-benchers.
NBN is infrastructure, it needs to be rolled out. Having a company own the country infrastructure is just not on. Phone/internet access should be a right of an Australian, not whether the Telstra shareholders feel that its profitable to provide them service. Availability of service needs to be held accountable at a citizen level.
"As a state, when the system brought it down and you couldn't ring an emergency number, well we can't let that happen again."
IT IS FUCKING DISGUSTING. 24 hours without 000 access in half the state. How the hell did nobody die because of this? Or has it just not come out yet? I'm assuming shit will hit the fan over the next week.
Infrastructure needs to be a government problem, no questions asked. The above shows it. Liberals haven't given anything solid, they have only said (as oppositions do) that the proposed solution is the wrong one, and that we should let companies like Telstra help with the infrastructure. The NBN is needed, forget the speeds, because the country should not be relying on a single company.
PS - I've voted liberal more in the past than labour.
Malcolm and Joe will blade Tony a few months after the election.
No they won't, firstly I think its fairly common knowledge now that if you successfully knife the PM your pretty much screwed in the public eye. Secondly, as someone stated on a Q&A panel, Turnbull is very loyal (on the topic of removing Abbott).
Theres a possibility Julia will get rolled by Rudd but there is absolutely no chance Turnbull will ever lead the Liberal Party.
He blew it.
Nick Minchin torpedoed Rudds ETS and The ALP have gone from one disaster to the next.
They are the worst rabble ever elected in this Country and if you care about Australia you will not vote for The ALP. The Party seems to out of control, Gillard apparantly didnt consult Caucus and Swann on ABC tonight on 7.30 was like a deer in headlights.
Id like to call this move Labors worst blunder but there is just too many to choose from.
Julia is basically saying come at me bro. The announcement is great news, I have big money on a Gillard vs Abbott battle and now it would be impossible to change leaders.
This is going to be a wipe out for Labor. The Coalition could score 100 seats.
I doubt it. Labor could just run with some ads which flash up Can-do and O'Farrel to remind half the country of what happens when Libs get a free ticket, let alone Tony Abbot who no one thinks highly of to start with.
also as a geek I hate bullies always have and always will, for this reason I will never vote for a party that has Abbott at the helm in his own words 'he did stupid things when he was at uni' after weeks of denials..
he is a bully, I don't care what anyone says, once a bully always a bully. I think I might just vote for the Pirates party this time around.
Labor's school kids bonus will be axed by a coalition government, with Tony Abbott branding the scheme a "cash splash" totally unrelated to education.
so after practically having the election handed to him, he has just torpedo his chances..
Don't get me wrong, as a single male who pays a crap ton of tax and never gets anything for it, I am all for this policy but I think this will piss off a lot of families
Don't know about other families but our bonus bought the kid's textbooks and uniforms etc. ... so yeh it was directly related to education for us. For once we didn't get a huge start-of-year cashflow drain.
Maybe they could replace it with a tax rebate if they think its being abused?
It didn't really say in the article but I presume it would just go back being a part of tax, in which case only people who don't need to do a tax return will be really affected, except the time of receiving the money(half in Jan, half in June).
Won't let me edit, but my daughters school puts out the booklists in November, uniforms last week of term, school fees at the end of term one, so it's all spread out and I only have shoes and socks to get.
Won't let me edit, but my daughters school puts out the booklists in November, uniforms last week of term, school fees at the end of term one, so it's all spread out and I only have shoes and socks to get.
We have a local joint that lets you place orders from the lists and pick them up in January so its all one single bill.
I think the main complaint is how much the government just hands to them... and the fact that they carry on like pork chops in the detention/processing centres....
I'd vote Libs if big Joe (now little Joe) Hockey was in charge. I like the cut of his jib.
Really ? ... I mean really ?
Stop watching Sunrise.
He's certainly a better option than Abbott... But then so is Julia ... So it's not saying much.
I'd vote liberal in a second if Turnbull was in charge. He at least has the communication skills I require of a leader. (Hockey, Julia and Abbott do not).
Yeah, I agree with Obes. Joe Hockey's a hothead, not PM material yet (if ever).
I find myself drawn to the left of politics for their socially progressive attitude, but turned off by their economic policies. Inversely, the right of politics appeals more from an economic point of view, but their views on many social issues are ridiculous.
If only the coalition would loosen up a little, show a bit more empathy towards their fellow human beings and put Turnbull back in charge the decision might be a lot easier.
so after practically having the election handed to him, he has just torpedo his chances..
Now I wouldn't say that, still a good 9 months to go before the actual election, and right now it isn't looking too well for ol' Abbott.
If they could somehow change the payments to a more secure system that stops abuse, I'd be all for it, but outright cutting it off is somewhat stupid politically and doesn't really help struggling families whose children need education. Education itself should always be a right, not a privilege.
Inversely, the right of politics appeals more from an economic point of view
I've seen them talk about it to the point where it's taken as a given, but I've not seen convincing evidence that one 'side' of politics is necessarily better or worse than the other economically, all things considered such as global events changing revenue at inopportune times.
e.g. If I understand this graph right, in time-adjusted real money, the current government is spending less than the Howard government, including its stimulus programs in response to the ongoing global situation. The labor government is also the one to have reversed the growth-in-spending trend seen through the Howard years. Even their initial increase was presumably caused by the GFC drop in revenue, not necessarily an increase in spending.
Perhaps it's because I look at how much tax gets withheld in each pay cycle and then reflect on that time everyone was happy that they got a $900 handout and our household missed out, yet some members of my family managed to get it twice.
Perhaps it's because I look at how much tax gets withheld in each pay cycle and then reflect on that time everyone was happy that they got a $900 handout and our household missed out, yet some members of my family managed to get it twice.
Perhaps it's because I look at how much tax gets withheld in each pay cycle and then reflect on that time everyone was happy that they got a $900 handout and our household missed out, yet some members of my family managed to get it twice.
I thought that it was poor policy, but later learned that I didn't understand the point. The goal was to get money into tightly-stretched consumer's hands to keep the market moving fluidly, not to refund tax.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but fibre to the node will simply use fibre cabling obviously to the node but continuing using the quite old copper cabling to houses? Doesn't this seem a bit outdated? Or is it just a way to tighten the purse on something that the Coalition doesn't really care about/understand?
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but fibre to the node will simply use fibre cabling obviously to the node but continuing using the quite old copper cabling to houses? Doesn't this seem a bit outdated? Or is it just a way to tighten the purse on something that the Coalition doesn't really care about/understand?
I doubt that they care what any of it means, they are politicians not forward thinking leaders of a community.
Those getting handouts from the Government intend to keep voting Labor ?
Did you ever wonder if maybe the Government is the reaon you need that handout ?
Did you ever wonder where a fair chunk of middle class welfare came from ? (eg. the baby bonus) ps. Labor is the wrong answer. Hint it was 2002.
Or first home owner ? Hint year was 2000.
but infi, how can I afford uniforms and materials for Jaxxon, Jaaydan, Joredean and Mercedes as well as pay the rent on my house in Logan? I'm reliant on those handouts so I don't have to work!
You're forgetting housing commission, how lovely would it be to pay $60 a week instead of a multiple of it.
Welfare helps a hell of a lot of people though, not just your typical dole bludger.
Also there are some very nice places in Logan. They may be slightly underwater arm, but very nice when dry.
but infi, how can I afford uniforms and materials for Jaxxon, Jaaydan, Joredean and Mercedes as well as pay the rent on my house in Logan? I'm reliant on those handouts so I don't have to work!
but infi, how can I afford uniforms and materials for Jaxxon, Jaaydan, Joredean and Mercedes as well as pay the rent on my house in Logan? I'm reliant on those handouts so I don't have to work!
Actually I know about 4 people in my department at work, all full time, all work in IT various roles, all would be screwed if the bonus stopped.
maybe try being less narrow minded. Personally I am against it based on the fact that I think people should put some thought into having kids and if thy can afford them.. but I also know life isn't that simple sometimes..
Maybe parents should pay for theirs kids school books and uniforms with their own money. What a stunning revolutionary concept. Actually no its not.
Many of these parents probably are taxpayers, getting a refund for a targeted economically beneficial activity.
As a 'libertarian', are you against all investment into improving the nation, or just the parts which don't benefit you directly? There are many expenditures which probably benefit you enormously, such as the costs which go into regulating and defending the economic environment propping up the family business which is giving you such an easy run at amazing opportunities in life, which most of the human race can barely even dream of having such chances at. Yet you whinge and sneer at all of it, as if this first world living is such a burden, ignoring how good places like Australia are who invest in public education, while the libertarian wonderlands without any annoying taxing governments investing in regulations and equal futures are nightmares like Somalia.
For the families who aren't taxpayers, investing in their kids having a chance at education is probably even all the more important. Not having kids from poor families turn into a jaded and then probably violent underclass probably benefits you immensely too. I know, I know, you've reasoned that they must be guilty of having made bad decisions to not have simply been born rich and get sent to a private school like you did in all your superior wisdom, and that helping them buy books and uniforms is just reinforcing their poor life choices of not being born to privilege like you so cleverly did. But imagine for a second that they really didn't do anything less clever than you, and that many of them will go to school without more than one uniform every few years, without books, without money for field trips, without money for socialising, without sports, and so on. I never had any of these things, and I'm a stunted mess for it. Don't make more of me, it's a waste of Australians.
Actually I know about 4 people in my department at work, all full time, all work in IT various roles, all would be screwed if the bonus stopped.
maybe try being less narrow minded. Personally I am against it based on the fact that I think people should put some thought into having kids and if thy can afford them.. but I also know life isn't that simple sometimes..
I probably would have waited until I'm financially secure before firing out a couple of kids then expecting the government/general public to pick up the tab.
You are also forgetting Abbott wants to gut the financial aid many university students like myself use to gain to help push through degrees. Or would it be best to cut that because the government isn't "Santa Claus" and clearly everyone who wants a degree should pay for it themselves?
A media release on the current Labor Education Ministers website slamming the opposition's possible plan to cut out a $2050 bonus which I've never heard of before until now?
Sounds like another handout to me! Where do I sign up to these?
Nerf, up until 10 years ago when all this middle class welfare started being doled out, how did people go to school and buy houses and have babies? - they just did. Howard was just as bad with the baby bonus and first home owners grant and family tax benefit.
Middle class don't need handouts to survive, but people always love to get some free money. The pity is it's money that has been earned by someone else. When will we stop stealing money which has been fairly earned to handover to people who have not bothered to earn it?
this is a separate issue from the government safety net.
Nerf, up until 10 years ago when all this middle class welfare started being doled out
By Howard...
But I agree, in principle.
Also, Man up Eorl. I didn't get shit from the government. Not even Aus Study/rent assistance. Parents earned too much and I didn't earn enough to qualify as 'Independent' even though I lived out of home. I made it though, working hard at a shit job and studying. You can too.
Nerf, up until 10 years ago when all this middle class welfare started being doled out, how did people go to school and buy houses and have babies? - they just did. Howard was just as bad with the baby bonus and first home owners grant and family tax benefit.Middle class don't need handouts to survive, but people always love to get some free money. The pity is it's money that has been earned by someone else. When will we stop stealing money which has been fairly earned to handover to people who have not bothered to earn it?this is a separate issue from the government safety net.
Many children, such as myself, went without. It wasn't some cheery fantasy world back then, me and the other low income kids just got mocked for only ever having the one school shirt with paint on it, for not going on excursions, for the school having to find something to do with us because we couldn't afford sports or camps, to borrow other people's calculators and hope that we could scan books in the library, etc.
You live in a bubble of privilege, you have no idea how good you have it that you can be ignorant enough to ask things like "Why don't they just pay for it themselves?"
all the stuff you seem to think are unobtainable without a handout.
And how much of that was your doing, or because you were privileged enough to have an adult who could sort that out for you?
school fees paid by dad
That is not insignificant.
I chose to go into my family business at the sacrifice of my public service career.
You mean that one that you were boasting was netting you deals worth millions from suspicious deals involving private school mates in government? Sounds like a huge sacrifice.
Voting for the coalition is a win-win situation. With the only downside that we will be subjected to Abotts gibbering for a year or so until Malcolm and Joe blade him - in other words short term pain for long term gain.
Losing the next election will be the best thing for the ALP. After they lose the elction they will be forced to rebuild and flush all the turds away like Swanny, Ranga, Krazy Kev, Garret, Roxon, Plibosek and that singing imbecile Emerson. Who knows, with a few years in oppostion with new blood Labor might be worth voting for next election.
You mean that one that you were boasting was netting you deals worth millions from suspicious deals involving private school mates in government? Sounds like a huge sacrifice.
you are clueless, you can't even read the Courier Mail's lies properly. YOU FAIL.
Moreover, are you saying Nerfy that unless someone has made their way through life on the complete bones of their ass with the help of some government handouts they have no right to comment on the public policy debate?
Moreover, are you saying Nerfy that unless someone has made their way through life on the complete bones of their ass with the help of some government handouts they have no right to comment on the public policy debate?
I'm saying don't go judging people for getting given what you probably got given to you. Did you pay for your school uniforms and whatnot? If these kids get a handout to help with such things, will it spoil them any more than if wealthy kids get given them without having earned it themselves either?
