Australia's Polititains.

All the huge handouts of labor sound great, but it is too much for the economy to afford. The welfare purse is just not that big. This labor government is trying to buy the voters at the next election. Discussions seem to be about the alternatives to the green/labor "coalition", but anything would be a safer bet economically. If the country doesn't go broke before the next election, I will vote for the neighbours dog before I would vote for labour.

Australia's circumstances weren't so different in regards to the GFC, we just got through it better, and that was thanks to Kevin Rudd. Like it or not, his little hand out did what it was meant to, and I think you would all find that they (the government) knew that many people would put the money into a savings account; that's why it was so broadly distributed - some would spend, some would save, and they allowed for that. What Rudd did for our country has been so grossly undervalued I think, because we didn't see a depression so to speak - but tell me, what would people have thought if he hadn't dispensed that money and we had fallen into a depression? Lose-lose for him it seems. And that's the way it is with all governments in power: love them or hate them.



Julia Gillard? Well, I have mixed emotions there. She was our first female PM, history was made the day she stepped into office. But we should remember, the Labour government had the vote of the people before Rudd was politically assassinated, and even after. Having said that, I don't think she got the top job based on her sex. The people wanted labour to stay in, that's what happened. I preferred Rudd, but I'd stick with Julia before allowing Liberal to take back this country (and I know I'll most likely cop a lot of flack about that, given the above story is essentially anti-Labour).



Tony Abbott has given the people nothing to work with, and so certainly no faith in him to do any better. He never told us how he would fix our nation or how he would remedy the carbon tax to a more suitable, citizen-friendly alternative. He contradicts Julia with every breath he takes, saying a lot but really nothing at all. Furthermore, the Liberal government has been quite sly of hand in the past - look at John Howard's GST "vote". A tax that was supposed to replace all other taxes - it didn't. A tax that should have been taken to the people for approval on that specific issue alone - it wasn't. And here Abbot is, demanding the people the right to vote (at the price of $80M in taxpayer's money) on the carbon tax issue and yet he's said to refuse to accept the decision of the people and be bound by it if the votes are in favour of it. Hmmm.



And let's not forget the horror that was Work Choices. Possibly one of the biggest deciding factors that got Labour elected, their promise (which they followed through on) to eradicate it and restore the rights of workers and their unions. Now we face a cap in pay of 2.5% to the public service sector under Barry O'Farrell as the New South Wales premier (Liberal).... And where is Tony Abbott on this issue? Sitting back on his laurels spouting "It's a state issue". Now this tells us two things - one, he considers himself above the state and therefore the people within it by distancing himself from a very real, dangerous issue. And two, by not condemning it he is in fact condoning it, which really sets the tone for Liberal as a federal government should they come back into power. The public service sector is something we all need and use - police, fire, ambulance, nurses, teachers, social workers. And we are not paid appropriately as it is; for example, my industry (Social Work) is still considered "women's work" and thus the identified reason for such a large pay gap. If Barry gets his way we will never be paid equally, and we won't even have the power to bargain or to deal with the IRC to get a fair ruling.



And if you're still reading, then I wonder what people think of the other issue we face about our live export industry? Independents want to end all live exports over the course of three years, but the Green's want it done immediately. Personally I think we should open up our abattoirs and do it all right here on shore - yes the price of meat may go up (but its already painfully expensive any way you buy it) but it will also provide mor work for our fellow Australians, and really, how can we not benefit from that?

No I have already long since spent the cheque, and the government will never get any money from me I don't have to give. The point you miss about the whole thing is Australia had an entirely different set of circumstances than the rest of the world. We were still exporting as much as we could produce and the rest of the world was throwing money at our economy because we were still selling our stuff. They knew our currency and real estate and other assets were safe and still are, so the stimulus package was pointless. The cash in hand was the least pointless even though about half of it was put into savings and had no immediate benefit to the nation's cashflow. Worse still, the biggest projects saw such massive profiteering from the head contractors and the first few tiers down the list, that the little guys at the bottom who would have pumped so much of the money straight back into the economy were squeezed to the point where they were making less and waiting longer for their money than normal even though the government was paying twice the going rate.

I disagree with the majority here. If you guys all have a look at what was happening worldwide, for a long time before hand, you would be able to see that the Labour government didnt have a whole lot to work with. The GFC was coming, whether we liked it or not, and regardless of who was in charge. I do agree that John Howard did a really good job, but Australia was obviously ready for change. Kevin Rudd and his stimulus package, while seemingly stupid, actually did do what it was supposed to do. We were saved from what could have been a real depression. Whether or not it just postponed it, we are yet to see, but at the time with a worldwide economic crisis going on we fared pretty well.

