19 April 2016

NSW right uses bully boy tactics

| John Hargreaves
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josh-parliament-house

The NSW extreme right has once again used its muscle to bully people into doing its bidding. Elected representatives have been coerced and cajoled into toeing the line and putting their support in for an embattled leader.

Sound familiar? I’m not talking about the NSW Labor Party. This is the extreme right of the Liberal Party. Abbott’s cronies have used their factional muscle to shore up support for the defeat of the spill motion.

The tactics are typical of those who are besotted with power. It is typical of those for whom power is the end game; it is not necessary to have good policies; it is not necessary to have the support of the people it is only important to have the parliamentary numbers.

What we saw played out in the spill motion process was factional heavies in NSW, WA, Victoria and SA employing the very tactics the Labor Party has been accused of over the years.

Well, the Labor Party does use these tactics in NSW. But compared to the Libs, they are amateurs at it.

The public have said to the Libs, dump him, the backbench majority has said we should consider dumping him but the powerbrokers have said, it ain’t gunna happen.

Senior ministers ringing colleagues tells me that arm twisting over the phone was the method. I’ve seen it thousands of times and here we go again.

I admire the 39 dissenters who have said, let’s put things to the test. I don’t admire those who used process to avert that test. The motion calling for a spill was called early, the technicality of a procedural motion allowing no debate was employed to stifle the opportunity for those members who wanted to have a say in doing so and bully boy tactics employed to ensure that ministers and whips toed the line. Essentially, it was a typical political stack.

The losers in this debacle are the PM, his cronies (they will go over the cliff with him when the tide turns – in August I predict), any good name the Libs have left and the Australian public.

The PM is mortally wounded and his closest cronies Hockey, Cormann, Pyne, Brandis, Abetz and Andrews are sitting in the mortuary waiting room.

The Australian public are the losers because the same extremists are in charge of developing the new Budget (over the corpse of the last one). Leopards and spots stuff!

The Libs claim they are not like Labor. True! They are greater haters, better leakers, better stalkers, and they have this born right to rule ethic. And they reckon if you make the rich super rich they will look after the poor people. Yeah, right!

They all wear blue ties to mimic the colour of their blood.

From my spot, watching the game from the hill, I like this blood sport. I like to see the gladiatorial contest. I like to see the Libs eating each other. I had to watch their pleasure when in the doldrums ourselves. And what goes around comes around. It is our turn to be entertained.

Don’t let the Mad Monk go anywhere. He is the best thing to ensure a Labor Government in 2016.

Apropos nothing really, did you know that Abbots live in Abbeys not Lodges. And Bishops live in Palaces, hence the refurbishments in the Lodge. Bishops outrank Abbots. I reckon also that the Abbott and both Bishops have committed a number of Cardinal sins and they have been exposed by cartoonist Pope. Funny that!

(Photo by Josh Mulrine from Shout Factor)

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dungfungus said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

At what point, according to you, will it be a “disaster”? (your words)
The level of debt is factual – it happened while Labor was in power and Labor made no attempt to rein it in.
It continues to rise because Labor refuses to let the coalition have a go at even getting the budget under control – forget the debt as it will never be paid. The coalition cannot even get a price signal message out there.
Just say you were in total charge of Australia’s economy and you agreed that the money being used to service the massive debt was a waste.
How would you do it differently?

The problem is the coalition have not come up with any policies that were designed to reign in debt either. The medicare co-payment was designed to provide for a future medical fund. The deregulation of universities was so funding could be diverted to TAFEs and technical colleges to have FEE-HELP cover them (A good idea IMO).

The budget has mostly been blocked by other right wing politicians! Abbott has a history of not being able to negotiate with other conservative politicians. How is Labor the issue here? They don’t hold the balance of power. Sure they can nullify the minor parties by agreeing, so why won’t the Coalition put up less extreme policies?

Do we really need to spend money on submarines and new fighter jets right now?
Why is it ok to give rebates, tax concessions, subsidies to the wealthy and big business, but OK to paint the less well off as rorting the system and relying on government handouts?

Why is it negative gearing applies to your whole income, yet run a small business from home and any claims on tax can only come from income earned on by the business. Surely negative gearing should only apply to income earnt from the properties themselves and not that persons income as well.

The current government should actually try introducing policies that are actually designed to reduce the debt. All they’ve done is remove taxes they didn’t like and then whinge that their extreme right wing social policies haven’t passed the senate, the majority of which are right wing politicians.

The policies that continually get blocked are not there to reduce the debt. So which policies are? Please tell me instead of believing everything your favourite political party tells you.

chewy14 said :

dungfungus said :

chewy14 said :

dungfungus said :

chewy14 said :

Mysteryman said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

I was hoping that you would have realised by now that spending to GDP is a fairly useless measure in regards to this conversation. Spending to revenue is more useful, and as you pointed out, became much worse under Labor.

And you seem to still think that government spending does nothing to encourage growth and yet still ruins the economy and budget at the same time. The extra spending by Labor might, read, might, have been slightly too high. But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession. The structural deficit set by Costello and Howard delivered almost all the budget problems we have today (continued by Rudd to get elected). They wasted most of the windfall gains which should have been used to build a sovereign wealth fund.

What we need is a government that’s committed to taxation and welfare reform. Concentrating on one side of the scale leaves us in the position we are today where all the entitled whingers scream “unfair”.

“But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession”
There is no evidence to support that assertion.
The stimulus spending was funded by borrowed money for a start and there was no plan to repay the debt. This was the epitome of Labor’s way to solve an imaginary problem.
Even if there was going to be a “deep recession” was the spending of $500 billion dollars (that can never be repaid) a smart thing to do?
The dumbest thing was the $900 handout/bribe to every Australian, both living and dead.
And a type sovereign wealth fund (Future Fund) was created by setting aside $60 billion dollars (From the sale of Telstra I think). This will at least ensure that federal public servants will receive a pension which is more than some ACT public servants may get due to the appalling underfunding of their superannuation.

There is plenty of evidence to say that the stimulus spending stopped Australia from going into recession.
The spending was also not $500B and the debt can be repaid if our political parties are willing to make the necessary structural changes to our revenue and spending.

And no, the future fund is not a sovereign wealth fund, it was simply designed to fund public servant’s superannuation. If they had not wasted all that windfall money on vote bribes and unnecessary spending, the future fund could have easily had $2-300B in it.