I think that these policies could be implemented better where the government buys the uniforms and gear directly, but your snide "let them eat cake" attitude is just demeaning detachment from the realities of many's lives, many of them don't have what you had and can't simply choose to have parents who can afford such things.
infi its funny how you point out aparently lies from the media because id bet my last buck you were 100% sold on the bullshit that was printed about the patricks lock out in 98.
It was from an Australian budget report, though looking at the filename it may have been a forecast from 2010/2011, so might not be how things went. For the life of me, my googling can't fig up a 2012/2013 federal budget vs gdp statement.
Considering that the graph shows estimates from 09/10 onwards it was likely produced pre-30 Jun 2010.
Also not sure why it shows a stacked column with one series being 'states' and the other being 'Commonwealth stimulus and infrastructure funds'. I don't think this graph is showing what you think it does - but without a source to provide context it's impossible to be sure.
Hrm, the only graphs I can dig up are showing cash balance, which isn't as useful without showing tax rates and revenues. I would have thought that percent of gdp would have been widely used to show real spending adjusted to population growth and whatnot.
Has receipts and payments as a percentage of GDP, actuals up to 2010-2011. Can probably put together some interesting graphs from the data.
Also, would like to get some taggs-esque analysis of this:
The $96 billion “Labor debt” inherited by the Howard Government in 1996 comprised $39.9 billion of Fraser Government debt that carried through the Hawke/Keating period meaning that the true level of Labor debt in 1996 was $56 billion. To pay that $56 billion off, the Howard Government sold almost $72 billion of Government assets meaning the move to negative net debt was not really due to any miraculous and bold fiscal settings, but owed everything to a series of asset sales.
Labor rely on buying votes, buzz issues that make no difference and standard sales-type strategies.
Labor: "This car is a great car, it was serviced by the best mechanics in Australia, only done 50k and we guarantee it'll pay for itself in the next 5 years, and we'll give you $900 off!"
Seriously painful, overly obnoxious kid: "You're right, it's brilliant! Another triumph for the most perfect people on the planet!"
Person of reason: "Right, but it says here that it's done 500k, is over priced by $2,700 and it's not actually working..."
Labor: "It's working better than America's!"
So as percent of gdp, the budget has been stuck between 23 and 26% for decades, and neither party has really done much to raise or lower it. All that's really changed is that labor took in a lower percentage of tax throughout both its governments than Howard ever did, hence debt. Isn't that some sort of tax-less-and-see-the-economy-grow economic theory which conservatives love so much?
OK, so I got the budget website's GDP payments and receipts data into a graph. Its probably not 100% accurate and I think there's an off by one error depending on how you treat financial years and parliament terms but these boundaries are always messy (a Government doesn't magically change anything in 12 months for example). The label is the START of the financial year, not the end, so the end of the graph is the 2012-2013 estimate, and the data point marked '2011' is the 2011-2012 financial year...
I'm terrible at excel so to make things clearer 0 is actually 20, so the top of the graph is 28% and the bottom is 20%.
Left to right is Fraser (blue), Hawke-Keating (red), Howard (blue), Rudd-Gillard (red). Worth noting that Howard was the treasurer for the period of the Fraser Government shown after Fraser sacked Lynch in 1977.
It looks to me like the pendulum is swinging back into the black following the GFC (similar to the convergence in the mid-90s after the recession?), and the Howard government experienced unusual stability in Receipts. C/D?
Is there a way to get the graph to print on a normalised range? (e.g. 0 to 100% of GDP) to show how much variability we're talking about in these jumps and dips?
Does anybody know why the labor government is taxing so much less of Australia's total prosperity than Howard did? I'm wondering if that's intentional, or say a side effect of various cutoffs being influenced by the GFC, in some complex way.
Is there a way to get the graph to print on a normalised range? (e.g. 0 to 100% of GDP) to show how much variability we're talking about in these jumps and dips?
This is with a 0-index graph: To get 0-100 you could just increase the canvas I guess? :)
To get 0-100 you could just increase the canvas I guess? :)
It highlights pretty well how no governments have massively deviated from a fairly set spending line, and that labor is seemingly taxing less of Australia's production than Howard ever did, which doesn't really fit with the narrative which some have put forward.
edit: So I'm not 100% sure if I understand this correctly, I've never really looked into the subject matter, but, in full proper context:
Does anybody know why the labor government is taxing so much less of Australia's total prosperity than Howard did?
Because tax receipts dried up in particular company tax receipts after the GFC. Normally one cuts their spending back too in order to keep tight lid on things but instead they just kept on spending.
Don't worry though, Labor are trying to kick start their tax receipts with the Carbon Tax and Mining Tax though (and a raid on super funds is not out of the question) - they want to get as much tax as they can from Australians for their social handout programs.
I wouldn't get too excited about low-tax post-GFC though. What happened there was that growth stalled and companies didn't make a lot of money so there wasn't as much to tax. Labor's reaction was to increase spending via borrowing and throw some money around to turn the economy over.
There are lots of arguments for and against this. I think its pretty clear that Howard wouldn't have delivered a surplus here, you'd have to increase tax rates / make new taxes / severely crush programs to make that happen, and in a period of economic uncertainty this might not have been the best plan.
The most interesting part of the graph to me is the reduction in spending as the receipts picked up and the economy recovered. The trend to surplus is almost undeniable and is completely incompatible with the 'out of control spending' line we're being given by the Coalition.
Because tax receipts dried up in particular company tax receipts after the GFC. Normally one cuts their spending back too in order to keep tight lid on things but instead they just kept on spending.
'Normally'? Who did this in response to the GFC? What fiscal management methodology are you espousing here?
Don't worry though, Labor are trying to kick start their tax receipts with the Carbon Tax and Mining Tax though (and a raid on super funds is not out of the question) - they want to get as much tax as they can from Australians for their social handout programs.
The receipts are clearly recovering pre-carbon tax. This is a lie, and the graph shows spending has been reducing for years, with it now below most of Howard's term as a percentage of GDP.
Aren't those dips recession/GFC? Taxes are based on earning so it'd only make sense if tax revenue dropped dramatically during those times. On the other hand Howard had a financial boom.
I think they much rather give out short term handouts like baby bonus and first home buyers that they can easily end when tax revenue drops again than make tax cuts since they are much harder politically to revert.
But we're looking at percentage of GDP - if lowered production meant lowered taxes, the effects would cancel each other out on this chart (i.e. this isn't saying that they're getting less in tax, it's saying that of the total economy, they're actually collecting a smaller percentage). It seems that either labor lowered taxes, or less of the production was making it over the thresholds where tax increases, post-GFC, or maybe GDP isn't income and I don't understand it well enough.
The trend to surplus is almost undeniable and is completely incompatible with the 'out of control spending' line we're being given by the Coalition.
Yeah this stood out to me, I need to look into it further. I know that the NBN isn't being spent on budget, but with debt/bonds/whatever which investors get paid back on once the NBN business receives customer fees (a separate business affair basically).
But we're looking at percentage of GDP - if lowered production meant lowered taxes, the effects would cancel each other out on this chart
Government spending is largely fixed and doesn't vary with the economic situation - people don't get healthier or need less education because economic activity has slowed. If anything it gets worse as more people become unemployed or have trouble finding work and turn to the Government for support.
The reason that GDP seemed the useful measure is because raw dollar values don't take into account things like population growth, where the number of kids in school, number of people needing hospitals, etc, does change, and the percentage being taxed of the total economic production seems the only consistent way of measuring over time. I guess that you'd want to compare GDP growth to population growth.
If taxes went down because total production went down, there would be no drop on this chart, since it's one being the percentage of the other. The only way that I can see that happening is if people dropped under tax thresholds, but for such a big drop it seems unlikely.
i.e. if the Government is taxing 30% of the economy, but its 30% of a lower total after the GFC, it would still show up as 30% before and after on this chart.
edit: Actually, GDP kept going up even with the GFC, so they're possibly able to pay for the same amount with less tax, though I don't know if the tax drop matches the growth in GDP, nor why we didn't see tax drops through the Howard years.
The only way that I can see that happening is if people dropped under tax thresholds, but for such a big drop it seems unlikely.i.e. if the Government is taxing 30% of the economy, but 30% is worth less due to the GFC, it would still show up as 30% before and after on this chart.
The Government isn't 'taxing 30% of production'. Income tax is only 30-40% of the Government's taxation and only levied on individuals.
Income tax is only 30% of the Government's taxation. When profits fell after the GFC receipts also fell.
But if profits fell, wouldn't GDP have fallen? And then wouldn't the tax still be a persistent ratio?
This is from 2006:
My naive understanding of GDP means that if any of those sources fell, then GDP would have fallen, and so a persistent tax-of-total-production ratio would still be evident, unless government changed tax policies or people found a way to have less of their income go to tax, or GDP isn't reflective of some of these things.
Not exactly, because it doesn't take into account that the Howard government was taxing much higher to be able to have that tax surplus, and was probably hurting business for it, going by conservative reasoning.
i.e. If the same amount of the economy was being taxed as it was under Howard years, then we would be in surplus. But that's not necessarily a good thing aside from that it means that we're not building any debt - it mostly just means that we're taxing more than we need to.
My naive understanding of GDP means that if any of those sources fell, then GDP would have fallen, and so a persistent tax-of-total-production ratio would still be evident, unless government changed tax policies or people found a way to have less of their income go to tax, or GDP isn't reflective of some of these things.
The various taxation streams don't have a 1:1 relationship with GDP, and in particular profit taxes will vary significantly if growth shifts year on year. Not quite sure how else to put it, but there's lots of reports of low company receipts.
I don't actually know much anything about GDP, I just thought that it was all "all national income in some fancy measurement system", so if taxes fell because businesses were doing worse, then GDP would have fallen, and tax ratio wouldn't change.
GDP is a measure of goods and services created by a country. For example, BHP could be exporting billions of dollars worth of dirt and that would go towards GDP, but at the same time because they are reinvesting in their assets they may end up showing next to no profit and company tax is paid on profit after expenses.
Ah so it's not just profits? Well, that's now officially confusing. Any idea if there's a measurement of all taxable profits generated in a country? I'd like to see tax as a ratio of that.
So as percent of gdp, the budget has been stuck between 23 and 26% for decades, and neither party has really done much to raise or lower it.
Australian GDP was ~$1.37 trillion in FY11, 1% of this is $13.7 billion. These are not trivial numbers and movements within this range have material impacts on the economy.
Wouldn't this be reflected in a lower GDP too?
No, not necessarily. Tax receipts are not perfectly correlated with GDP, nor are they necessarily well correlated with GDP at all depending on the circumstances.
I don't actually know much anything about GDP
GDP is a measure of the final goods and services produced in an economy, measured by:
Y = C + I + G + NX
where Y = GDP/national income, C = consumption, I = investment, G = government spending and NX= net exports. Also note that these terms have specific meanings under GDP accounting conventions that may differ from the layperson's meaning.
It is possible to have situations where GDP rises but tax receipts fall, for example if the government borrows to increase spending. This pushes up GDP and has zero direct impact on tax receipts.
GDP is a measure of goods and services created by a country. For example, BHP could be exporting billions of dollars worth of dirt and that would go towards GDP, but at the same time because they are reinvesting in their assets they may end up showing next to no profit and company tax is paid on profit after expenses.
Important to note that the revinvestment in the company's assets would also count towards GDP (or less likely consumption depending on the nature of the spending and its classification under GDP accounting conventions).
Ah so it's not just profits? Well, that's now officially confusing. Any idea if there's a measurement of all taxable profits generated in a country? I'd like to see tax as a ratio of that.
Taxable corporate profits = corporate tax receipts * (1/t) where t = company tax rate.
I will vote for Labor for a few reasons, partly due to their social policy and ideology, partly because of the NBN and partly because of the fact that I find Tony Abbott to be a twat.
Basically what this thread has told me so far, is that the whole "liberal party are economic gods" is actually not true - or at least as true as Tony Abbott and his mob would like us to believe.
Australian GDP was ~$1.37 trillion in FY11, 1% of this is $13.7 billion. These are not trivial numbers and movements within this range have material impacts on the economy.
Oh I understand this, I just meant that there's a rather linear average which neither government has really gotten away from. The previous lib government may have spent a bit less (which the current labor government seems to have returned to), yet they unnecessarily overtaxed, which is the real reason that they're able to say "surplus".
If Turnbull were leading the LNP, decided to not dismantle the NBN, allowed a conscience vote on gay marriage, and stopped talking about "stop the fucking boats" then I would probably vote LNP. PROBABLY :)
Oh I understand this, I just meant that there's a rather linear average which neither government has really gotten away from. The previous lib government may have spent a bit less (which the current labor government seems to have returned to), yet they unnecessarily overtaxed, which is the real reason that they're able to say "surplus".
Not sure I'm happy with 'taxed too much' but they had a very stable tax base.
The Coalition didn't face a contracting tax base at any point in the Howard Government's term, they literally had more money every single year, despite a seemingly endless spree of tax cuts. In the early 90s and during the GFC the ALP had to manage periods where for a few years there was LESS money than they year before.
I'm happy to listen to how Howard and Costello pulled that off, as in what policies they implemented to stabilise the tax base, but to be honest it feels like they were just lucky to have presided over a period between major global downturns? And with the data I can find showing the Government returning to surplus in the next term ... why exactly do I vote Coalition this time?
The previous lib government may have spent a bit less (which the current labor government seems to have returned to), yet they unnecessarily overtaxed, which is the real reason that they're able to say "surplus".