The 80s financial crisis was another supposed Labour faulted crisis - but what happens to the economy cant be blamed entirely on the government. Its a sign of the times, and while the Liberal government supposedly fixed all the problems, they were simply the right people at the right time. What goes up, must come down eventually.

Comparing unemployment rates and the like is useless, when you get a look at how far technology has come and at our imports, of course jobs are going to be lost. Its not solely the governments fault, its a sign of our generation - and the fact that we want instant gratification. Sub-prime housing in the United States is a perfect example of this - people want houses, banks lend money to the people that they probably shouldnt, these people buy houses, pushing up the cost of housing, hence pushing up the cost of a loan, then these people start to default, banks have no money, and the government starts bailing them out.

Luckily, in Australia, our exports prop us up, and in an ironic sort of way - the destruction caused by natural disasters will boost up our employment. If those who are unemployed can bring themselves to stop relying on the dole, that is..

Also, dont be fooled by Tony Abbott. If you seriously think that he is going to go through with everything he is promising, you are kidding yourselves - he says the opposite of what Julia Gillard does to win public favour. He cant pull money out of his a** any more than the Prime Minister can, but he says things so he can get a foot in the door. They lie, people. They promise things they cant deliver because they are trying to win. The Carbon tax is going to happen, whether we like it or not. Does anyone remember how much drama surrounded the introduction of GST? That tax will be introduced, and if it isnt, its because they will introduce something else, because they need to get the money from somewhere.

Anyway, my point is that its not just the governments fault that the economy isnt great at the moment. We'll get through it, and so far we have done pretty well to avoid the extremes that the GFC has caused in a lot of other places. Labour or Liberal, it was going to happen, the economy goes up and down, and always has - and as a result government satisfaction rises and falls with it to.

Pointing the blame isnt going to fix anything. And blaming solely the Labour Government is a blatant sign of ignorance. Julia Gillard won, because people liked her more. Next time, do some research and vote for who you really believe in.

And if you hate the Labour Government so much, and you really believe that they wasted all the taxpayers money, maybe you could send back your $900 stimulus cheque?

Ozroller there is a huge list of taxes, charges, levies, duties etc that have either been introduced new or raised outside the parameters of indexation or had the criteria for there application broadened since Labour was given the keys, again. Cigarettes, alcopops, pokies, Medicare levy, flood levy, luxury car tax, mining tax, it goes on and on. Worst part about the carbon tax is that any coal that doesn,t get burnt here will still be dug up and burnt, but it will go onto a ship burning the filthiest grade of petroleoum oil fuel to take it to China first. As a tax with the stated intention of reducing carbon pollution, it will be the most stunning failure of humankind because we will consume no less than we do now nor dig up any less, we will just process less in Australia and have to send everything overseas and then ship it back (I know we do this already but it will become much worse). We used to have tariffs to protect Australian industry against cheaper imported goods. Keating got rid of them and told us our industries needed to toughen up and compete with the rest of the world and now Gilliard and Swan are determined to finish them off with an inverse tariff that will erode our taxation base to the point where the government will be "forced" to raise the GST to pay for all the extra millions that end up on the dole.But that will be OK, because Rudd will be able to go to the next climate conference and tell them we have reduce our emissions to almost zero in a language no one understands, unless he starts up in mandarin again, and the world will laugh and ask what the weather is like down under. And it won't be any different. Except we will feel it more because we will all be broke and their will be no gas or electricity supplies and tradies won't be able to get to your place to fix the holes in the walls where everyone who voted Labour/Green/Grandstanding Idiot Independant have been trying to knock some sense into themselves and the rest of us have been doing it in frustration.

Strong words indeed. Yes a tax policy paper was released with 103 or so recommendations and only 2 or 3 have been mentioned mmm yeah 'no carbon tax' did not take long to become a carbon tax from 1 July 2012. What this means is we pay to have coal extracted to make power via the cost of electricity. That produces pollution so we pay again for having burnt the coal ie its smoke this time to the government. So we pay twice for the coal once to the producer and again to the government who also taxes the producer. What other taxes will we pay? Death duties? Capital accumulation on your residence? Beware the government is bankrupt fiscally and morally.