Well, even the architect of the stimulus spending agreed he failed: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-20/recession-is-inevitable-rudd/1656582
Of course, he was outed as PM soon after but Labor’s borrowing and spending didn’t stop.
It concerns me greatly that the current coalition government is now being blocked by Labor in their efforts to turn things around.
In a couple of parargraphs, please outline how you would repay the projected $700 billion debt we will have at the end of the current budget term.

Firstly, there is no projected $700B debt unless you are looking more than a decade into the future and using extremely pessimistic assumptions. How well have those forecasters been going lately?

But if you want some specific measures for reform, in no particular order:

1. Go back to the Henry review and look at implementing some of the recommendations.
2.GST to 15% on all products and services without exceptions. Compensation provided to low income earners and welfare recipients.
3. Reinstate the carbon tax or get rid of the compensation that came with it.
4.legislate a proper resource rent tax
5.Pensions. phase in a toughening of the assets and income tests including the value of the primary place of residence. No access til 70 years old.
6.Superannuation. Limit the non concessional contributions cap to say 2-3 times the concessional cap. All tax on earnings at 15% regardless of age. All lump sum withdrawals over a set amount, taxed at full marginal tax rates.
7.Medicare co payment.
8.Negative gearing grandfathered or limited to new builds
9.Get rid of novated leasing on non work cars
10.Family payments should be rationalized into one means tested payment. Limits placed on welfare for more than three children.
11.The dole, disability and other payments rationalized into one unemployment payment.
12. Limit the growth in defence spending
13.Put money into independently assessed nation buillding infrastructure projects.

Those would make a good start.

I would agree with most of those suggestions – a lot have already been “tested” by focus groups and the fact that none have been implemented means that they were electorally unpalatable.
There is a massive amount of fraud in the welfare sector. Scott Morrison will start to clean it up hopefully despite bleating from the self-interest groups.

Affirmative Action Man12:48 pm 22 Feb 15

chewy14 said :

dungfungus said :

chewy14 said :

dungfungus said :

chewy14 said :

Mysteryman said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

I was hoping that you would have realised by now that spending to GDP is a fairly useless measure in regards to this conversation. Spending to revenue is more useful, and as you pointed out, became much worse under Labor.

And you seem to still think that government spending does nothing to encourage growth and yet still ruins the economy and budget at the same time. The extra spending by Labor might, read, might, have been slightly too high. But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession. The structural deficit set by Costello and Howard delivered almost all the budget problems we have today (continued by Rudd to get elected). They wasted most of the windfall gains which should have been used to build a sovereign wealth fund.

What we need is a government that’s committed to taxation and welfare reform. Concentrating on one side of the scale leaves us in the position we are today where all the entitled whingers scream “unfair”.

“But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession”
There is no evidence to support that assertion.
The stimulus spending was funded by borrowed money for a start and there was no plan to repay the debt. This was the epitome of Labor’s way to solve an imaginary problem.
Even if there was going to be a “deep recession” was the spending of $500 billion dollars (that can never be repaid) a smart thing to do?
The dumbest thing was the $900 handout/bribe to every Australian, both living and dead.
And a type sovereign wealth fund (Future Fund) was created by setting aside $60 billion dollars (From the sale of Telstra I think). This will at least ensure that federal public servants will receive a pension which is more than some ACT public servants may get due to the appalling underfunding of their superannuation.

There is plenty of evidence to say that the stimulus spending stopped Australia from going into recession.
The spending was also not $500B and the debt can be repaid if our political parties are willing to make the necessary structural changes to our revenue and spending.

And no, the future fund is not a sovereign wealth fund, it was simply designed to fund public servant’s superannuation. If they had not wasted all that windfall money on vote bribes and unnecessary spending, the future fund could have easily had $2-300B in it.

Well, even the architect of the stimulus spending agreed he failed: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-20/recession-is-inevitable-rudd/1656582
Of course, he was outed as PM soon after but Labor’s borrowing and spending didn’t stop.
It concerns me greatly that the current coalition government is now being blocked by Labor in their efforts to turn things around.
In a couple of parargraphs, please outline how you would repay the projected $700 billion debt we will have at the end of the current budget term.

Firstly, there is no projected $700B debt unless you are looking more than a decade into the future and using extremely pessimistic assumptions. How well have those forecasters been going lately?

But if you want some specific measures for reform, in no particular order:

1. Go back to the Henry review and look at implementing some of the recommendations.
2.GST to 15% on all products and services without exceptions. Compensation provided to low income earners and welfare recipients.
3. Reinstate the carbon tax or get rid of the compensation that came with it.
4.legislate a proper resource rent tax
5.Pensions. phase in a toughening of the assets and income tests including the value of the primary place of residence. No access til 70 years old.
6.Superannuation. Limit the non concessional contributions cap to say 2-3 times the concessional cap. All tax on earnings at 15% regardless of age. All lump sum withdrawals over a set amount, taxed at full marginal tax rates.
7.Medicare co payment.
8.Negative gearing grandfathered or limited to new builds
9.Get rid of novated leasing on non work cars
10.Family payments should be rationalized into one means tested payment. Limits placed on welfare for more than three children.
11.The dole, disability and other payments rationalized into one unemployment payment.
12. Limit the growth in defence spending
13.Put money into independently assessed nation buillding infrastructure projects.

Those would make a good start.

This is all logical common sense so don’t ever expect politicians to endorse it. Labor now opposes anything the Libs put up even if it is part of their own Policy. Libs do exactly the same when in opposition. When it comes to deciding between the national interest and the party’s self interest guess who wins out ?

dungfungus said :

chewy14 said :

dungfungus said :

chewy14 said :

Mysteryman said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

I was hoping that you would have realised by now that spending to GDP is a fairly useless measure in regards to this conversation. Spending to revenue is more useful, and as you pointed out, became much worse under Labor.

And you seem to still think that government spending does nothing to encourage growth and yet still ruins the economy and budget at the same time. The extra spending by Labor might, read, might, have been slightly too high. But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession. The structural deficit set by Costello and Howard delivered almost all the budget problems we have today (continued by Rudd to get elected). They wasted most of the windfall gains which should have been used to build a sovereign wealth fund.