Firstly, a surplus or deficit is necessarily a function of both income and expenditure.
Secondly, the use of the phrase "unnecessarily over-taxed" is a bit of a strange one to me and makes no sense. Governments don't get to decide ex-post on how much of national income they are going to tax. Running a surplus is not a symptom of the rate of taxation being higher than optimal.
I also think you're confusing rates of taxation with the amount of tax receipts when you say things like "unnecessarily overtaxed".
I like Turnbull, mostly, but he's not perfect. I mean wtf is this? Soon as the election was announced, he posted:Sounds like the crocodile tears of any politician to me.
im not jewish or into religion in any meaningful way and i would be annoyed if they held an election on christmas day, or good friday so wouldn't it stand to reason that someone who has a large jewish population in his electorate would be reflective of their thoughts on this subject which im going to assume is annoyance?
Well, maybe it's just because I'm dead on the inside and don't particularly like Christmas or any of those other days, but I don't really give a shit when the election is. Mostly though it just sounds like blatant political point scoring to me. People can postal vote before if they really need to, every day is important to somebody or other.
FEDERAL Attorney-General Nicola Roxon is reportedly about to resign from the cabinet.
The Australian on Saturday said Ms Roxon would step down from her portfolio and retire from politics at the September 14 election.
The reports were supported by tweets from Sky News host Peter van Onselen and Seven Network's Mark Riley suggesting Ms Roxon's impending resignation.
"Nicola Roxon to resign from cabinet early tomorrow," van Onselen tweeted late on Friday night.
Ms Roxon's apparent departure comes on the heels of news that the government leader in the Senate, Chris Evans, will resign from the ministry on Saturday.
Faceman last photo of Gillard I thought made her look 5-10kgs lighter and it was her behind a podium announcing the election. Maybe the change in glasses is to do with that either her face shape has changed due to loss of weight or the glasses just gave that illusion...
Labor believes rich get too much from super concessions
With a Treasury analysis showing the value of concessions is heavily skewed to higher-income earners, the government will be arguing any changes are designed to ensure the spread of concessions is more equitable.
The Treasury analysis shows, for example, the tax concession on super earnings was worth an average of $900 per person in 2009-10 but was worth an average of $10,600 for the top 1 per cent of income earners.
Treasury says that when support provided through a combination of super tax concessions and the age pension are combined, most people will receive about $270,000 of support over their lifetime, while the top 1 per cent of male income earners will receive about $520,000 of support.
How much does a person have to earn to be in "the top 1% of income earners"?
How much does a man have to earn to be in "the top 1% of male income earners"?
higher income tax payers have already had their ability to minimise tax through super massively reduced by cutting the maximum contribution rate from $100,000 per year to $25,000 per year.
the government has no idea the damage they are causing through the law of unintended consequences. what happens now when a taxpayer has a few lean years and doesn't contribute? there is no way to catch up in the boom years. cutting the maximum contribution by 3/4/ there will be more taxpayers with insufficient savings and ultimately on the pension.
Awesome work Swanny - Super is supposed to get people OFF the pension.
One would argue infi that if you are able to contribute over 100k to super each year, then you probably don't need additional support or concessions from the government to support yourself when you're retired. I would say $25k is considerable given that's in addition to the normal 9% from your job.
You going to seriously argue that point when Abbott is going to remove super concessions for low income earners which will effect 3.6 million people?
Is it fair that the surgeon who earns $400k per year should only be able to accumulate up the limit of $25k. Or the farmer who many years will not be able to put any super away due to poor weather conditions will be limited to $25k in their boom years?
Everyone should be able to utilise the tax benefits of super and to suggest a person has larger tax benefits because they are dealing with larger amounts of income is a distorted argument. It supposes that every person should equally benefit from the power of superannuation rebates - people who save more super benefit more from it as a matter of scale.
The problem is that there is a cost involved in these sorts of concessions. In an ideal world we should do both, but I would rather the concessions are available for lower income earners first.
Should people who are earning $400k a year and are able to put $100k in super be benefiting from those concessions - or should we perhaps put that money into other services, or perhaps allow concessions for lower income earners.
"I don't want to earn $400k per year because I'm going to get taxed 50% and wont' get concessions. I'm going to earn $40k instead??". Bullshit. I would rather earn $400k, $200k after tax but probably $300k after 'creative accounting' and then go on a fucking epic holiday for a month every year.
If you earn $400k a year or more you shouldn't need handouts or concessions from the government. You should be able to live a comfortable life style and support your family. You should be able to retire with enough super / investments.
Yep, I earn $1300 a day and still have to steal lollipops from kids to get by. It's a tragedy I tell ya. I deserve more handouts and less tax. I deserve to fly 1st class instead of that shitty business class. I should be staying at Government House instead of the Hilton when I travel. It's so fucking hard for me to live here and enjoy the fruits of my hard labour.
If Labor wins the next election, i hope they increase taxes on hard working people and wealth creators so that extra welfare programs can be created and expanded for people like me.
Zapo, infi has drunk so much of the ideological koolaid on these topics that you may as well just imagine the most hysterical over-exaggerated impersonation that you can, and then realise that's infi.
If you break your own legs infi, you might qualify for wheelchair assistance too. Wheelchair assistance systems just screams "Fuck yourself over, the assistance which you can claim is totally worth more."
i hope they increase taxes on hard working people and wealth creators
By percent of GDP, labor is taxing less than the Howard government did. Using the rba's inflation calculator, by inflation they're also taxing slightly less than the Howard government.
CHUB, so it's welfare if I talk about it, but infi talks about the same program for higher income earners and that's OK? Piss off. You're just being a greedy fuck.
I just want a politician to have the balls to reduce the over generous tax breaks on Negatively Geared Property.
It has made a basic home and rent unaffordable. Its like a massive invisible vampire that is sucking the life out of the economy only to benefit a few property speculators.
How crazy is it that if you work hard your savings get taxed and yet if I go out and speculate on overpriced investment property the Government actually pays me for the losses?
Things are obviously out of balance but its political suicide to make any major adjustments to Negative Gearing.
I think removing stamp duty on buying houses would be a great move and would probably help reduce the need for a FHOG. Whether we come out with a positive after you weigh up the gains and losses to Government revenue though I dunno. Governments of all persuasion seem to rely on stamp duty as a tidy earner.
We should be encouraging taxpayers to accumulate wealth and celebrating each and every person who is independently wealthy enough to not go onto the pension.
Instead Labor looks at Super as a way to supplement its budget bottom line. Sad.
If you earn $50k a year you are entitled to various concessions to help supplement your income given your wage is quite low. Tax benefits, super breaks, family benefits etc etc.
If you earn $400k a year you are entitled to spend that money, you will have more money than someone earning $50k. To say you are entitled to concessions or tax relief is absurd. Why on earth would the government continue programs that cost significant funds when there are people under or on the poverity threshold. Money to help support you when you're earning well and truly enough to support yourself.
If the dole was such a great lifestyle then why aren't we all unemployed? It's not, it's shit, so is earning $50k a year and trying to support your family. You seriously want to argue a sense of entitlement for someone who can afford to put more than $125k a year into super??
Yeah, everyone knows by now that it's political suicide to kill off negative gearing. So how do you kill it off?
You introduce some kind of concession that makes it more beneficial to not have a negatively geared property.
For example, maybe you introduce a new concession which you can't claim if you have anything negatively geared. Perhaps it's a concession that only people who live on a property they own can claim (but not so obvious, because it needs to be something which won't inflate the market.) So then people will say "well, actually I'm better off if I claim that one rather than negative gearing". Of course you'll get people whinging that they're not eligible for this new handout, but some smart cookie will find a way around it.
Remove negative gearing and the FHOG completely. You'd probably need to phase out the former (possibly retain it in some reduced capacity) but the latter can just be cut off.
Make mortgage interest (up to some reasonable cap) on the family home tax deductible. The idea here is to shift the tax break from landlords to owner-occupiers with close to 0 net effect to the budget balance sheet and as close to 0 effect on property prices as possible.
You'll piss off some people and make (lots of) others happy.
IANAME ... but I THINK that phasing out neg gearing will collapse the supply of rental property ... but the new tax breaks for home owners could cause a shift from renting to buying? If the timing is appropriate and the targets carefully tuned then demand from people trying to enter the owner's market would be meeting supply from landlords seeking to exit property investments?
The first Newspoll conducted since Julia Gillard called the election for September 14 puts Tony Abbott ahead in the preferred prime minister stakes.
It shows Labor's primary support has plunged six points to 32 per cent while the coalition's has lifted four points to 48 per cent in the past three weeks.
And it gives the coalition a massive 56 to 44 per cent lead in the two-party preferred figure
Of course Amanda Vanstone is going to say that, all she wants to do is try to destabilise the government even more. So fucking sick of this Kevin Rudd is coming back from the grave BS.
Of course Amanda Vanstone is going to say that, all she wants to do is try to destabilise the government even more. So fucking sick of this Kevin Rudd is coming back from the grave BS.
I'd be much happier with that article if it was from Richo. He's been pretty much bang on for years now when it comes to Labor politics, I'm sure he pisses a few people off because he's not always complimentary :)
lol, at this point in the game it'd be suicide to switch to Rudd before the election and load the coalition with enough ammo to see them through til the 2016 campaign. After, maybe.
Vanstone and news.com.au are both being mischievous imps in that article, but can you blame them? Labor has a penchant for ousting sitting PMs.
celebrating each and every person who is independently wealthy
So long as we don't have to celebrate the mere inheritors who go on with fictions about how independently wealthy and evidently superior they are all the fucking time.
So long as we don't have to celebrate the mere inheritors who go on with fictions about how independently wealthy and evidently superior they are all the fucking time.
Rudd has no chance, he is a ridiculous cartoon that the media loves to prod and feed off.
i received an invitation in the mail today from mr kevin rudd himself, inviting me to a game of barefoot bowls at the coorparoo bowls club this friday. i don't think i'll be going.
More Labor fail..
This is what they replaced kevin Rudd for:
THE mining tax, which the Federal Government needs to fund projects worth billions of dollars, raised just $126 million in its first six months.
The failure of the tax had been the Government's most embarrassing fiscal secret.
Originally the tax was to raise $4 billion a year, then $3 billion. But late last year that figure was downgraded to $2 billion.
The $126 million for the first two quarters of the tax indicates the full year's tax revenue will be nowhere near the revised target, even though mineral prices are on the rise.
More voters would prefer Malcolm Turnbull to be opposition leader over Mr Abbott, although his strongest support comes from Labor and Greens supporters.
Among Coalition voters, Mr Abbott is more popular.
source As a lefty voter and occasional Labor supporter, who is friends with people of similar opinions I think LNP would see a lot more support if Abbott wasn't the party leader.
Polls change all the time though, so we'll probably see Abbott/LNP sink and Labor/Gillard go up and down a few more times before the election.
Not true, because Turnbull would turn off a lot of working middle class voters (men) who align with Abbott. Why woul'd the Libs try and reach for an unnatural constitutency?
The nail in the coffin, is that inside the party, Turnbull is not trusted after he sold the Libs out on the ETS. Turnbull won't be leader anytime soon, so yeah...
Turnbull is not trusted after he sold the Libs out on the ETS. Turnbull won't be leader anytime soon, so yeah...
What do you mean sold them out? They were the ones who sold him out, kicking out the one self-made guy with any real credentials and experience once they realised that such people don't live in their fairy tale climate denial land, and put in a failed monk, at which point they became a pitiful no-no. They sold him and themselves out that day.
Abbott will have a mandate to eviscerate AGW funding.
Labor’s support, which had climbed into the mid-30s, has now collapsed, plunging it back towards landslide-losing territory were an election held now.
Its primary vote stands at just 30 per cent, a dip of 5 points since the last survey in December and a mere 4 points above its nadir of 26 per cent in May 2012…
On a two-party-preferred basis, Labor’s support languishes at 45 per cent to 55 per cent for the Coalition, according to voter feedback on the direction of second preferences.
So a right-wing paper journalist, who seems to be a bit of a jesus nut going by his history, complains about the party which campaigns for things like stopping the christian hostility towards homosexuals, not invading iraq, and dealing with the carbon problem, uses rhetoric like "get on the first boat to cuba and leave us normal people alone." Stop the presses.
Woah, Turnbull is the richest politician in Australia. Reading his career section on wiki makes me think he's a has some skills outside of being a scumbag politician.
Woah, Turnbull is the richest politician in Australia. Reading his career section on wiki makes me think he's a has some skills outside of being a scumbag politician.
greazy is that just a generalism about pollies or do you think Turnbull is a scumbag in his own right? Just curious.
Personally i like him, he seems much more collected then the sum of his peers and every time he has been on Q&A he out shines his opposite and both sides of the audience have a love fest.
...tell 'em to cancel this meeting at 6 o'clock will you, I don't have the time or the fucking patience to deal with that while these monkey bars are taunting me. ARGH! Just fucking hopeless!
Also, Joe Hildebrand sounds like he was about to blow a gasket. Calm down son, by September it'll all be a memory.
Haven't read this but I'm starting to collect data for http://trog.qgl.org/voteomatic ; hoping to capitalise on people's feedback. If you're interested in helping out with collecting policy information please let me know.
why would shorten jump into the breach now just to get blown away at the election. He will let Gillard reap what she has sown and pick up the pieces from opposition.
there may not be enough Rudd supporters left after the election to get Rudd on top.