and the mining tax and the other 130 odd new taxes, levies and charges and increases to existing ones that the ALP has hit us with in 4 years. Let's be serious though, did anyone expect it would be any better when we ( and by that I mean all the brainless twats that voted Labour) made a third rate public servant who couldn't hold his liquor PM. Anyone so intent on using big words that no one can understand (because he made most of them up) was always going to ruin everything he touched. And he led us to believe his Missus sold her company just so it wouldn't interfere with him being PM when it would now seem that that was a convenient excuse for her to cash up so she could fund her take over of British welfare so she swapped a $74 million dollar company for a $1.4 billion dollar one. Rudd then tried to copy that and swapped $16.4 billion (though that might have blown out a bit) for a couple of million dollars worth of classrooms and convinced us his mob knows what they are doing. But that was just a test. What they really wanted from that was not building jobs or new school halls, but to know whether a majority of Australians would eat **** and like it enough to come back for seconds. The focus groups must have said yes so they put in Comrade Julia, the millionaire Welsh communist (the Red) and teamed her up with a couple of Bob short Brown (the Green). And for everyone who voted for those two clowns and their parties, the answer to the question of what do you get when you mix red and green is in the Doc's name......... (ok, it is his last one). And Brown being the colour of ****, is it any wonder, that we as one of the most highly taxed countries in the world are now facing two of the biggest taxes ever imposed? But they are essential for our nation though, so the government doesn't go broke before it actually pays for all the crap it keeps spending our money on. Gillard is as bad a PM as you could ever wish to see, and her government is worse, but she is a damned sight better than Rudd and the government is probably better under her than having her as a minister and directly responsible for anything, particularly if that involves building anything, especially around schools.

I agree with you there, technical training has been severely unfunded by both governments for too many years now. Ideas of introducing such courses into high schools are absolutely stupid, we have colleges all around the country which are under utilized. It has become a political football, no foresight and for some reason universities get preference. Education has become a commodity for sale to overseas students whereas TAFE has not and has not been funded.



Now our econmoy is more tied to the asian markets we did not have a so called recession. Contrary to the governments boasting a number of the asian country's economies did not have recessions as well. We were not just the only 1. We did not have one due to the reserves the country had from surplus budgets the curent government spent it all carelessly to keep the economy going. I believe that if they had not increased interest rates 6 or 9 months before the drop we would not have needed to stupidly throw money at unplanned projects.

The economy back then Ozroller was tied too much to the US economy - the US economy "caught a cold" and our economy "caught the flu". Now we rely more on the Asian markets, our economy is not so severely affected. The thing I didn't like Howard/Costello for was for was their answer to the skills crisis was to import it rather than spending money training our own people.

Well I don't think Keating achieved anything with the banks. I paid 17% interest on my mortgage and then 20% on a business loan. The banks screwed everyone then screwed all the building societies and themselves. Westpac almost went down the tube at $2 a share then Keating let all the banks keep their interest rates high so they could get some losses back, who paid for that? We did!! And now how competitive is the industry, it is not at all. Economic sucess is not driven by governments it is driven by free enterprise and screwed by governments hence a new mining tax, on top of a resource rent tax invented by previous great reformists who at every chance tax tall poppies.

I think Turnbull runs rings around Abbott. If Turnbull had been the leader at the last election we would have had an outright winner and it would not have been the ALP.

If it wasn't for Hawke and Keating deregulating the economy, Costello and Howard wouldn't have anything to work with.

Our prosperity is based on what Hawke and Keating did.

(And frankly, our continuing economic success during the Howard years was thanks to Costello....Howard had no idea about economics)



We need to have Malcom Turnbull running the show. Abbott is a nightmare!

Yes I agree the ALP government has done what they always do spend spend spend to buy votes and stuff up things and now the second term and what has happened? Sweet FA. Really it is a crime to waste our money. Do we remember the great summit meeting called 2020 a vision for the country they had when they took over. A massive talk fest cost a fortune, web sites set up to monitor groceries costs, fuel, education and for what benefit to the people? None. Now the red haired Gilla monster has taken us down the bumpy Gilla Rd to huge debt again. It is only the luck that we have such reserves of mineral resources that we aren't the third world country that the previous labor govt. under Keating took us to.

Do you think that Ricky Ponting might venture into politics?

I couldn't agree more with you, the ALP has no idea on how to manage to the economy, Australia was booming with Johny and Pete. Now look at the f wits we have running the country.

True, true

i don't mean to sound criticle about your comment mate but we don't need to get rid of gillard......

we need to get rid of labour. last time labour was in the country was in deep trouble, then came old johnny. he got this country up and running, then they put labour back in and look where we are now..