What we need is a government that’s committed to taxation and welfare reform. Concentrating on one side of the scale leaves us in the position we are today where all the entitled whingers scream “unfair”.

“But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession”
There is no evidence to support that assertion.
The stimulus spending was funded by borrowed money for a start and there was no plan to repay the debt. This was the epitome of Labor’s way to solve an imaginary problem.
Even if there was going to be a “deep recession” was the spending of $500 billion dollars (that can never be repaid) a smart thing to do?
The dumbest thing was the $900 handout/bribe to every Australian, both living and dead.
And a type sovereign wealth fund (Future Fund) was created by setting aside $60 billion dollars (From the sale of Telstra I think). This will at least ensure that federal public servants will receive a pension which is more than some ACT public servants may get due to the appalling underfunding of their superannuation.

There is plenty of evidence to say that the stimulus spending stopped Australia from going into recession.
The spending was also not $500B and the debt can be repaid if our political parties are willing to make the necessary structural changes to our revenue and spending.

And no, the future fund is not a sovereign wealth fund, it was simply designed to fund public servant’s superannuation. If they had not wasted all that windfall money on vote bribes and unnecessary spending, the future fund could have easily had $2-300B in it.

Well, even the architect of the stimulus spending agreed he failed: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-20/recession-is-inevitable-rudd/1656582
Of course, he was outed as PM soon after but Labor’s borrowing and spending didn’t stop.
It concerns me greatly that the current coalition government is now being blocked by Labor in their efforts to turn things around.
In a couple of parargraphs, please outline how you would repay the projected $700 billion debt we will have at the end of the current budget term.

Firstly, there is no projected $700B debt unless you are looking more than a decade into the future and using extremely pessimistic assumptions. How well have those forecasters been going lately?

But if you want some specific measures for reform, in no particular order:

1. Go back to the Henry review and look at implementing some of the recommendations.
2.GST to 15% on all products and services without exceptions. Compensation provided to low income earners and welfare recipients.
3. Reinstate the carbon tax or get rid of the compensation that came with it.
4.legislate a proper resource rent tax
5.Pensions. phase in a toughening of the assets and income tests including the value of the primary place of residence. No access til 70 years old.
6.Superannuation. Limit the non concessional contributions cap to say 2-3 times the concessional cap. All tax on earnings at 15% regardless of age. All lump sum withdrawals over a set amount, taxed at full marginal tax rates.
7.Medicare co payment.
8.Negative gearing grandfathered or limited to new builds
9.Get rid of novated leasing on non work cars
10.Family payments should be rationalized into one means tested payment. Limits placed on welfare for more than three children.
11.The dole, disability and other payments rationalized into one unemployment payment.
12. Limit the growth in defence spending
13.Put money into independently assessed nation buillding infrastructure projects.

Those would make a good start.

chewy14 said :

dungfungus said :

chewy14 said :

Mysteryman said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

I was hoping that you would have realised by now that spending to GDP is a fairly useless measure in regards to this conversation. Spending to revenue is more useful, and as you pointed out, became much worse under Labor.

And you seem to still think that government spending does nothing to encourage growth and yet still ruins the economy and budget at the same time. The extra spending by Labor might, read, might, have been slightly too high. But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession. The structural deficit set by Costello and Howard delivered almost all the budget problems we have today (continued by Rudd to get elected). They wasted most of the windfall gains which should have been used to build a sovereign wealth fund.

What we need is a government that’s committed to taxation and welfare reform. Concentrating on one side of the scale leaves us in the position we are today where all the entitled whingers scream “unfair”.

“But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession”
There is no evidence to support that assertion.
The stimulus spending was funded by borrowed money for a start and there was no plan to repay the debt. This was the epitome of Labor’s way to solve an imaginary problem.
Even if there was going to be a “deep recession” was the spending of $500 billion dollars (that can never be repaid) a smart thing to do?
The dumbest thing was the $900 handout/bribe to every Australian, both living and dead.
And a type sovereign wealth fund (Future Fund) was created by setting aside $60 billion dollars (From the sale of Telstra I think). This will at least ensure that federal public servants will receive a pension which is more than some ACT public servants may get due to the appalling underfunding of their superannuation.

There is plenty of evidence to say that the stimulus spending stopped Australia from going into recession.
The spending was also not $500B and the debt can be repaid if our political parties are willing to make the necessary structural changes to our revenue and spending.

And no, the future fund is not a sovereign wealth fund, it was simply designed to fund public servant’s superannuation. If they had not wasted all that windfall money on vote bribes and unnecessary spending, the future fund could have easily had $2-300B in it.

I dunno. It seems pretty hard when you’ve got the current government trying to get the new budget through the senate and the opposition blocking it every step of the way.

Of course, maybe the wealthy people should just pay extra. They already pay most of the tax bill, so why not a bit more?

chewy14 said :

dungfungus said :

chewy14 said :

Mysteryman said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

I was hoping that you would have realised by now that spending to GDP is a fairly useless measure in regards to this conversation. Spending to revenue is more useful, and as you pointed out, became much worse under Labor.

And you seem to still think that government spending does nothing to encourage growth and yet still ruins the economy and budget at the same time. The extra spending by Labor might, read, might, have been slightly too high. But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession. The structural deficit set by Costello and Howard delivered almost all the budget problems we have today (continued by Rudd to get elected). They wasted most of the windfall gains which should have been used to build a sovereign wealth fund.

What we need is a government that’s committed to taxation and welfare reform. Concentrating on one side of the scale leaves us in the position we are today where all the entitled whingers scream “unfair”.

“But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession”
There is no evidence to support that assertion.
The stimulus spending was funded by borrowed money for a start and there was no plan to repay the debt. This was the epitome of Labor’s way to solve an imaginary problem.
Even if there was going to be a “deep recession” was the spending of $500 billion dollars (that can never be repaid) a smart thing to do?
The dumbest thing was the $900 handout/bribe to every Australian, both living and dead.
And a type sovereign wealth fund (Future Fund) was created by setting aside $60 billion dollars (From the sale of Telstra I think). This will at least ensure that federal public servants will receive a pension which is more than some ACT public servants may get due to the appalling underfunding of their superannuation.

There is plenty of evidence to say that the stimulus spending stopped Australia from going into recession.
The spending was also not $500B and the debt can be repaid if our political parties are willing to make the necessary structural changes to our revenue and spending.

