The Federal Politics Thread

[Dog]

Claybro, I think as usual you are being a bit selective in particular in your choice labor infrastructure expenditure, sure they raced in with activities requiring minimal lead time to get the economy moving this included $1000 cheques, school halls and shade cloth and for that matter pink bats.

The alternative would have been lots of builders and others out of work and we would have spent the same amount on unemployment benefits.

Giving a working family a cheque, building school halls or shade cloth was far more preferable than a recession and paying the same money in dole payments for someone to sit on their arse.

And like all Liberals you always hark back to these. But in reality it kept the economy out of recession and you ignore the economy building infrastructure the government has contributed to fund in South Australia since.

TheSAMRI
New RAH
Flinders Cancer Centre
New Adelaide Oval
Rail Extensions and Line duplication
Tram Extension
Southern Expressway
Northern Expressway
South Road Super-way
Desal plant stage 1 and 2
North south desal water pipeline and pumping stations
Adelaide - Glenelg sewage recycling pipeline
Goodwood and Marion rail underpass
Marion Aquatic Centre
South Road/Anzac Road Bridge
Tech Port and ship lift
SubmarinesFrigates
defence contracts
Holden's Subsidies
Mega Tafe at Tonsley
New uni Buildings
Super Schools
NBN
Adelaide convention centre
And to come:

New school of Medicine,
SAMRI 2
CSIRO research centre
More NBN roll out
Massive investment in education
Investment in disability through the NDIS

Sure you can keep you head in the sand and keep on harping on about school shade cloth and ignore what's happened since.

And all this has been achieved whilst keeping Australia's AAA rating and low debt national government debt.

[Aidan]

Aiden, contrary to what you might think, I do agree with stimulus spending by governments, it is just the nature of that spending that concerned many last time around. $1000 dollar cheques and playground shade structures for schools was a complete waste and did nothing to benefit the economy long term. The stimulus package back at the GFC may have prevented us going into recession for a short period, but the continuing growth in our economy over the last couple of years has relied entirely on mining and China. Problem is, this income stream is now slowing rapidly. What makes people nervous is that Kevin has shown his willingness to spend big time to keep us bumping along, but they don't trust his ability to make some tough or unpopular choices that make us more competitive.

Giving money back to the people was hardly a waste - it improved the living standards of the battlers, and avoided the colossal waste of a recession. And should the problem of a lack of shade in school playgrounds have continued to go unaddressed?

Of course that doesn't mean the money couldn't have been better spent, and it would be nice if there were a long list of the most worthwhile shovel ready projects, but there wasn't. The Howard government in particular had underinvested in infrastructure, and state governments had done likewise. Alas while our current position is certainly better, we're not yet at the stage where we could suddenly ramp up infrastructure spending and know the money was being spent efficiently. The formation of Infrastructure Australia has helped, but there's still a very long way to go before we have that capability.

Since then the economy has been a victim of RBA incompetence, with interest rates (and therefore the dollar) set higher than the economic conditions justified, and that has handicapped other sectors. But tough and unpopular choices aren't usually the ones that make the economy more competitive.

[Dog]

Hindsight is a funny thing it was Liberal governments that opposed normalisation of relations with China, ridiculed Whitlam for visiting China in the 70's and removing troops from Vietnam. This ridiculed man paved the way, Australia's largest trading partner is now China and its economy powered us through the GFC. With out Whitlam our China led mining boom may not yet have happened.
This visionary man was ridiculed by the News limited media. Another of his plans was to buy back the mining industry from foreign ownership for $1bn using middle east oil bankers, again ridiculed at the time, but in hindsight this would have been the investment decision of the century.

Another widely ridiculed Australian Labor prime minister Paul Keating, floated our $A, cut tariffs, regulated banking system, and more importantly introduced compulsory superannuation, again at the time all opposed by Liberals and widely criticised in the News Limited media. Today compulsory super investments as reported by the Financial Review top $1.7 trillion dollars and is the backbone and power house of our financial services industry. Keating was prepared to make the tough unpopular decisions, risk high interest rates and recession to make Australia the competitive country it is today.

The Australia/China connection and the strong financial services sectors are now the strengths of our economy. While liberals always happy to talk about good financial management in terms of pink bats, school halls and our rather low national debt, they ignore the fact that it is labor governments that have proved the better big picture economic managers.

[zippySA]

One thing I know for sure - when people start using comparisons to other countries instead of addressing our own facts and figures - they are trying to hide something. Remember, you don't simply jump off a cliff because someone else did!