Rudd should form his own Party.
I dont think Labor represents anyone anymore, its so broken, its lied to so many ppl, what does Labor stand for ?
Abbott is going to have a monsterous majority in the HoR and if the Senate refuses to scrap the Carbon Tax he will have the Senate too.
I see today hes said the Coalition will keep the pension increases of the Carbon tax and the tax breaks for low income earners.
Thats surely the end for Labor.
Interesting, and same. Though it seems to be set to 2010 positions, and I don't entirely trust parties to do what they say anyway.
You should vote for...
The results listed here show which parties you had the most matches for. It currently uses a very basic matching system: if you agree with a policy (either oppose or support), it counts as 'one match'.
I thought that the Greens would be down since I am pro nuclear, and didn't really choose any conservation stuff aside from carbon pricing. Maybe it was all the gay rights stuff, but I would have thought that the Sex Party would match them on that...
Lol at the Christian Democratic Party matching 1 of my values.
Socialist Alliance - 30 matches!
Australian Greens - 30 matches!
Australian Labor Party - 17 matches!
Australian Sex Party - 14 matches!
Australian Democrats - 13 matches!
Secular Party of Australia - 12 matches!
Liberal Party of Australia - 12 matches!
The Liberal Democratic Party - 12 matches!
National Party of Australia - 11 matches!
Family First Party - 8 matches!
Democratic Labour Party - 5 matches!
One Nation Party - 2 matches!
Christian Democrat Party - 1 matches!
Maybe trog's just rigged it to tell everybody that the socialist alliance matches all of their positions, because he's part of a nefarious communist plot.
Trog, If your vote-o-matic is suggesting people should vote for the Socialist Alliance then it's very broken.
The Socialist Alliance is a generic run of the mill far left extremist party which employs "eddy everywhere" tactics(ie; Supporting/jumping on the bandwagon of populist polices/ideas such as marriage equality etc) because they know they can't campaign on their extremist values and ideas, so they hope to score votes from unsuspecting voters convinced/tricked by their eddy everywhere tactic.
It's the same story with the Socialist Alternative, Australian Communist Party, Revolutionary Communist Party etc etc. They are a dime a dozen.
Have to take everything that Sheer says about the dreaded leftists with a grain of salt, he agrees with infi and cites Andrew Bolt.
They however have a shit website and say that they are against "capitalism", without specifying what they necessarily mean by that word. They are right though in that the two major parties are useless on ethical issues such as equality of marriage.
The Socialist Alliance is a loose grouping of 5 polygamous ex- and current university students (though none of their degrees could ever result in gainful employment). They live communally and pool their Newstart to afford things like bicycles and rainforest alliance fair trade coffee. They don't believe in property so they discipline each other's children. The Socialist Alliance is only running for politics in the Senate to try and get some runners up cash to buy marijuana. They wouldn't actually go to Canberra if elected because this would interfere with their schedule of gate crashing G8 conferences. If elected though, they would support ratification of the UN Convention on Gay Animal Rights.
Trog, If your vote-o-matic is suggesting people should vote for the Socialist Alliance then it's very broken.
A lot of young people would have on paper egalitarian ideals that reflect what the greens and socialist alliance policies stand for. Shocking though it may sound.
The Labor party isn't a credible progressive party of the left anymore, they're centrist at best.
This is what I got. Kinda right, I voted greens then SA in the last lot of state elections.
Trog, If your vote-o-matic is suggesting people should vote for the Socialist Alliance then it's very broken.
Is it broken? They're your preferences and they're matches with known party policies.
I got a lot of feedback from people saying the same thing - "your dumb page says I should vote Labor, but I'm a Liberal supporter!"
I couldn't figure out how to respond to them because it was clear they missed the point. They weren't checking their assumptions. If you grow up with a near-religious affiliation to a party because of your household and vote that way "because that's what I've always done" they probably have no idea what their parties polices actually are.
This version, admittedly, is basic. The next version will allow weighting on policy issues which should yield much better results. But I would say that if you got told that your responses matches with the Socialist Alliance's policies, maybe they're not that bad a fit for you.
But, all feedback is appreciated. I really want to make this work ; understanding who to vote for is really hard because there are so many issues to take into consideration. I don't expect people to make a decision based on what this tool tells them, but I hope it gives them more information on which they case base a better decision.
i think a simple way to weight issues trog would be to allow the user to deisgnate the issue as major, minor or a fringe issue. As such scores would be weighted 3 points, 2 points 1 point, and would prevent all the fringe issues from distorting the response.
But TBH if you were really weighting proportionately, economy for example might weight 10 vs gay dolphin rights and access to adoption by gay dolphins might be 1 (or 2).
Your vote-o-matic has me debating to myself. I want LGBT equal rights, IVF medicare rebates for people with medical conditions making it difficult to conceive, but not if the people are fit and healthy. A lesbian couple that are fit an healthy should therefore not get a medicare rebate for IVF. So at first thought I think, that goes against equal rights. But Wait! It is still equal as the IVF rebate is based on medical fitness not the persons sexuality so they shouldn't get IVF rebates, therefore equal rights still stand. OK I'm good.
But, all feedback is appreciated. I really want to make this work ; understanding who to vote for is really hard because there are so many issues to take into consideration. I don't expect people to make a decision based on what this tool tells them, but I hope it gives them more information on which they case base a better decision.
I hope nobody makes a decision on the results either, anybody paying minor attention to politics should know where they fall in the spectrum.
The idea of a simple form that can evaluate policy measures and spit out who you should vote for sounds nice in theory. The world is a little more complex than that though. Where in the form does it take into account policy execution history, policy feasibility & broken promises rather than just pre-election announcements?
Oh jesus faceman, still having a wank over that dishonest misrepresentation created by Andrew Bolt? Some people are just relentless liars. You've already been told that the guy was talking about possible implications in Queensland, where less of regular rainfall might maybe reach the dams due to increased soil evaporation.
Yeah, I would consider it 'Broken' only because of the (Very Important IMO) weight that some issues would carry, while other's are more 'Yeah, that would be nice but I don't really care and it wouldn't affect my final vote'
My top 2 with 'Count Negatives' is fine with me though.
i think a simple way to weight issues trog would be to allow the user to deisgnate the issue as major, minor or a fringe issue. As such scores would be weighted 3 points, 2 points 1 point, and would prevent all the fringe issues from distorting the response.
Yep, that is sort of what I am leaning towards. Though I am wondering if you should be able to nominate some policies as "dealbreakers".
As an example, say you are pro gay marriage to the point where it is a really major election issue for you. If a party has a clear anti-gay marriage policy, you might want to always exclude that party just on that basis.
I hope nobody makes a decision on the results either, anybody paying minor attention to politics should know where they fall in the spectrum.
Well, that is sort of the entire point. Most people don't even pay minor attention to politics - just what they see or hear in media. Having a way to do a basic broad spectrum analysis of policies I thin is really important.
The idea of a simple form that can evaluate policy measures and spit out who you should vote for sounds nice in theory. The world is a little more complex than that though. Where in the form does it take into account policy execution history, policy feasibility & broken promises rather than just pre-election announcements?
Broken promises and some sort of way to cross reference their words with their actions is something that I think DEFINITELY needs to built in there.
I'll be voting for SPA, though a few of my votes tend to get thrown the way of the democrats and Libs.
There's a lot of that stuff on the list I just don't know enough about or care about at the moment to pick one way or another. The rule of thumb is this: If you do anything at all that pushes a religious agenda, I'll vote for your polar opposite.
Have to take everything that Sheer says about the dreaded leftists with a grain of salt,
I only have a problem with far left extremists who pretend they support something popular to use it as a disguise for their extremist views.
You can't honestly tell me that you would actually vote for a far left wing extremist party?
Is it broken? They're your preferences and they're matches with known party policies. I got a lot of feedback from people saying the same thing - "your dumb page says I should vote Labor, but I'm a Liberal supporter!" I couldn't figure out how to respond to them because it was clear they missed the point.
Trog, my point is that people doing your "vote-o-matic" will ALWAYS get the Socialist Alliance at the top because they are a "eddy everywhere" party as i describe above. Support anything and everything populist to score as many free votes from unsuspecting voters. They would dump all those polices if they got any credible power and just go to their real agenda that they desperately try to disguise.
What if there was an Australian Nazi Party and they employed the "eddy everywhere" tactic. We would know what their real agenda is, but they would appear the top because of the eddy everywhere tactic. Would you be fine with them being at the top of everyone's test being who people should vote for?
You need to come up with a way to overcome this flaw when you reorganize it for this years election.
I'll be voting for SPA, though a few of my votes tend to get thrown the way of the democrats and Libs.
SPA probably didn't rank as highly because (IIRC) they had a lot of blanks in their policies compared to the other parties. The Socalist party scored highly because they had a lot more data.
SheerObesity: good point and ^ that is basically the explanation as to why that happened. I think a sliding scale will help somewhat as well but it also needs some control around how the the actual intent and behaviour of a party matches with the actual party line.
While Labor are pretty bad, is electing a religious fundamentalist any worse? It's third party voting time for me this election!
But of course, Abbott's politics aren't governed by his faith and all those bad things he said in the past he doesn't think any more. What an amazing coincidence that he had this change of heart when an election is called.
The most important part of that article is how it mentions he is still opposed to gay marriage. The only reason to oppose it is because of silly religious values. Hopefully some of the more sensible members of his party will keep him in check when he is elected.
All I want is to keep the MRRT with the removal of royalties, ETS, NBN, NDIS, Gonski reforms and same sex marriage. Outside of that I don't give a rats.
All is still lost. They haven't "bounced back" they have gone slightly up in the polls, but they are still that low they will get annihilated at an election. This isn't the first time or the last time they will go slightly up in the poll.
Also lol @ "australia will come to its senses in time" line. Australia has come to its senses, hence why Labor is so low in the polls. Labor is toxic and will remain toxic until it is annihilated and rebuilt.
In case you havent heard the ALP are trying introduce rediculous Media reforms next week and the Bill will not bbe altered and there is to be one vote several days later.
The Daily telegraph ran this yesterday on the Tabloid :
Quite an insulting thing to do and today the Tele apologised....
WHat do ppl think of this ?
Its an extraordinary attack on Conroy and The ALP but its also fair to say the ALPs plans are a terrible attack on the Press.
What the hell is going on in the ALP ?
There were rumours today Bill Shorten was going to made Treasurer and Swann sacked.
I don't think that you are sure of what you say when you say the word 'media'
what do you mean when you say that?
It's okay to be a Labour or Liberal supporter - you guys often use 3rd party help when you need it that goes against your party principals. Don't get that logged guys.. it'll be bad for 'business' ;)
You both need a lot of help. You are both trying to sell something
**edit**
fix your speeling ;)
not selling anything... just sitting here wondering why..
Shock and horror. Labor are actually doing something right for once.
Everyone knows 457 vias have been being abused massively by employers who are too lazy to hire and train Australians. Even in positions that require an easily trainable skill employers just jump straight to importing.
This will explain why doll requests have jumped to the highest level in 20 years.
I came out Jill Stein number 1 and had never heard of her, Barack Obama number 2.
I struggled to complete the vote-o-matic as I don't know what those policies all are, I'm pretty out of the loop on Aus stuff. It'd be great if it had little 2-3 sentence or 1 paragraph max explanations of each policy as that's all I'd need.
On the whole I think a neutral and factual vote website like that is a great idea, and is really essential in today's factless/bs ridden media coverage. Be great to have a Aus one, it's an excellent education tool.
perhaps thats why labor is threatening the media, so they can get a fair go?
OH.... ALL STALIN WANTED WAS A FAIR GO. Now I understand.
And SFB I wouldn't move to Zimbabwe. I would probably sell my house here move to the US and buy 4 houses with the same money. But we all know the Greens wouldn't win, Australia knows how loony they are now that the ALP teamed up with them and they ruined our country in a coalition govt. Poor old Julia - so desperate.
You may be perfectly happy with the way the economy is going from your expert reading of internet articles but I have many properties vacant for years, real estate is not selling, when aged people want to sell their houses they can't or have to take huge reductions in expectations, I see shops for lease signs everywhere I go (have a look on the gold coast) - and this is supposed to be a mining boom.
carbon tax, waste on useless programs that have all been discussed before. I will never agree with waste so don't try and sell me that waffle. We are doing ok because we have holes in the ground filled with billions of dollars. What is so brilliant about that.
OH.... ALL STALIN WANTED WAS A FAIR GO. Now I understand. And SFB I wouldn't move to Zimbabwe. I would probably sell my house here move to the US and buy 4 houses with the same money. But we all know the Greens wouldn't win, Australia knows how loony they are now that the ALP teamed up with them and they ruined our country in a coalition govt. Poor old Julia - so desperate.
Your speedo wearing buddy is just as desperate matey.
I really hope the Greens hold the balance of power in the Senate after the next election. This country needs more than 2 options, both of which have mainly rightwing neoliberal policies.
Comparing the Labor party to Stalin... check Claiming the country is ruined... check Basing all this of anecdotal evidence and some signs you saw on the Gold Coast... check
That's our infi!
All we need now is for your number one fan to start a little cheer for you about how you stick to your guns.
infi, are there any government programs that don't benefit you directly that aren't waste?