And no, the future fund is not a sovereign wealth fund, it was simply designed to fund public servant’s superannuation. If they had not wasted all that windfall money on vote bribes and unnecessary spending, the future fund could have easily had $2-300B in it.

Well, even the architect of the stimulus spending agreed he failed: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-20/recession-is-inevitable-rudd/1656582
Of course, he was outed as PM soon after but Labor’s borrowing and spending didn’t stop.
It concerns me greatly that the current coalition government is now being blocked by Labor in their efforts to turn things around.
In a couple of parargraphs, please outline how you would repay the projected $700 billion debt we will have at the end of the current budget term.

dungfungus said :

chewy14 said :

Mysteryman said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

I was hoping that you would have realised by now that spending to GDP is a fairly useless measure in regards to this conversation. Spending to revenue is more useful, and as you pointed out, became much worse under Labor.

And you seem to still think that government spending does nothing to encourage growth and yet still ruins the economy and budget at the same time. The extra spending by Labor might, read, might, have been slightly too high. But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession. The structural deficit set by Costello and Howard delivered almost all the budget problems we have today (continued by Rudd to get elected). They wasted most of the windfall gains which should have been used to build a sovereign wealth fund.

What we need is a government that’s committed to taxation and welfare reform. Concentrating on one side of the scale leaves us in the position we are today where all the entitled whingers scream “unfair”.

“But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession”
There is no evidence to support that assertion.
The stimulus spending was funded by borrowed money for a start and there was no plan to repay the debt. This was the epitome of Labor’s way to solve an imaginary problem.
Even if there was going to be a “deep recession” was the spending of $500 billion dollars (that can never be repaid) a smart thing to do?
The dumbest thing was the $900 handout/bribe to every Australian, both living and dead.
And a type sovereign wealth fund (Future Fund) was created by setting aside $60 billion dollars (From the sale of Telstra I think). This will at least ensure that federal public servants will receive a pension which is more than some ACT public servants may get due to the appalling underfunding of their superannuation.

There is plenty of evidence to say that the stimulus spending stopped Australia from going into recession.
The spending was also not $500B and the debt can be repaid if our political parties are willing to make the necessary structural changes to our revenue and spending.

And no, the future fund is not a sovereign wealth fund, it was simply designed to fund public servant’s superannuation. If they had not wasted all that windfall money on vote bribes and unnecessary spending, the future fund could have easily had $2-300B in it.

chewy14 said :

Mysteryman said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

I was hoping that you would have realised by now that spending to GDP is a fairly useless measure in regards to this conversation. Spending to revenue is more useful, and as you pointed out, became much worse under Labor.

And you seem to still think that government spending does nothing to encourage growth and yet still ruins the economy and budget at the same time. The extra spending by Labor might, read, might, have been slightly too high. But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession. The structural deficit set by Costello and Howard delivered almost all the budget problems we have today (continued by Rudd to get elected). They wasted most of the windfall gains which should have been used to build a sovereign wealth fund.

What we need is a government that’s committed to taxation and welfare reform. Concentrating on one side of the scale leaves us in the position we are today where all the entitled whingers scream “unfair”.

“But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession”
There is no evidence to support that assertion.
The stimulus spending was funded by borrowed money for a start and there was no plan to repay the debt. This was the epitome of Labor’s way to solve an imaginary problem.
Even if there was going to be a “deep recession” was the spending of $500 billion dollars (that can never be repaid) a smart thing to do?
The dumbest thing was the $900 handout/bribe to every Australian, both living and dead.
And a type sovereign wealth fund (Future Fund) was created by setting aside $60 billion dollars (From the sale of Telstra I think). This will at least ensure that federal public servants will receive a pension which is more than some ACT public servants may get due to the appalling underfunding of their superannuation.

chewy14 said :

And you seem to still think that government spending does nothing to encourage growth and yet still ruins the economy and budget at the same time. The extra spending by Labor might, read, might, have been slightly too high. But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession.

No. It didn’t. Not at all. Read my earlier comment and you’ll see why.

And because you seem to have difficulty understanding, I’ll clarify my position: government spending that outgrows revenue becomes a problem – especially spending and borrowing at the rate of the former government. Justifying it by falsely claiming it saved the country from economic downturn is a lie, plain and simple.

Mysteryman said :

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

I was hoping that you would have realised by now that spending to GDP is a fairly useless measure in regards to this conversation. Spending to revenue is more useful, and as you pointed out, became much worse under Labor.

And you seem to still think that government spending does nothing to encourage growth and yet still ruins the economy and budget at the same time. The extra spending by Labor might, read, might, have been slightly too high. But it definitely saved Australia from a deep recession. The structural deficit set by Costello and Howard delivered almost all the budget problems we have today (continued by Rudd to get elected). They wasted most of the windfall gains which should have been used to build a sovereign wealth fund.

What we need is a government that’s committed to taxation and welfare reform. Concentrating on one side of the scale leaves us in the position we are today where all the entitled whingers scream “unfair”.

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

“Our elected representatives are not all lazy, crooked, egomaniacs. Whilst this may be true of some, it is not true of the greater majority. These are hardworking human beings trying to do a good job for the people who voted them in (and in many cases for those who did not). They do not deserve to be pilloried at every turn, to be despised and metaphorically spat on because they have made decisions with which we, as individuals, disagree. They do not deserve to be the objects of derision and mockery.”

It does seem rather hypocritical, doesn’t it…

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

I was hoping that you would have realised by now that spending to GDP is a fairly useless measure in regards to this conversation. Spending to revenue is more useful, and as you pointed out, became much worse under Labor.

watto23 said :

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

At what point, according to you, will it be a “disaster”? (your words)
The level of debt is factual – it happened while Labor was in power and Labor made no attempt to rein it in.
It continues to rise because Labor refuses to let the coalition have a go at even getting the budget under control – forget the debt as it will never be paid. The coalition cannot even get a price signal message out there.
Just say you were in total charge of Australia’s economy and you agreed that the money being used to service the massive debt was a waste.
How would you do it differently?

John Hargreaves said :

MERC600 said :

John thanks , but this has been really done to death. With your insight

and contacts , please tell us about this tram thing. At the moment this is the main topic. Is it a go-er, is it all wrapped up. Do all the ALP MLA’s agree? Any faction play at all?