If you truly believe things are going well, and all Government needs to do to "make it right" is further stimulus, then you are either:

a: extremely lucky at the moment and good on you, or

b: have your head stuck in about 3 feet of sand

Times are extremely tough and challenging, but I believe strong government can be a part of the solution - so here's hoping to hell that whoever wins on the 7th, they get a clear majority and start being productive and stop the crap that has been going on for the last 6 years cause I am sick to death of them all! The economy just needs certainty that whoever is in Government can make their promises / agenda stick and not get changed every other month.

[claybro]

The Australia/China connection and the strong financial services sectors are now the strengths of our economy. While liberals always happy to talk about good financial management in terms of pink bats, school halls and our rather low national debt, they ignore the fact that it is labor governments that have proved the better big picture economic managers.

LOL...you've forgotten Gough Whitlam then.
However, I do agree with your sentiments re Paul Keating. He had the guts to stick to his guns in some very difficult years. Paul Keating must be absolutely ashamed of this current back flipping populist clown of a Labor prime minister. I reckon Kevin would sell his own grandmother if it got his face on TV/Twitter/Youtube..
As for the Howard years, apart from some diehard Labor voters and left leaning economists, I think the majority of Australians considered them good economic managers at the very least, even through some regional economic collapses, which everyone seems to have forgotten about.

[Dog]

Lol

[claybro]

Hi Claybro, gave you a couple of nights off mate, thought you would be buggered, apparently someone filled in 660,000 on line ABC "Vote Campus" surveys to give Tony Abbott a win in the big debate.

Didn't even watch it. If you haven't already cottoned on I am a swinging voter. Cant stand the contrived ratings exercise for the media. It becomes all about the person and not the policies. It is interesting however that given I work in a very Labor leaning environment, after the initial flurry of excitement of K Rudds return, almost all without exception have remembered he is a complete wanker, and even the most ardent Labor supporters amongst them, have no idea what the party even stands for anymore.

[Dog]

Lol.

[rev]

[metro]

The campaign so far..

Earlier in the campaign: Liberal Candidate Jaymez Diaz and his 6 points
Sunday: Tony Abbott saying how he's against rail and will build roads everywhere and accusing Labor of running a negative fear campaign on the GST and cuts.
Monday: Tony Abbott's Suppository of wisdom.
Tuesday: Tony Abbott saying one of his candidates has sex appeal.
Wednesday: Tony Abbott saying homosexuality is just a phase.
Thursday: Katy Perry grilling Tony Abbott on gay marriage.

and Tony Abbott is preferred PM and in a good position to win the election?

[Matt]

So incredibly embarrassing.

[Waewick]

I didn't realise this place had such a Labor bias? I guess SA is a Labor strong hold.

I've found all parties to be annoying already - Rudds "Northern Plan" which is a near copy of the Liberals one they bagged earlier, The Greens and Labors "advertisements" simply being personal attacks on Tony Abbott and they are embarrassing at that.

That 6 point plan guy is a douche, and is why I hate party politics, good people don't get in but people with enough "backers" do. I already can't stand Chris Pyne so I can't think how much worse it will be if he is in power.

Oh and Penny Wong, why do all the annoying people on the national stage have to come from Adelaide.

[[Shuz]]

When Rudd took over Gillard, I was fairly dead set on voting Rudd. But we are 7 weeks into his 'second' prime ministership, and quite frankly, I can't see any evidence that he's changed, contrary to what we were led to believe in the weeks leading up to the leadership challenge. This is a government who is literally making up policy on the run.

I cannot and I never will vote for the Liberals, so long as Tony Abbott is the leader.

Whilst I do agree with some of the Greens policies, their extremism concerns me, particularly from the likes of Sarah Hanson Young.

Then you have all these minor parties, who lets face it, are mostly one-issue parties of irrelavence.

So what option am I left with? I think I will draw cartoons on my ballot paper.

[Waewick]

Well you can vote for an independent?

donkey voting is the easy way out - find a side issue you think is important and vote for it - not only does that party get funding for every vote, but it gives a sign to the other parties that the topic is important to people.

or you could vote family first.

I have to admit, I've never understood these Abbott haters or people who suggest he'll be some kind of monster as PM - it all seems like a convenient way to for Labor voters to say why they'll vote labor.

I again won't vote for either major party because I disagree with so many of their policies, but I fail to see why Abbott would be soooooo much worse that Krudd and Gillard have been.

[[Shuz]]

A donkey vote is still a formal vote.

I'm talking about an informal vote. A vote where I draw cartoons, write my own name down, mark all the candidates 1, don't mark the ballot paper at all, etc.