Infi, champion of personal responsibility, makes bad property investment decisions and blames government. Thereby in his mind absolving himself of personal responsibility.
People who are actually good with money do well regardless of what party is in government.
Australia knows how loony they are now that the ALP teamed up with them and they ruined our country in a coalition govt. Poor old Julia - so desperate.
Oh for sure and Abbott wouldn't dream of doing exactly that would he...... would he? ......*crickets chirping*
This election coming up is the first time in my life that I really don't care about the parties as much as I care about the leaders. It's going to be a frigging disaster for Australia if we show ourselves to be so unintelligent that we would even consider Abbott for the top job. A yes vote for this guy sends a message that the Australian public are stupid enough to swallow anything.
I hate the libs so if anyone should revel in this guys complete and utter ineptitude it should be me, wouldn't you think? But no I catch a piece of an interview and it is so cringe worthy and humiliating I actually have to shut it off. I honestly pitty lib supporters to the point that I ask the ones I know to please get onto their local member and demand that Abbott is gotten rid of.
The saddest thing is that based on Abbott alone this election should be shaping up as a landslide for the ALP but it's not. This means that some people out there are so bent on supporting the libs they clearly don't care one little bit as to who is leading them. That should concern everyone, a lot.
infi I'd almost vote liberal if a deal could be struck that Abbott would be put to sleep as a mercy like you do when you put down cows with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Because watching Abbott talk is like watching one of these poor animals trying to walk.
Australia deserves a better standard of representative.
Windbag only decided to tell us about Abbotts "alleged" "Ill do anything" after it was obvious he'd made a terrible mistake siding with a PM that did 'sell her ass' to become PM.
Oakshott and Windsor are finished, they will always be remembered as traitors to their electorate.
Labor have been abysmal and as such the Coalition will smash them and then we will have a Coalition government that will be able to do what it likes.
The blame for what happens after that lay at the feet of an incompetent Labor that knifed their popular Leader for someone who wasnt up to the job of being a Leader.
With all this Australia ruined claptrap I have yet to see one single detrimental effect on myself or anyone I know but heck if Faceman and infi say so it must be fact and I and everyone else must be royally fucked.
Funny thing too, my wife's and I income is way way over the average and we get taxed heaps yet still live a great life and adding to that we would have been taxed more under Howard, go figure.
Dude you can probably see that Australia is going great because you don't have your head up your ass. It blows me away that so many people think Australia is in the toilet, wtf? Honestly how fucking good do you have to have it before you are actually happy?
Australia is by far and away one of the best countries on earth to live in and you'd have to be a complete dumbshit to not see it.
It blows me away that so many people think Australia is in the toilet, wtf? Honestly how fucking good do you have to have it before you are actually happy?
More handouts would be a start. My tv is nearly 5 years old ffs.
I can see where infi is coming from with the real estate pricing wise, however it may have been those inflated prices that has caused people to expect $1-$2 million for a house. My mother's house is near Dreamworld and sitting on 3.5 hectares but she could barely get $1.5 million at most right now, compared to a few years ago when it was quite easy to fetch $2 million.
I honestly doubt though that Australia is "ruined" considering we seem to be doing well compared to the rest of the country. I may be wrong there though because I don't read much politics anymore due to most of it being a blame game so I might be "out of it" so to speak.
My mother's house is near Dreamworld and sitting on 3.5 hectares but she could barely get $1.5 million at most right now, compared to a few years ago when it was quite easy to fetch $2 million.
It's widely known that the unemployment figures are BS and don't truly represent the amount of people unemployed let alone under employed.
Oh really? Wouldn't have anything to do with the changes that fucking scumbag Howard made to what is considered unemployed would it? You know when he lowered the hours per week of work required before you could be considered unemployed.
Don't even think about leveling bullshit at labor in this area when the libs fiddled the fucking books for frigging years.
I just can't get over that statement.... Jobs are NOT up.
My work and all the other Engineering companies I know of are shedding jobs. My team had 24 people in it 4 months ago, now it has 15.
I caught the train to work today, 4.30pm train home on a Friday I never ever see seats and its usually cramped. But its becoming less and less so.
However both Spook and Infi are showing ignorance I think. The job market in QLD at the moment is primarily the fault of the state government not the Feds. All those redundancies the state government did had massive knock on effects that the media just haven't latched onto.
Also one thing I agree with from Infi is the number of vacant shop fronts I see (outside of anything called Westfields).
It seems hard to believe Australia has real issues? We're in the top 10 for pretty much every quality index aren't we? Plus it's one of the few countries that avoided recession, and whose government, and various private sectors, hasn't literally crumbled during this GFC. Seriously, not sure you guys have seen how bad it's been in other countries.
Christine Milne will be in a position of far less power? I dunno if it's necessary to throw out Labor to achieve that end, but showing the Greens the door is a good start.
Australias favourite military dictator, Fiji's Frank Bainimarama says he is flattered that Stephen Conroy and Labor would copy his media regulations. Speaks for it's self doesnt it?
If anything the government should be held to account for another review (well 2 really - Finklestein & the convergence review) just like the Henry review where detailed analysis is done and yet sweet fa of reforms come out of it, I'll bet the same happens with Gonksi and yet it's being held as a travesty of justice and an attack on free speech that is being proposed when it's so watered down it's not funny.
Fair shake of the sauce bottle. Can I just say this: When it comes to Kevin Rudd, he's an economic conservative that does everything in his power to take decisive action for working families and help out those that are doing it tough without throwing the fair go out the back door.
Rudd is an ear-wax eating poindexter that used buzz issues to pander to the poorly educated and then got owned by a bogan.
What's not to love?
Wait are you talking about Rudd or Abbott? I'm confused. Substitute "poorly educated" with "religious fanatics" and you have yourself the very definition of a possible Prime Minister.
The Greens are going to find it very uncomfortable after the Election.
Either they support major Coalition reforms or the Public will have to vote for a new Senate that will likely be minus a lot of ALP Senators, rendering the Greens impotent.
"The Labor Party is like an episode of the Bold and the Beautiful." hah Christopher Pyne gold. I can just imagine Pyne, Abbott, Turnbull must all be sitting in the parliamentary billiard room smoking cigars right about now. It doesn't get better than this: watching a union lawyer, a union hack and a professional bureaucrat go at each other. This is what Labor has been reduced to.
People would have a lot more respect for your political views on this forum if they couldn't be summed up as 'not-Labor'. Rather than spending your days here spouting anti-Labor rhetoric like your stupid post above, and the dopey 'Australia is ruined' one that preceded it ... why not spruik the Opposition's argument that they would be a good Government?
Or is it so pathetic now that 'we're not the ALP' is good enough?
"The Labor Party is like an episode of the Bold and the Beautiful." hah Christopher Pyne gold. I can just imagine Pyne, Abbott, Turnbull must all be sitting in the parliamentary billiard room smoking cigars right about now. It doesn't get better than this: watching a union lawyer, a union hack and a professional bureaucrat go at each other. This is what Labor has been reduced to.
As opposed to that time when the liberal party recently went at itself to replace an experienced business person with a monk dropout?
You are a bitter, negative person infi.People would have a lot more respect for your political views on this forum if they couldn't be summed up as 'not-Labor'. Rather than spending your days here spouting anti-Labor rhetoric like your stupid post above, and the dopey 'Australia is ruined' one that preceded it ... why not spruik the Opposition's argument that they would be a good Government?Or is it so pathetic now that 'we're not the ALP' is good enough?
Why shouldn't he be anti-Labor? Labor today is a pathetic, humiliating shadow of its former self and has probably formed the worst government in the history of Australia.
Their behavior is just ridiculous and gets more ridiculous by the day. An episode of the bold and the Beautiful was a fitting example by Christopher.
As opposed to that time when the liberal party recently went at itself to replace an experienced business person with a monk dropout?
I always laugh at peoples attempts at comparing the liberal leadership change to Labors leadership fights.
Tony Abbot is an experienced business person too, also a rhodes scholar.
Thankfully you are miles off the mark and completely out of tune with the situation hogfather otherwise people might think you were being serious.
I am very positive about Australia's future now we are about to be freed from the last 6 years of parasitcal feeding by the ALP. Australia deserves better; we deserve an affordable broadband network on time, we deserve a secure border that doesn't cost billions of dollars in blowouts and stops people from dying, and we deserve a freer workplace system.
It's all there in their policy doucments Hoggy. Read a book or a website every now and then!
we deserve an affordable broadband network on time, we deserve a secure border that doesn't cost billions of dollars in blowouts and stops people from dying, and we deserve a freer workplace system.
An inferior, short-sighted yet cheaper broadband option, less brown people, and I get to fire whoever I want! That's what Australia deserves.
Hogfather you are very defensive about the Federal Labor party. What is there to defend?! Their "shambolic" treatment of the media laws is another nail in the coffin. Stop defending this circus!
Why shouldn't he be anti-Labor? Labor today is a pathetic, humiliating shadow of its former self and has probably formed the worst government in the history of Australia.
Because even if Labor were doing well and making good decisions, he would still be anti Labor. It's just meaningless noise and has no merit. It's what partisans do and it's why they need to be ignored.
Hogfather you are very defensive about the Federal Labor party. What is there to defend?! Their "shambolic" treatment of the media laws is another nail in the coffin. Stop defending this circus!
There's things I like about the ALP, and there's things I disagree with them on. Similarly with the Coalition. I roll my eyes at Spook as well but at least he's not serious.
I genuinely loathe every single one of your politics posts. They are a caricature of political commentary and you are the FaceMan of QGL politics. Grow up.
How's Baillieu going for you tards. Oh wait! How's the CLP Chief Minister in the NT going (I can't remember who it is this week).
Funny how it's okay when your fucktard team does it but woe if someone else does it. I remember the first in my lifetime to oust a sitting PM was Billy McMahon over John Gorton the then Liberal PM. But quickly how that's forgotten or approved.
I think I'll move to Stradbroke Island and live a life on the beach fishing for my dinner and perving on the topless younger ladies with my excellent polarised sunglasses. Politics in Australia has gone to two-bit wankers out to feather their own nests. That's both sides. None of them stand for anything.
Looks like spill is on. Crean also dodged questions around the election timing, we might hit the polls early if Rudd wins and is riding a wave of Rudd-love from the electorate...
Thanks for the italics, otherwise I wouldn't have been clear on your point. Thankfully the media police haven't banned my posts yet.
I am continually perplexed at how you claim me to be biased when I have criticised both the LNP and Federal Coalition many times. Criticism where it's due. I think Hogfather you are a closet Labor luvvie who likes to masquarade as an impartial type to give yoruself more credibility. You don't fool me.
If that was true, you'd see right through the Coalition's openly racist, storm-in-a-teacup Stop The Boats campaign and call it out, rather than falling for it hook line and sinker.
You also wouldn't be a science denier, and refer to climate science as religious dogma.
Thanks for the italics, otherwise I wouldn't have been clear on your point.
No probs. You're channeling the stupid this arvo pretty hard so I had to be sure.
Thankfully the media police haven't banned my posts yet. I am continually perplexed at how you claim me to be biased when I have criticised both the LNP and Federal Coalition many times. Criticism where it's due. I think Hogfather you are a closet Labor luvvie who likes to masquarade as an impartial type to give yoruself more credibility. You don't fool me.
Everything really is black and white to you isn't it?
Its the end for the Unions and the Faceless Men.
The ALP either chooses a new path under Rudd or it destroys itself in the bloodbath that the Federal Election is going to become.
Spook is very much a Labor supporter but if you can't tell he is taking the piss most of the time I suggest you take some multivitamins to increase your joke-getting capacity because geez.
Yeh Spook is no doubt a Labor guy but I could never take his shit seriously.
Interesting day. If the public gets behind the Chairman Rampant and the Coalition struggles will we see a matching Coalition spill? Surely Tony's only real chance to be PM (or even run in 2013) is if the PM continues to suck at the polls badly enough? Is New Hockey trim enough to run yet?
Just as nerf lord and fpot try to defend their beloved Labor party rofl
I've never voted Labor and have criticized them heavily for years over many things. I'm just calling bullshit on the political dishonesty being vomited in this thread.
I've voted for Labor a few times. Mostly vote Coalition tho (my old man who is staunchly ALP would spit beer everywhere to hear me referred to as a closet Labor man).
I'm glad they decided to do all this leadership crisis business during the day at least. Back in 2010 it was well into the night before we heard whether KRudd was going to be ditched or not. Politics junkies need their sleep as well!
Independents may not support new Government if Rudd gets back in, which may mean a snap election..
If Rudd gets a honeymoon swing, is forced to the polls and Abbott is on the nose (no offense, he's not a generally popular guy) could the ALP actually win it?
Julia needs to go and pull her head in. Labor have introduced some good shit (NBN, NDIS, MRRT, Education Infrastructure Upgrades) but she just does not connect with me. Thing is I don't really know anyone in Labor that appeals to me. There appears to be no one of the vintage Labor mould. By no means I think LNP have anyone resembling intelligent life so there goes any choices.
I still reckon I'd vote for Tony Windsor if he was in my electorate. All we've got in our area for state/fed is slimeball LNP wankers like Neil Slimes (total tosser) and Vasta Inc and nobodies I've never heard of from Labor. LNP sure suck balls in my electorate as does Labor.
Julia needs to go and pull her head in. Labor have introduced some good shit (NBN, NDIS, MRRT, Education Infrastructure Upgrades) but she just does not connect with me.