Thanks in advance. All the best. Merc

Merc. I have posted on the tram before. I am in favour of it not because it is an ALP thing, but because I like the idea of a tramway from all of the satellites to each other over time and you have to have guts to start somewhere.

Also, I wasn’t that convinced until I went to Barcelona and saw a short line tramway system which was great. And was non polluting.

Thank you. And from the assembly it looks like its a green light. Will certainly be looked at closely by all.

dungfungus said :

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

Labors spending increased in proportion of the increase to GDP. This is just a lie spread by the coalition to push through their policies. Spending has been a constant 24-25% over the past few decades. so if Howard can spend that amount, why is it that when Labour does its overspending?

Now revenue has been down and that is why their is a debt. revenue has been as high as 27% of GDP but is down around 20-21%. Now raising revenue is a politically harder thing to do. Its far easier to just cut services.

For someone quick to call people climate change alarmists, you do a pretty good job with the economy.

30% GDP to debt ratio is easy to manage and not anything to be alarmist about. I’m not saying we don’t need to do something about it. Most reasonable people believe we do have to be careful with spending and also with cuts right now. However its far from a disaster, and anyone that thinks it is, doesn’t know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading people for some kind of personal or political gain. The current government seems to be very good at spending money where they want to spend it on wasteful schemes, but as soon as its a cost that labor created the sky is falling in.

Queanbeyanite said :

Meanwhile, Riotact readers wait to hear how West-Queanbeyan ratepayers will be fleeced of the $1.2 Billion eventual cost of the new tram.

I’ve waited and now I am listening so please tell us.

Mysteryman said :

rubaiyat said :

Howard when he was treasurer under Fraser rang up some monstrous deficits and had the sheer good luck to reign as Prime Minister during the golden years of massive mineral exports BEFORE the GFC hit. Labor did a superb job of handling the crisis that put the world’s economy on its knees. It was one of the better things they did before the internal bickering got out of hand.

I really detest the uninformed sniping of the right re the GFC and its aftermath. Who do you think trashed the Trillions upon Trillions of dollars? Your blindly ideological and hypocritical Capitalist mates in Wall Street and those arch idiots in the Bush administration.

Labor did not do a “superb job” of handling the GFC, unless you consider coasting through it and spending some money they didn’t *need* to spend to be a “superb” performance. They did do a marvellous of convincing people like yourself to give them all the credit for the health of our economy.

I don’t want to have to type this all out again, so here’s my quote from another thread.

There are three main reasons that we came out the other side of the GFC better off than other developed countries. Firstly, our banks were not conducting the same questionable business practices as those in the US, UK, and Europe. They weren’t heavily invested off shore, and regulation prevented them from engaging in sub-prime predatory lending and other less-than-ethical investing so when the hit arrived in 2008, most of us lost no money from our savings and only a competitively small amount from our superannuation funds. The banks lost a minimal amount, and were in no danger of collapsing.

Secondly, and without question most significantly, is that China ramped up their building and infrastructure development in response to the GFC. The flow on effect was that Australian ore and other resources experienced an sharp increase in demand. Our GDP remained solid, and throughout 2009 China’s energy and mineral reliance on Australia grew massively, to the point where roughly 80% of our merchandise export was going straight to China. A huge increase on previous years. It made the Rudd government stimulus look like a drop in the ocean. We continued to experience favourable trading conditions that kept our economy kicking along strongly and prevented economic contraction.

Thirdly, we were in a very positive economic state in the lead up to the GFC. We had no debt. We had money in the bank. As a nation we were in the best possible financial position face the challenges of what might come.

Yes, the stimulus by the Rudd government also contributed. But its contribution was minimal compared to the other factors – particularly the resilience of our banks and the huge amount of business with China ramping up its stimulus and infrastructure building. The benefit of hindsight has allowed a number of economists to put the stimulus spending in perspective. It’s easy now to see that Rudd and Swan had much, much less to do with our performance during that time than their rhetoric has led you to believe.

If I could add that the consequences of all that spending by Labor has us deeply in debt that cannot ever be repaid.
Apologists continually use the debt to GDP comparisons of other countries that are worse off than us.
This is nonsense as “those other countries” have the manufacturing capacity to trade out of their debts whereas Australia doesn’t.
Today, debt rating agencies are warning that if our debt/GDP ration goes above 30% we can expect a review of our AAA rating (which was established by the Howard/Costello government). The announcement came shortly after Joe Hockey projected we would be at 32% within two years.
I happened to be in Argentina when their debt sovereign problems crystallised. It was toughest for the poorer people. I see exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

rubaiyat said :

dungfungus You keep repeating the same misinformation for some reason.

Modern trams and their infrastructure are not visually polluting at all. In fact quite neat and certainly far, FAR more attractive than the ugly alternatives such as buses and cars with all their infrastructure, which for some odd reason seem to be invisible to you.

Brave of you to admit to listening to Alan Jones, that blowhard could start a wind farm all on his own.

I see from another thread you have only been in Canberra a couple of years so you may not have noticed yet (you seem pretty involved in a hipster lifestyle) but Canberra has gone out of its way in its short 100 year history to establish beautiful street-scapes with undergrounding of power and communications utilities contributing most to this outcome.
With the advent of trams (let’s not use that stupid “light rail” alias) all that foresight and hard work will be gone which I am not prepared to accept.
How can you honestly say that “modern trams and their infrastructure are not visually polluting” when the technology has not changed in 100 years. The styling has changed commensurate with the times but the same poles, wires and cyclist traps (rails) are still there together with the squeals from flange creep (noise pollution is another matter that has not been considered).
What is the ugly infrastructure that goes with cars and buses anyhow?
Regarding Alan Jones, I don’t listen to him, ever. I did say I saw part of his interview with Chris Bowen on ABC TV which I watch maybe somewhat less than I used to these days.

rubaiyat said :

Howard when he was treasurer under Fraser rang up some monstrous deficits and had the sheer good luck to reign as Prime Minister during the golden years of massive mineral exports BEFORE the GFC hit. Labor did a superb job of handling the crisis that put the world’s economy on its knees. It was one of the better things they did before the internal bickering got out of hand.

I really detest the uninformed sniping of the right re the GFC and its aftermath. Who do you think trashed the Trillions upon Trillions of dollars? Your blindly ideological and hypocritical Capitalist mates in Wall Street and those arch idiots in the Bush administration.

Thatcher obviously was thinking of the grasping hard right, but didn’t know it, when she talked about some people running out of other people’s money!

When will people realise that Labor’s response to the GFC actually hurt our economy. They may have saved a handful of retail jobs in the short term, but the longer term impacts are much worse. Their over spending in response to it kept interest rates here significantly higher than the rest of the world, which pushed our dollar much higher than it should have been. That meant our exporters earned significantly less money, meaning the mining profits that should have still been generating good taxes for the government dried up. Our manufacturers found it difficult to compete with imports and so we lost a number of those businesses. The strength of our dollar meant many Australians took overseas holidays and not as many foreigners came here, so tourism suffered, and government revenue decreased again. These negative impacts to the economy backed up by steeply rising minimum wages under the so called Fair Work Act meant that unemployment rose more than it should have. What we needed was a more flexible industrial relations system that allowed for a minimum wage level that pretty much guarantees full employment even in more difficult times, but instead of having people in work earning a few thousand dollars less than they were previously, and still paying some taxes to the government, they’re now on unemployment benefits and costing the government quite a lot while having less money to spend themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, the Coalition’s ideological position on the economy ignored the realities that had been left by Labor, meaning the car industry that might have been able to compete against imports with a lower dollar has largely been shut down. At times I despair that we have no senior politicians in the federal parliament who actually understand economics. All they seem to understand is how to attack their opposition’s position, and how to spin their own. We’re approaching the position where they’re all salesmen with no substance, and its the country that’s suffering.

rubaiyat said :

Howard when he was treasurer under Fraser rang up some monstrous deficits and had the sheer good luck to reign as Prime Minister during the golden years of massive mineral exports BEFORE the GFC hit. Labor did a superb job of handling the crisis that put the world’s economy on its knees. It was one of the better things they did before the internal bickering got out of hand.

I really detest the uninformed sniping of the right re the GFC and its aftermath. Who do you think trashed the Trillions upon Trillions of dollars? Your blindly ideological and hypocritical Capitalist mates in Wall Street and those arch idiots in the Bush administration.

Labor did not do a “superb job” of handling the GFC, unless you consider coasting through it and spending some money they didn’t *need* to spend to be a “superb” performance. They did do a marvellous of convincing people like yourself to give them all the credit for the health of our economy.

I don’t want to have to type this all out again, so here’s my quote from another thread.

There are three main reasons that we came out the other side of the GFC better off than other developed countries. Firstly, our banks were not conducting the same questionable business practices as those in the US, UK, and Europe. They weren’t heavily invested off shore, and regulation prevented them from engaging in sub-prime predatory lending and other less-than-ethical investing so when the hit arrived in 2008, most of us lost no money from our savings and only a competitively small amount from our superannuation funds. The banks lost a minimal amount, and were in no danger of collapsing.

Secondly, and without question most significantly, is that China ramped up their building and infrastructure development in response to the GFC. The flow on effect was that Australian ore and other resources experienced an sharp increase in demand. Our GDP remained solid, and throughout 2009 China’s energy and mineral reliance on Australia grew massively, to the point where roughly 80% of our merchandise export was going straight to China. A huge increase on previous years. It made the Rudd government stimulus look like a drop in the ocean. We continued to experience favourable trading conditions that kept our economy kicking along strongly and prevented economic contraction.

Thirdly, we were in a very positive economic state in the lead up to the GFC. We had no debt. We had money in the bank. As a nation we were in the best possible financial position face the challenges of what might come.

Yes, the stimulus by the Rudd government also contributed. But its contribution was minimal compared to the other factors – particularly the resilience of our banks and the huge amount of business with China ramping up its stimulus and infrastructure building. The benefit of hindsight has allowed a number of economists to put the stimulus spending in perspective. It’s easy now to see that Rudd and Swan had much, much less to do with our performance during that time than their rhetoric has led you to believe.

gazket said :

The Liberals rallied around Tony Abbott what’s the problem . His peers actually increased Tony Abbotts margin for the top job . Tony Abbott only just beat Malcom Turnball for the job by one vote.

It’s better than stabbing you best mate in the back Labor style.

Labor don’t like Tony Abbott because he has shown the fraud that is climate change and upsets the UN policy of stripping money from 1st world countries and giving it to 3rd world countries.

Labor Government in 2016
Chris Bowen the shadow treasurer has never had a job outside of the government and has sponged of the taxpayer his whole working life. No real world experience what so ever.

Alan Jones proved how stupid Chris Bowen is. This guy has never had a real job outside of taxpayer funding and Labor picked him to be treasurer.

Wayne Swan had the experience of a treasury job at cricket club for a couple of years and look how well he done. Bowen has nothing just like Bill Shorten.

Only thing I wish Tony Abbott would stop doing is saying “captains pick”. That is a Gillard saying and sounds like you are up yourself.

since 1986/7

Labor has posted two surpluses from 13 attempts by five treasurers while the Coalition has 10 surpluses from 12 Budgets, all delivered by Peter Costello.

Australian Budget Surplus score card
Liberal 10 V’s Labor 2

The overall scoreboard shows Costello’s record is SURPLUSES worth $97 billion. Labor’s tally is DEFICITS totaling $284 billion .

The “Climate Change Fraud” is probably the give away here and usually leads the conversation away to someone more rational, but I couldn’t leave the selective surpluses claim unchallenged.

Howard when he was treasurer under Fraser rang up some monstrous deficits and had the sheer good luck to reign as Prime Minister during the golden years of massive mineral exports BEFORE the GFC hit. Labor did a superb job of handling the crisis that put the world’s economy on its knees. It was one of the better things they did before the internal bickering got out of hand.

I really detest the uninformed sniping of the right re the GFC and its aftermath. Who do you think trashed the Trillions upon Trillions of dollars? Your blindly ideological and hypocritical Capitalist mates in Wall Street and those arch idiots in the Bush administration.

Thatcher obviously was thinking of the grasping hard right, but didn’t know it, when she talked about some people running out of other people’s money!

dungfungus You keep repeating the same misinformation for some reason.

Modern trams and their infrastructure are not visually polluting at all. In fact quite neat and certainly far, FAR more attractive than the ugly alternatives such as buses and cars with all their infrastructure, which for some odd reason seem to be invisible to you.