She's the only one not out there saying shit like "Fair shake of the sauce bottle mate" and dressing up for photo ops in budgie smugglers. Best I can tell, she's the only one interested in doing the damn job.
Regardless of the outcome of this ballot my money is on the election being called early. Whoever wins won't want to hand down a budget.
If Rudd gets a honeymoon swing, is forced to the polls and Abbott is on the nose (no offense, he's not a generally popular guy) could the ALP actually win it?
Probably not, imo.
edit:
Might not even make it to the leadership ballot if the motion of no confidence recently put forward in Parliament gets up.
edit2: motion didn't get up, Question Time is over.
She's the only one not out there saying shit like "Fair shake of the sauce bottle mate" and dressing up for photo ops in budgie smugglers. Best I can tell, she's the only one interested in doing the damn job.
Oh I agree but what's the point if her personal ratings is tearing down any opportunity to keep fucknuckle Abbott and the LNP tossers out of office. If you want to see stupidity rise to the top just let the LNP win by default.
What I want to know, is if Labor is currently "the worst government ever" why are we still functioning? Wouldn't society have collapsed, rent sky-rocketed, taxes gone out of control and places shut down? To me it looks like we are still functioning the same way we did 2 years ago so why all this doom and gloom? Why are the skies falling?
What I want to know, is if Labor is currently "the worst government ever" why are we still functioning? Wouldn't society have collapsed, rent sky-rocketed, taxes gone out of control and places shut down? To me it looks like we are still functioning the same way we did 2 years ago so why all this doom and gloom? Why are the skies falling?
let me answer that for you eorl.
its because they arent. the current goverment has done an awesome job navigating through the worst financial crisis the world has ever seen.
some people only care about what a government can do for them.
australia is still awesome, thanks to our government.
while I voted labor last time around (best of the worst lot imo) if in all honesty the libs got rid of that wanker and put say, joe hockey up then they would have my vote
its because they arent. the current goverment has done an awesome job navigating through the worst financial crisis the world has ever seen.
oh wow
spook I always gave you some leeway on going full retard but dude
thats going full retard
The Great Depression was the longest and most severe depression in global economic history, lasting for virtually the entire period between 1929 and the outbreak of World War II. As a stark contrast to the roaring twenties, a period of prosperity and ostentatious wealth, the depression era created massive and virtually instantaneous poverty.
I don't think I'd want to vote LNP either way because of who the party stands for. We know how much they are invested in religion and how backwards they are, would people really want that at the helm of Australia? While I like Joe Hockey, I have my doubts that he would be PM quality, though anything is better then Tony Abbott.
I preferred your post when you said the GFC wasn't top 10 and your supporting link said it was top 3 :(
I also preferred this version.
Well it sort of douses your angry rant a little bit. It is probably the second most damaging financial incident on a global scale and for the current government to get as through it is quite an achievement I think.
Joe Hockey is a numbskull. How you could say he is PM material is beyond me.
did I say that, no, he is imo better than the current leader, and a less questionable past (abbott might have been a rhodes scholar, but it is hard to tell why as he was pretty average in most classes, he also has a problem with the truth and recalling the past. also, he also had a role model in a good Jesuits father (as in preist) who had a bentley and guided abbott,
what sort of preist takes a vow of poverty, then gets a bentley?,
The problem is there is no one decent in the LNP period. That's what scares the bejeebus out of me hoggy.BTW hoggy have you tried that beer the Great Northern?
I got some of the first batch of great northern post floods, and have had it a few times since if that helps bastard (bastard meant in a nice thats your name way)
seen alot of people drinking it like a mexican beer (lime/lemon slice in it) which works rather well in it, as it isn't too bad a drop
I know I'm not hoggy, but I hope that helps a little
I also preferred this version. Well it sort of douses your angry rant a little bit. It is probably the second most damaging financial incident on a global scale and for the current government to get as through it is quite an achievement I think.
It's debatable that the 2007 Labor Government got Australia through that with their system of handouts and spending.
I'd say it was more likely contributed by a huge resource boom by the mining sector as well as record exports.
Wasn't having an angry rant either, I just find it funny when people have absolute blind faith in something (government, religion etc) spook is a fine example of a hardcore labor supporter - he still thinks Anna Bligh did a great job for example - he's entitled to his opinion, as are we all, but to say stuff which is outright wrong deserves to be corrected with evidence, eg the link.
Come on, lots of linebreaks, calling him a retard, posting in such a hurry you don't even read the link properly that you posted... I know an angry rant when I see one :P
Why would Rudd run to lead a party for six month when he knows they're going to lose the next election? Surely he would be better off letting them lose and then coming in to take over for a full term?
It's been entertaining to look across all the forums i go on(including this one) and see all the labor hacks go silent as soon as this spill was announced.
A far cry from the "OH THIS IS ALL A MEDIA INVENTION"
Why would Rudd run to lead a party for six month when he knows they're going to lose the next election? Surely he would be better off letting them lose and then coming in to take over for a full term?
Fat chance. They will be wiped out at the election.
I hope this is the complete end of the Labor party and they are replaced by a new party. They are toxic and void of purpose.
Sheer, can I actually ask what you see in Liberal? Not being pompous or anything like that, I'm genuinely interested in how you believe Liberal will "fix" Australia.
Because Rudd wants the Party to admit the error they made replacing him.
Winning the Election or indeed winning subsequent Elections will never make up for what was done to him.
He will be a far more dominant Leader if he leads the Party now than if he wins the booby prize for being one of the few remaining members of a demolished Party post Election.
I think the ballot wont go ahead.
Rudd refused another ballot, he wants the ALP to get down on their hands and knees and beg him to take back the Throne that was stolen from him.
Hey Door, how come you used to post on here as bonertron69 (a confirmed Door) but changed your name to SheerObesity and then re-regged? I thought you just joined this forum?
some people only care about what a government can do for them.
Thats not quite accurate mate most people only care about the perception that party A will do more for them than party B. Liberals could have a party ran by Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy and they'd still be rabid in their support of them.
I am not a fan of Gillard but I have to be honest and say there have been a few moments when I think she has shown a bit more spine and intellect than anyone from the Libs.
Sheer, can I actually ask what you see in Liberal? Not being pompous or anything like that, I'm genuinely interested in how you believe Liberal will "fix" Australia.
The Liberal party has a proven track record when it comes to governing. Their policies and plans are logical and make sense. The shadow cabinet is an experienced team and i have faith and trust that they will once again recreate the golden period we had under the howard government.
Er, Sheer, are you ever going to cite some evidence for this? I can't find any.
He has held many positions within business before entering politics. He was once a concrete factory manager for example.
So all that political crap was just his trying to troll people again? :/
I'm not trolling whatsoever, nor am i this "door" character fpot is obsessed with.
I will however admit that this is not my first account on these forums however, this is my second. My first account was banned for "promoting terrorism and extremism" which was just ridiculous. Everyone is entitled to a second chance are they not?
It is probably the second most damaging financial incident on a global scale and for the current government to get as through it is quite an achievement I think.
That would seriously depend on the metric you used to compare them.
Personally I'd probably put the oil shock and resulting stagflation of the 70s above the GFC in terms of impact on the average person (e.g. growth, inflation, interest rates, etc).
Part of having narcissistic personality disorder is coming up with lies that are laughably bad, but because you are mentally ill they sound good to you. That is the essence of your posting Door and why it is so hilariously easy to pick you out. Soon some other new person will pop up who is also totally not Door who will agree with everything new Door says and will try and dogpile me with insults that wouldn't even cut it in a primary school playground.
And yeah, the only metric I was going by was that article that said it was #3. I think we can all agree that it was pretty fucking bad though.
I guess that answers why he's such an obnoxious dickhead and behaves with a certain level of familiarity in these threads. Most normal decent people don't behave like complete wank stains when they are new to a community.
That would seriously depend on the metric you used to compare them.Personally I'd probably put the oil shock and resulting stagflation of the 70s above the GFC in terms of impact on the average person (e.g. growth, inflation, interest rates, etc).
I don't know why people give credit to Labor for getting us through the GFC. Their 900 dollars LCD screen cheques didn't do it, it was our strong economy and the mining sector.
P.S krudds not running. Looks like we are stuck with gillard.
I think we can all agree that it was pretty fucking bad though.
For the US and EU, sure.
For the average Australian citizen? Probably disagree. Depends what you're comparing it to I suppose. 1991 was probably far worse in terms of material impacts on the lives of average people.
The reasons the GFC wasn't so bad for the average person imo were very competent monetary policy, appropriate financial regulatory regimes already being in place and other circumstances beyond the control of policymakers, e.g. geographical location, demand for exports, inbound foreign investment over the period. Fiscal policy was not irrelevant, but was immaterial relative to the factors I listed earlier, imo.
He has held many positions within business before entering politics. He was once a concrete factory manager for example.
By many positions, you mean just that one? Which he got through a mates deal, and for what is only described as a short stint from sources? http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.phonytonyabbott.com/node/23 (he didn't even work his way up in the factory or have any business experience, that is literally the only job that he's ever had which wasn't him talking about others and giving zero-experience opinions).
By many positions, you mean just that one? Which he got through a mates deal, and for what is only described as a short stint from sources? http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.phonytonyabbott.com/node/23 (he didn't even work his way up in the factory or have any business experience, that is literally the only job that he's ever had which wasn't opinions).
Well does it really matter? Is a huge wealth of business experience a requirement to be prime minister?
At the end of the day, he isn't a stupid man. He's had a vast range of life experience and is a rhodes scholar which speaks for its self.
Edit: Bah Gillard has hung on. This spill achieved absolutely nothing,. Labor will still have the same problems.
Of course she stayed, who would be stupid enough to put their hand up to steer a sinking ship? Ah well, guess Liberal are making their way back in, time to strap in for the ride.
Well does it really matter? Is a huge wealth of business experience a requirement to be prime minister?
That's not what I said. I said that they kicked out a guy who had business experience, and you said "Abbott has tons of business experience too", which it turns out wasn't remotely true.
And that was because infi was joyfully throwing around stuff like this:
It doesn't get better than this: watching a union lawyer, a union hack and a professional bureaucrat go at each other. This is what Labor has been reduced to.
So you should direct your 'Is a huge wealth of business experience a requirement to be prime minister?' question to infi, who I'm sure is gushing with approval for Abbott just because he's in party x, and is blind to himself and his inconsistency.
The Liberal party has a proven track record when it comes to governing.
You said you weren't long out of high school. It's obvious you are cause you have no fucking idea about Liberal Party track records other than Howard. If you lived as long as I have you'd know what you wrote is sheer bollocks. Get a fucking clue.
he isn't a stupid man
And yes Abbott is a very very very stupid man besides being a gross lying prick.
The reasons the GFC wasn't so bad for the average person imo were very competent monetary policy, appropriate financial regulatory regimes already being in place and other circumstances beyond the control of policymakers, e.g. geographical location, demand for exports, inbound foreign investment over the period. Fiscal policy was not irrelevant, but was immaterial relative to the factors I listed earlier, imo.
Monetary policy governance given to the RBA from a Labor Government i.e. Hawke. Floating of the dollar by a Labor Govt. A Financial Regulatory regime inherited from a Labor Government i.e. Hawke and Keating. You can't reward Howard for all the good this nation now enjoys and when doing so are being totally disingenuous to those that enacted the reforms to our economy that ensured we wouldn't experience the pains of the 60's to the 70's and early 80's. It makes my blood boil when I see people giving credit to Liberals for a track rcord of good govt they don't deserve when historically and on averages haven't been.
Also taggs you seem to not have noticed the number of companies especially in your glorious financial industry that failed straight after the GFC began. My next door neighbour lost every cent of his retirement funds from MFS down the gold coast and is now on a pension I watched 200 people sacked and walk out the door at Rio Tinto from one division in Creek St the day after the GFC broke. Rio Tinto with a debt of $46 billion.
Howard was a good PM but with many faults just like this current govt but overall he was not a messiah and nor is Gillard. But Tony Abbott and the current Liberals are a complete cockup.
the way i see it is labor is caught up on these questions
labor MP's dont want to work with rudd as he is a prick to work for, however much the people like him
gillard is such a wet blanket to listen to however she (or the party) has done a good job getting bills thru
gillard also rattles abbott a heap, where as he (abbott) was rather good at being a bully when rudd ruled
will the ALP win, unlikely (on pure numbers)
will the libs win, i hope not, at least in its current form, if abbott's numbers dont improve there is a chance that the libs may have a change of leadership yet
Monetary policy governance given to the RBA from a Labor Government i.e. Hawke. Floating of the dollar by a Labor Govt. A Financial Regulatory regime inherited from a Labor Government i.e. Hawke and Keating.
If I need a history refresher I'll open my macro 101 textbook, thanks.
You can't reward Howard for all the good this nation now enjoys and when doing so are being totally disingenuous to those that enacted the reforms to our economy that ensured we wouldn't experience the pains of the 60's to the 70's and early 80's. It makes my blood boil when I see people giving credit to Liberals for a track rcord of good govt they don't deserve when historically and on averages haven't been.
What the fuck are you on about? Where did I do this?
Howard wasn't responsible for anything I mentioned apart from the tripartite financial regulatory regime imposed during his government. You'll notice I didn't try and credit him with any of it either.
Next time read the post before working yourself up into a self-righteous, apoplectic fit.