Brave of you to admit to listening to Alan Jones, that blowhard could start a wind farm all on his own.

Queanbeyanite9:30 pm 19 Feb 15

Meanwhile, Riotact readers wait to hear how West-Queanbeyan ratepayers will be fleeced of the $1.2 Billion eventual cost of the new tram.

John Hargreaves said :

MERC600 said :

John thanks , but this has been really done to death. With your insight

and contacts , please tell us about this tram thing. At the moment this is the main topic. Is it a go-er, is it all wrapped up. Do all the ALP MLA’s agree? Any faction play at all?

Thanks in advance. All the best. Merc

Merc. I have posted on the tram before. I am in favour of it not because it is an ALP thing, but because I like the idea of a tramway from all of the satellites to each other over time and you have to have guts to start somewhere.

Also, I wasn’t that convinced until I went to Barcelona and saw a short line tramway system which was great. And was non polluting.

“And was non polluting.”
Trams and their wire-scape are visually polluting, John. The technology is over 100 years old.
Then again, a lot of things are a lot older and still in fashion, like wine.

John Hargreaves5:39 pm 19 Feb 15

MERC600 said :

John thanks , but this has been really done to death. With your insight

and contacts , please tell us about this tram thing. At the moment this is the main topic. Is it a go-er, is it all wrapped up. Do all the ALP MLA’s agree? Any faction play at all?

Thanks in advance. All the best. Merc

Merc. I have posted on the tram before. I am in favour of it not because it is an ALP thing, but because I like the idea of a tramway from all of the satellites to each other over time and you have to have guts to start somewhere.

Also, I wasn’t that convinced until I went to Barcelona and saw a short line tramway system which was great. And was non polluting.

VYBerlinaV8_is_back12:47 pm 19 Feb 15

“Our elected representatives are not all lazy, crooked, egomaniacs. Whilst this may be true of some, it is not true of the greater majority. These are hardworking human beings trying to do a good job for the people who voted them in (and in many cases for those who did not). They do not deserve to be pilloried at every turn, to be despised and metaphorically spat on because they have made decisions with which we, as individuals, disagree. They do not deserve to be the objects of derision and mockery.”

rosscoact said :

dungfungus said :

Alan Jones isn’t suitable for anything.

I agree with you Dungers

I’m always willing to give a right/conservative voter some of my time IF they don’t believe everything Alan Jones says. That is the difference between an intelligent right wing voter and an unintelligent right wing voter. Same goes for Left wingers and believing everything the union tells them!

dungfungus said :

Alan Jones isn’t suitable for anything.

I agree with you Dungers

chewy14 said :

dungfungus said :

gazket said :

The Liberals rallied around Tony Abbott what’s the problem . His peers actually increased Tony Abbotts margin for the top job . Tony Abbott only just beat Malcom Turnball for the job by one vote.

It’s better than stabbing you best mate in the back Labor style.

Labor don’t like Tony Abbott because he has shown the fraud that is climate change and upsets the UN policy of stripping money from 1st world countries and giving it to 3rd world countries.

Labor Government in 2016
Chris Bowen the shadow treasurer has never had a job outside of the government and has sponged of the taxpayer his whole working life. No real world experience what so ever.

Alan Jones proved how stupid Chris Bowen is. This guy has never had a real job outside of taxpayer funding and Labor picked him to be treasurer.

Wayne Swan had the experience of a treasury job at cricket club for a couple of years and look how well he done. Bowen has nothing just like Bill Shorten.

Only thing I wish Tony Abbott would stop doing is saying “captains pick”. That is a Gillard saying and sounds like you are up yourself.

since 1986/7

Labor has posted two surpluses from 13 attempts by five treasurers while the Coalition has 10 surpluses from 12 Budgets, all delivered by Peter Costello.

Australian Budget Surplus score card
Liberal 10 V’s Labor 2

The overall scoreboard shows Costello’s record is SURPLUSES worth $97 billion. Labor’s tally is DEFICITS totaling $284 billion .

I just saw Bowen on ABC News24 defending himself for not knowing what the taxable income threshold was when he was being interviewed by some Alan Jones reporter.
Bowen said that he was talking about taxing the wealthy and their superannuation concessions so the question about low income taxation thresholds was not relevant.
Hello, Mr Bowen? Low income is becoming very relevant to self-funded retirees at present so it was very relevant.
Bowen must get an award for the lamest excuse so far this year.

Yes it was a lame excuse, only beaten by the extreme lameness of the question being asked in the first place.

Does anyone honestly care if the treasurer or shadow treasurer know the exact tax rates and tax free thresholds off the top of their heads during an interview. That’s exactly what they have expert staff for.

It’s the worst kind of “gotcha” reporting and adds nothing to the debate. I’d bet good money that Alan Jones doesn’t know the exact radio frequencies his show airs on around country either. Should that make him unsuitable to be a broadcaster?

According to the majority of posts on this following RIOTACT thread, Alan Jones isn’t suitable for anything.
http://the-riotact.com/the-anti-windfarm-movement-is-coming-to-canberra-with-alan-jones-at-its-head/107466

gazket said :

The Liberals rallied around Tony Abbott what’s the problem . His peers actually increased Tony Abbotts margin for the top job . Tony Abbott only just beat Malcom Turnball for the job by one vote.

It’s better than stabbing you best mate in the back Labor style.

In regards to the spill motion, the ministers group was obliged to vote as a block by convention. The back benchers were the only ones with free votes, and around 60% of them thought that Tony Abbott had to go – probably because the government has turned the electorate around from 53/47 in their favour at the election to 43/57 in recent polls and many of them stand to lose their seats. In my discussions with people the Liberals were elected despite Tony Abbott, not because of him, and many Liberal voters, especially those that are more swinging voters, would be happy to see him replaced. Replacing a deeply unpopular PM such as Abbott would not have the same negative impact as replacing the relatively popular Rudd, and may be necessary to keep Labor from returning to power at the next election. The question now is can Abbott make significant changes to the way he and his office do things, and start to turn around the fortunes of the Liberal Party. Sacking Ruddock as Chief Whip only a few days after the motion was not a good start.

dungfungus said :

gazket said :

The Liberals rallied around Tony Abbott what’s the problem . His peers actually increased Tony Abbotts margin for the top job . Tony Abbott only just beat Malcom Turnball for the job by one vote.