Also taggs you seem to not have noticed the number of companies especially in your glorious financial industry that failed straight after the GFC began. My next door neighbour lost every cent of his retirement funds from MFS down the gold coast and is now on a pension I watched 200 people sacked and walk out the door at Rio Tinto from one division in Creek St the day after the GFC broke. Rio Tinto with a debt of $46 billion.
Babcock and Brown went under too, the 2nd largest domestic investment bank. That sucks for your neighbor (hopefully he learned a lesson about diversification) and yes, there were job losses during the GFC and unemployment did rise. I still don't think your anecdote about your neighbor or the factoid about Rio contradicts my assertion that the 1991 recession was probably worse for the average citizen than the GFC. If that was your even point?..
I'm really skeptical of Howard being responsible for most anything positive himself. He recently helped launch a "scientific findings which don't agree with my political themes are a global conspiracy" book, put his evidence-free-club's favourite recruiters in schools (was it astrologers to give readings? or christian chaplains to bring people to god? or chiropractors to give spinal adjustments?), took us to war in Iraq over WMDs which never manifested, took in and spent a much higher chunk of the GDP as shown earlier in I think this thread, etc.
I mean... is this evidence for John Howard's great and intelligent leadership?
JOHN HOWARD: Any evidence of weapons of mass destruction, that is just - with great respect, there's overwhelming evidence that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons.
I'm not targetting you I'm targetting that fuckwit sheerobesity primarily. I used your quote to highlight the fact we were in such a good position due to reforms enacted by a government that wasn't Liberal and his track record bullshit. The main point I was disagreeing with you was the effect of the GFC to many it fucked them royally their life savings.
If Tony Abbott comes out and makes this all about Harmony Day and the Forced Adoption apology he will come out smelling like roses. That's if he can resist the temptation to trash the ALP.
If Tony Abbott comes out and makes this all about Harmony Day and the Forced Adoption apology he will come out smelling like roses. That's if he can resist the temptation to trash the ALP.
have you heard his bullshit reply to gillards adoption speech. he needs better speech writers
The main point I was disagreeing with you was the effect of the GFC to many it fucked them royally they're life savings.
Sure, I don't mean to trivialize the GFC in that respect. For example, the AORD and AXJO indices are still yet to reach their pre-crisis level. This is not a good thing.
the 1991 recession was probably worse for the average citizen than the GFC. If that was your even point?..
I agree the 1991 recession was probably a worse experience.
The recession of 1987 was mainly due to private credit glut e.g. Skase, Bond and the general public as we'd never had such easy credit before. The 1991 in my view was a transformational recession caused by the shift in economic governace and policy away from protection e.g. moving to zero tarrifs, whereas the one during Howard's reign as treasurer during the early 80's was just plain shit government.
I have no problem with your analyses, I just can't stand people like sheerobesity who just parrot shit that haven't a clue about.
EDIT: BTW I lost over a hundred grand on my super during the GFC and due to the limited work life I have left it makes it damn hard to make that back and the lost returns I would have received hadn't it been lost. Thanks to Suncorp of course.
Pffft Abbott, looks like he's just waffling on about faceless men and how Australians have to take back the prime ministership. News flash Tony, the PM is picked by caucus and doesn't have any official powers.
His point is that the the leader (and PM in waiting) should be picked by caucus *well* before their collective arses are parked on the government benches otherwise you have debacles like what transpired today.
Its not the public's business to choose who leads a party, that is the business of the party itself. We should just judge the actions of the party as a whole, rather than putting all this false belief in an office that doesn't inherently have any political power.
We're sitting here arguing about the personalities of people who we don't actually vote for, all the while ignoring the actual issues of the day.
I'm not targetting you I'm targetting that fuckwit sheerobesity primarily.
No need to be abusive. I understand that you are upset due to your beloved party struggling.
You said you weren't long out of high school. It's obvious you are cause you have no fucking idea about Liberal Party track records other than Howard. If you lived as long as I have you'd know what you wrote is sheer bollocks. Get a fucking clue.
There has been 5 prime ministers in the time i have been alive. Even if it was the case that i had only been alive for howards government, with the great invention of the internet you can actually look up history and do research.
Howards government was a golden period for Australia, the economy grew significantly, wages increased and this just the start of a long list of achievements.
And yes Abbott is a very very very stupid man besides being a gross lying prick.
A stupid rhodes scholar, interesting. Seems you let emotion for your beloved labor get in the way of facts. Remember "there will be no carbon tax under the government i lead"
Does anyone have a list of PMs who have been removed by their own party? I can think of Menzies, Hawke and Rudd but I think there are more?
It's not a clear list, and I'm unsure if it really covers the complete history, but I had it open when you asked the question, so... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21863630
Liberal PM Gorton was deposed by McMahon. Keating vs Hawke. The Libs wanted Costello to oust Howard before the public did but he didn't have the balls.
Howards government was a golden period for Australia, the economy grew significantly, wages increased and this just the start of a long list of achievements.
See you really haven't a clue. The Howard years were a culmination of economic reforms enacted by the previous Labor administration, Howard's administration, the resources boom and the growth of China into a market economy. When you are too half-arsed to realise not one administration has been the root cause for the prosperity we enjoy today then that's your problem sonny.
Now you say 5 PM's that would have to be Gillard, Rudd, Howard, Keating and Hawke. Not much of a stretch considering you would have either not been born or like 1 years old under Hawke and what, about 2 to 4 years old under Keating if you've only been out of high school a short term. Yeah a real authority.
Liberal PM Gorton was deposed by McMahon. Keating vs Hawke. The Libs wanted Costello to oust Howard before the public did but he didn't have the balls.
The Labor party has a coup culture, there is no denying it.
The 1991 in my view was a transformational recession caused by the shift in economic governace and policy away from protection e.g. moving to zero tarrifs
I strongly disagree.
(NB: While a phased reduction of tariffs did occur during this period, tariffs weren't cut to zero. Effective rates of protection - a metric which incorporates protection on both intermediate and final goods - were materially higher than 0% during this period for a wide range of goods though this was higher in certain industries like automobile manufacturing which had a tariff rate of 40% during the 90-91 financial year.)
Notice how all of the Anglo economies GDP growth are very significantly correlated through that period? If the cause of the recession was due to domestic policy shocks then this wouldn't be the case.
The reason the Anglo economies all moved together in that period was because the recession was largely caused by financial contagion imported from the US. Remember there was a serious savings and loans crisis in the US during this period triggered by Black Monday. Further supporting this is the fact that Germany and Japan performed relatively strongly through this period as they didn't have the same degree of inter-connectivity of financial markets with the US that the Anglo economies had at that time. Other contributing factors include a minor oil shock caused by the Gulf War and deleveraging from financial excesses undertaken in the 80s.
The above is a simplification, though any explanation of a recession in a couple of sentences is going to be a simplification by necessity.
Far out sheerstupidity you're such a clueless knob. Did you miss Ted Baillieu, Joh Bjelke Peterson, Terry Mills, Mike Ahern and so on were deposed whilst in office. All LNP and that's just some.
The Labor party has a coup culture, there is no denying it.
Hard to say.
To make that call you have to be a little arbitrary - only consider the modern era, and only consider Federal leadership spills while in office.
I'd suggest that Howard's grip on his office was the anomaly, not that the conservative side is special in terms of leadership stability while in office. I guess we'll find out for sure once Tony is PM and the ALP regroups in a term or two and presents an alternative? I don't see him having as firm a grip on leadership as Howard did..
I listened right through the question time today with the sky news stream on news.com.au and dear god someone askes a question and it is literally a 10 minute wall of text reply, no wonder you see the odd funny pic of a bored polly doing something stupid
And that speaker chick, she is one tough bitch. But you can see why they act like a bunch of high school kids
The graph taggs provided should make anyone that thinks our current labor government is useless rethink ... look at '09. And For an entire term they have been in minority not in control of both houses. Whats more Howard won 2 or 3 elections from worse polls than the current labor ones.
I am sick of hearing how bad Australia is ... we are so fucking lucky resource booms surpluses whatever meow meow
We are kicking the ass out of most of the world but we want to believe we are hard done by poverty ridden invalids ...
Our new media is shit and even more self serving and interested then our politicians which is incredible.
I just wish somehow I could vote for Malcolm Turnbull (or Natasha Stott Despoja).
There is nothing wrong with demading the best from our pollies to deliver the best possible outcome for the country. What I don't get it why hold the election in september?
Assuming they get their act together and get the budget organised in May ready to implement by July only to have to reneg it all at the next election because the LNP will be in power.
Over the next 6 months we won't see the growth that we could otherwise expect if everyone wasn't holding off until the election.
Why would any mining company be in a hurry to be pulling resources out of the ground when the LNP will just scrap the MMRT anyway come sept.
Regarding the Gonski review the labour government need to start implementing changes so this can be in place for the end of the year ready for next year.
At this stage it won't happen until 2014 even if labor got back into power after the election.
The labor party won't be anymore stable in 6 months so why bother waiting.
If this government doesn't start to implement Gonski all they have achieved in the last 4 years is the Carbon tax and the MRRT and a bunch of broken promises.
No NBN, no surplus and a carbon tax.
It doesn't look good on paper hence the thrashing in the polls.
There has been 5 prime ministers in the time i have been alive. Even if it was the case that i had only been alive for howards government, with the great invention of the internet you can actually look up history and do research.
Howards government was a golden period for Australia, the economy grew significantly, wages increased and this just the start of a long list of achievements.
if howard was so good, then why is he the only PM for 80 years to lose the MPship due to losing his seat
Because of any or all of the folowing reasons:
- He only just lost by a small margin(but a loss is still a loss)
- He pissed off a lot of people with work choices
- Maxine Mckew was a good opponent and would have appealed to women voters
- Howard had no intention of serving the full term.
Maxine Mckew lost the seat of Bennelong at the last election(goes to show it was considered a marginal seat)
i'm currently in myanmar and i was just hanging out with some locals this afternoon/earlier tonight (who are the most awesomest people ever, bought me and a friend beers, gave us local cigars, bought us dinner, introduced us to their families, and bought us tea, but would refuse and get angry if we tried to pay for anything!!) and they were talking to us about the government here and what has been going on. makes me fucking lol at the people who piss and moan in australia, don't know how fucking good we have it. people over here hate the government, they are dirt poor, living in slums and shacks but are some of the friendliest people i have ever met. yet in australia, one of the most safe/secure/prosperous nations on earth and all people can do is argue about whether Idiot Joker A is better than Idiot Joker B.
The NBN has already been rolled out in many places and afaik wasn't meant to be done for 8 years. A surplus is easy if you do what Howard did and tax hugely, the labor government appears to be walking a far finer line but seem to be spending and taxing less while just missing their balancing target, and the carbon tax or something similar is going to be necessary unless you have a better way to get people to move to carbon free alternatives?
It's a rough metric but the only one that I could find, the previous LNP government was continuously taxing at around 25% of GDP, whereas the Labor government has been hovering at ~22.5%, and while there was a jump in spending during the GFC stimulus period, spending fell back to where it was. The so called "surplus" wasn't to do with less spending, it was to do with more taxing. According to the IMF, Howard has been our most wasteful spender.
Do you mean pull in more tax due to a higher functioning economy? Because apart from the GST, i don't recall Howard introducing or increasing taxes.
For the record I am a GST fan ... but how can you say 'apart from the GST no new taxes'? The GST is a huge new tax from the Howard Government that basically doubles every ten years and is now the third-biggest revenue stream after individual income and corporate taxes. For the first few years the growth in tax base from the GST ran well over estimates.
As someone who actually pays GST every 3 months casting it aside as a nothing tax boggles my mind. birrions of dorras of GST
As someone who actually pays GST every 3 months casting it aside as a nothing tax boggles my mind.
I said it in context of Nerf's comment. re: "A surplus is easy if you do what Howard did and tax hugely", Labor didn't repeal the GST when they came in.
It's a rough metric but the only one that I could find, the previous LNP government was continuously taxing at around 25% of GDP, whereas the Labor government has been hovering at ~22.5%, and while there was a jump in spending during the GFC stimulus period, spending fell back to where it was
My question was regarding your statement that Howard taxed more, not collected more. Did they increase any taxes or introduce any new ones that the current government removed? I recall them dropping the personal income bracket rates a few times, but not raising any.
Nerf, you're confusing the concepts of tax receipts with rates of taxation. Governments have direct control over the latter but the former is a function of both rates of taxation and levels of taxable economic activity (e.g. corporate profits for company tax, eligible retail sales for GST, etc).
To claim that one government "taxed more" than another because tax receipts as a percentage of GDP were higher in one period than another is very misleading. GDP is a measure of economic growth, but GDP is not directly taxed. There are a number of reasons why GDP growth is not perfectly correlated with tax receipts, with a key one being that tax receipts are necessarily affected by the idiosyncrasies of accounting standards and frameworks. Gillard and Rudd did not materially lower rates of taxation relative to the final years of the Howard government. Thus, lower tax receipts as a percentage of GDP are likely caused by levels of taxable economic activity growing slower than GDP, not because of some conscious, deliberate decision to "tax less" than Howard or vice versa.
Also, the reporting of that IMF working paper was ludicrous - the conclusions drawn in that article are extremely misleading (NB: Steven Koukoulas is a former senior economic adviser to Gillard; probably not the most impartial observer). I will respond in more detail later, work to do at the moment.
As I said, it's a loose metric, but the real numbers themselves are also observable in that report, and spending was also being compared in the same language (as a percent of GDP).
I understand fully the concepts of tax receipts and rates of taxation, they're not difficult concepts. The point is that the Howard government, for nearly a decade, kept pulling in more tax than they needed to, and didn't adjust it down. That is what the "surplus" was, not that they spent less money.
As I said, it's a loose metric, but the real numbers themselves are also observable in that report, and spending was also being compared in the same language (as a percent of GDP).
It's an inappropriate metric for what you are trying to claim.
I understand fully the concepts of tax receipts and rates of taxation, they're not difficult concepts.
The language you are couching it in suggested otherwise. As I said, claiming that one government "taxed more" than another because tax receipts as a percentage of GDP were higher in one period than another is very misleading. governments don't get to decide ex-post what % of GDP they will tax. They set rates of taxation in the preceding period and macroeconomic variables largely outside of their direct control sort out the rest.
he point is that the Howard government, for nearly a decade, kept pulling in more tax than they needed to, and didn't adjust it down. That is what the "surplus" was, not that they spent less money.
As economies go through business cycles the levels of tax receipts will increase and decrease in a cyclical fashion. To be continually adjusting tax rates so as to keep the surplus or deficit at zero (or any other constant) would be ridiculous economic policy. All taxation, by necessity, a distorts the market it operates within. Continually changing tax policy makes it difficult for business and consumers to make long term economic decisions as it significantly increases uncertainty.
Are you suggesting that Howard should have reduced taxes even further than occurred during this period (income taxes were decresed 1-2 times iirc), knowing full well that a mining boom was underway and that the economy was likely in the positive portion of the business cycle?
There are plenty of valid criticisms of the Howard government's economic policies and there is no denying that they faced a much more amenable economic environment than Gillard-Rudd, but trying to claim they "taxed too much" is bordering on the absurd.
I was explaining the true reason for the "surplus", not exactly claiming that they "taxed too much", just clearing up the misconception that "coalition surplus" meant thriftier spending. Though it wasn't just a short time frame in which they couldn't have been making microadjustments, it was over half a decade while the gap between their amount taxed versus spent grew dramatically.
Are you suggesting that Howard should have reduced taxes even further than occurred during this period (income taxes were decresed 1-2 times iirc), knowing full well that a mining boom was underway and that the economy was likely in the positive portion of the business cycle?
The only thing that I'd suggest that Howard should have done is probably spend less during a boom time, though I don't know enough about the situation to be sure of that criticism.
I was explaining the true reason for the "surplus", not exactly claiming that they "taxed too much".
OK, so as to avoid any confusion can you please state concisely exactly what you think this "true reason" is? While you do that I'll write up my post about why that IMF working paper (that very few people who cite it have actually read) doesn't state what you think it does.
Also, putting the word surplus in inverted commas is a bit strange?
Bowen gone now.
I kinda like Chris Bowen, he had the guts to take on the Refugee shamozzle and tried to get somewhere with it but was continually overruled by the Boss.
The one rule with Political Partys is that no single person is ever more important than the Party. The Party is like a living thing kept alive by changes in Leadership that must always be about presenting a Party to the Electorate that is 'electable' but who would elect Labor after yesterday ?
Both Gillard and Rudd are guilty of putting themselves first and the Party 2nd.
OK, so as to avoid any confusion can you please state concisely exactly what you think this "true reason" is?
I already said? It's a matter of taxing more than you spend, not a matter of spending less than those who came later and have actually overseen a slower growth of income over the years (whether intentionally or incidentally).
Also, putting the word surplus in inverted commas is a bit strange?
Because the word "surplus" is thrown around as if to indicate that the Coalition are thriftier, lower spending, etc, when in truth - it seems - they were previously just taxing more than they needed to.
And before you continue, as I already know how you're going to forget the context of the discussion, I was only responding to the criticism that labor has removed our "surplus". If it's so because the labor government have gotten income and spending closer (to the point where one is just missing the other), then it seems a better situation to me.
According to the IMF, Howard has been our most wasteful spender.
Firstly, you obviously haven't read the paper because it very clearly states:
This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate.
So no, not according to the IMF.
Anyway, onto the important stuff.
The paper applies three different tests as to whether a country's fiscal policy over a given period was "prudent" or "profligate". It does this by applying statistical regression techniques to test whether a certain coefficient is both positive and statistically significant. What this regression is essentially attempting to do is measure how governments respond to changes in public debt, specifically whether increased in debt cause governments to enact offsetting reductions in deficits (or increases in surpluses).
One important point is that the tests in this paper use gross debt, not net. This matters for the Howard era because they paid the national debt down to zero during their term, meaning that net debt fell to zero and then became positive. However, they continued to issue government bonds as they play an extremely important role in financial markets in setting the risk-free rate (they offset these bond issues with purchases of financial assets to keep net debt decreasing). This means that when gross and net debt are moving in opposite directions, a test that only takes into account gross debt will incorrectly suggest that a government is being "profligate".
Now of the three tests in this paper, only one suggested that the Howard government was "profligate" and this was during the years 2003 and 2005-7. The other two tests do not support this conclusion. Additionally, the test that does give the "profligate" result is the most unconventional and least widely used of the three in the literature. This is because it gives off some pretty wacky results. For example, this test suggests that Italy was "prudent" between the years 1992-1994, 1995-2002 and 2007. This is a country with a debt to GDP ratio of ~127%! Additionally it suggests that the UK was "prudent" in the years 2002-5. During this period the UK went from a ~GBP8.4 surplus to a ~GBP42.6 deficit. This does not seem like a particularly accurate test to me.
Because of the acknowledged problems of relying solely on one measure the authors combine the three in Table 13, which you will note shows no periods of "profligacy" for Australia over the period examined.
So any article citing that IMF paper as evidence that Howard was a profligate spender is willfully ignoring that this result only occurred when one of the three tests was applied, and that this test was the most unconventional and provided counter-intuitive results. Additionally, when all tests were combined this results did not occur.
Honestly who would listen to the IMF about anything. Who would listen to any economist about economic forecasting. Bank economists have only one interest and that is to increase the profits of banks at the expense of consumers.
Howard cut taxes and simplified our tax system REPLACING sales tax with GST. All Labor could come up with is far is 2 NEW taxes after the reams of tax reform recommendations supplied by Ken Henry.
It's a matter of taxing more than you spend, not a matter of spending less than those who came later and have actually overseen a slower growth of income over the years (whether intentionally or incidentally).
There's no denying that the Howard government experienced a much better macroeconomic environment than Rudd-Gillard and this was reflected in tax receipts. But you have to remember that the national debt was ~$96b in June 1996. By June 2007 the Commonwealth had net financial assets (i.e. negative debt) of ~$29b. There was plenty of spending not undertaken by his government that he picked up the tab for. It's not as simple as you are trying to make out.
Again, I'm not defending Howard and I am critical of quite a few of his policies. But you are grossly oversimplifying things.
And before you continue, as I already know how you're going to forget the context of the discussion
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Try toning down the passive aggressive, catty remarks. They don't help your case, imo.
If it's so because the labor government have gotten income and spending closer (to the point where one is just missing the other), then it seems a better situation to me.
Not necessarily, imo. As I said earlier it depends on the state of the business cycle. The goal of government should be to be have spending equal revenue over the medium term. Trying to do this over the short term or even period by period is fraught with difficulties and potential negative consequences. It's just not a good idea.
By your logic (i.e. the closer the levels of income and spending the better) then Howard should have drastically reduced rates of taxation during his term so as to more closely align spending and revenue. This would have put the Australian economy in a pretty horrible position going into the GFC as receipts would have been drastically lower.
But you have to remember that the national debt was ~$96b in June 1996. By JUne 2007 the Commonwealth had net financial assets (i.e. negative debt) of ~$29b.
Yes, and my only point was that this is thrown around as if representative of all that there is when judging economic credentials, when it involves murkier concerns such as taxing more than spending without necessarily actually spending less, and timing related to economic booms.
e.g. If the government was taxing 95% of GDP, but spending 90%, they would have a "surplus" (in quotes because it's only spoken of as if an entirely positive thing), whereas if the government was taxing 5% and spending 6%, despite being in a far better situation, people would only hear "deficit".
Try toning down the passive aggressive, catty remarks.
Well your previous posts before it had somehow ignored the context, trying to draw me into defending a position which I hadn't taken. I was criticizing the language of "surplus" without context of taxation levels.
Sounds like the IMF report was unreliable, though I don't know if I consider you reliable either, but am dropping reference to that. Ignore the extraneous point about Howard's spending.
Yes, and my only point was that this is thrown around as if representative of all that there is when judging economic credentials
Well if that is your point then I agree, there is more to being an effective economic manager than delivering surpluses.
Hopefully you have considered the point I raised.
Well your previous posts before it had somehow ignored the context, trying to draw me into defending a position which I hadn't taken.
Haha, ok then. Not getting into that again.
Sounds like the IMF report was unreliable, though I don't know if I consider you reliable either, but am dropping reference to that. Ignore the extraneous point about Howard's spending.
No, the report was not unreliable - it did exactly what it set out to do.
The reporting on it was extremely misleading. Kind of like how the mainstream media often distorts the outputs of scientific studies to sell headlines, the author of that article distorted the output of the study to score political points.
I couldn't care less whether you think I'm reliable or not. I wasn't pointing out the problems with that article for your benefit - I was doing it so others wouldn't be misled by the obvious inaccuracies.
Well your previous posts before it had somehow ignored the context, trying to draw me into defending a position which I hadn't taken. I was criticizing the language of "surplus" without context of taxation levels.
i think the point taggs is trying to make is, while Howard ended up with more tax receipts, that wasn't under his control in the short term.
in the long term Howard decreased personal income brackets, ie, decreasing taxes. i don't understand why you think Howard " tax hugely"ed. we are still waiting for you explanation of this, is it just your GDP figures?
i don't understand why you think Howard " tax hugely"ed. we are still waiting for you explanation of this, is it just your GDP figures?
For over half a decade his government's income was much higher than its expenditures (as shown on the charts earlier in the thread - both revenue and expenditures were shown relative to GDP, so they are still described in absolute relative terms).
That's the only fact that can be taken from the word 'surplus', that tax was more than spending. 99% tax with 95% spending would be called a surplus, while 5% tax with spending which blew out to 6% would be called a deficit. Saying that we lost a surplus, without context, is meaningless. It could be that our situation improved very much.
The only thing that a surplus is indicative of is that a government is taxing more than it needs, nothing else - it's the expenditures themselves which must be compared between governments (and adjusted to real value, evaluated for what they were spent on, how effective they are, whether they help the economy in the long run, whether they can truly be afforded, etc).
so they are still described in absolute relative terms
Absolute relative terms? Huh?
Nerf you need to stop thinking about this issue in terms of tax receipts and expenditures relative to GDP. Don't get me wrong, it is a useful measurement of the size and scope of government over the medium term but it is not a metric suited to the period vs. period comparisons you seem to be making. As I pointed out earlier GDP is a measurement of economic growth and is not directly taxed thus it doesn't make sense to be framing a surplus/deficit in terms of revenue/expenditure as % of GDP. Governments don't get to choose what % of GDP they tax.
The only thing that a surplus is indicative of is that a government is taxing more than it needs, nothing else
Implicit in this statement is the assumption that at all times government revenue requirements = government spending, i.e. a government can not need more revenue than it spends.
This is demonstrably not the case with the obvious example being if a government needs to pay down debt.
Your sentence should read:
The only thing that a surplus is indicative of is that a government has received more revenue than it spent in a particular period. Because that is the definition of a surplus.
Regardless, most reasonable people would agree that holding all else constant, and under most circumstances, a surplus is preferable to a deficit. This is simply because a deficit, by definition, requires governments to receive more in tax than they spend in future periods in order to hold the level of debt constant (let along pay it down).
Nerf you need to stop thinking about this issue in terms of tax receipts and expenditures relative to GDP.
The only reason that I'm referencing the GDP data is because that's what Hog charted. The relative difference between revenue and spending still stays the same, if they're both being shown relative to the same value (GDP in this case. Absolute values would be fine as well).
Additionally, as I pointed out earlier GDP is a measurement of economic growth and is not directly taxed thus it doesn't make sense to be framing a surplus/deficit in terms of revenue/expenditure as % of GDP.
Because you're not paying attention to what is said, and keep trying to make the discussion about something else. The only reason that GDP came up is because that's the data that we have for seeing tax vs expenditures as simple two-digit (percent) values, while still maintaining their absolute relation.
holding all else constant, and under most circumstances, a surplus is preferable to a deficit
Of course, but everything else isn't held constant, which is why I said that simply saying "surplus: yes/no" is useless without context, as it describes nothing about the real health of the situation, and is just a simplified political weapon which may very well describe a situation which is worse than people presume.
Sigh. You could just make an effort to not start arguments over what nobody else was talking about. Laughing at me because you didn't read is straight out of clever asshat school. :/
The "surplus" political jab means nothing without context.
Any political jabs about surpluses don't generally require context because they aren't targeted at anyone who knows anything at all about macroeconomics.
Regular folks down in Western Sydney (where political fortunes these days seem to be made or broken) really can only compare the federal budget to their household budget. Having money left over at the end of the week in your household budget is almost always a good thing.
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