It’s better than stabbing you best mate in the back Labor style.

Labor don’t like Tony Abbott because he has shown the fraud that is climate change and upsets the UN policy of stripping money from 1st world countries and giving it to 3rd world countries.

Labor Government in 2016
Chris Bowen the shadow treasurer has never had a job outside of the government and has sponged of the taxpayer his whole working life. No real world experience what so ever.

Alan Jones proved how stupid Chris Bowen is. This guy has never had a real job outside of taxpayer funding and Labor picked him to be treasurer.

Wayne Swan had the experience of a treasury job at cricket club for a couple of years and look how well he done. Bowen has nothing just like Bill Shorten.

Only thing I wish Tony Abbott would stop doing is saying “captains pick”. That is a Gillard saying and sounds like you are up yourself.

since 1986/7

Labor has posted two surpluses from 13 attempts by five treasurers while the Coalition has 10 surpluses from 12 Budgets, all delivered by Peter Costello.

Australian Budget Surplus score card
Liberal 10 V’s Labor 2

The overall scoreboard shows Costello’s record is SURPLUSES worth $97 billion. Labor’s tally is DEFICITS totaling $284 billion .

I just saw Bowen on ABC News24 defending himself for not knowing what the taxable income threshold was when he was being interviewed by some Alan Jones reporter.
Bowen said that he was talking about taxing the wealthy and their superannuation concessions so the question about low income taxation thresholds was not relevant.
Hello, Mr Bowen? Low income is becoming very relevant to self-funded retirees at present so it was very relevant.
Bowen must get an award for the lamest excuse so far this year.

Yes it was a lame excuse, only beaten by the extreme lameness of the question being asked in the first place.

Does anyone honestly care if the treasurer or shadow treasurer know the exact tax rates and tax free thresholds off the top of their heads during an interview. That’s exactly what they have expert staff for.

It’s the worst kind of “gotcha” reporting and adds nothing to the debate. I’d bet good money that Alan Jones doesn’t know the exact radio frequencies his show airs on around country either. Should that make him unsuitable to be a broadcaster?

gazket said :

The Liberals rallied around Tony Abbott what’s the problem . His peers actually increased Tony Abbotts margin for the top job . Tony Abbott only just beat Malcom Turnball for the job by one vote.

It’s better than stabbing you best mate in the back Labor style.

Labor don’t like Tony Abbott because he has shown the fraud that is climate change and upsets the UN policy of stripping money from 1st world countries and giving it to 3rd world countries.

Labor Government in 2016
Chris Bowen the shadow treasurer has never had a job outside of the government and has sponged of the taxpayer his whole working life. No real world experience what so ever.

Alan Jones proved how stupid Chris Bowen is. This guy has never had a real job outside of taxpayer funding and Labor picked him to be treasurer.

Wayne Swan had the experience of a treasury job at cricket club for a couple of years and look how well he done. Bowen has nothing just like Bill Shorten.

Only thing I wish Tony Abbott would stop doing is saying “captains pick”. That is a Gillard saying and sounds like you are up yourself.

since 1986/7

Labor has posted two surpluses from 13 attempts by five treasurers while the Coalition has 10 surpluses from 12 Budgets, all delivered by Peter Costello.

Australian Budget Surplus score card
Liberal 10 V’s Labor 2

The overall scoreboard shows Costello’s record is SURPLUSES worth $97 billion. Labor’s tally is DEFICITS totaling $284 billion .

I just saw Bowen on ABC News24 defending himself for not knowing what the taxable income threshold was when he was being interviewed by some Alan Jones reporter.
Bowen said that he was talking about taxing the wealthy and their superannuation concessions so the question about low income taxation thresholds was not relevant.
Hello, Mr Bowen? Low income is becoming very relevant to self-funded retirees at present so it was very relevant.
Bowen must get an award for the lamest excuse so far this year.

rosscoact said :

neanderthalsis said :

rosscoact said :

It’s a funny thing but I’ve noticed the majority of Liberal voters no longer wish to discuss the Federal government train wreck that is determined to screw up pretty much everything they touch.

Dungers excepted of course

This is because most Liberal voters recognise bad government when they see it. At the opposite end of the scale are the rusted on, one eyed Labor voters who will avidly declare support for incompetence, ineptitude and even downright corruption.

Meh, I’m pretty sure everyone can recognise a bad government followed by a worse one.

The Labor government wasn’t really as bad as the coalition would have you believe. they had internal squabbling issues which led to their demise. As a government they functioned much better than the current government.

They blame labor for over spending, when spending was around 24-25% of GDP, which was exactly the same as the previous 20 odd years, most of which was a liberal government.

They blame labor for blocking everything in the senate, but really its the other mostly right leaning senators that are blocking the policies. After all Abbott couldn’t negotiate with two ex National party independents to get power in 2010.

I know the coalition apologists will just call me a left wing socialist, but I’m not. I’m a reasonable moderate swing voter, many of whom it seems voted for this current government and won’t vote for them again.

The Liberals rallied around Tony Abbott what’s the problem . His peers actually increased Tony Abbotts margin for the top job . Tony Abbott only just beat Malcom Turnball for the job by one vote.

It’s better than stabbing you best mate in the back Labor style.

Labor don’t like Tony Abbott because he has shown the fraud that is climate change and upsets the UN policy of stripping money from 1st world countries and giving it to 3rd world countries.

Labor Government in 2016
Chris Bowen the shadow treasurer has never had a job outside of the government and has sponged of the taxpayer his whole working life. No real world experience what so ever.

Alan Jones proved how stupid Chris Bowen is. This guy has never had a real job outside of taxpayer funding and Labor picked him to be treasurer.

Wayne Swan had the experience of a treasury job at cricket club for a couple of years and look how well he done. Bowen has nothing just like Bill Shorten.

Only thing I wish Tony Abbott would stop doing is saying “captains pick”. That is a Gillard saying and sounds like you are up yourself.

since 1986/7

Labor has posted two surpluses from 13 attempts by five treasurers while the Coalition has 10 surpluses from 12 Budgets, all delivered by Peter Costello.

Australian Budget Surplus score card
Liberal 10 V’s Labor 2

The overall scoreboard shows Costello’s record is SURPLUSES worth $97 billion. Labor’s tally is DEFICITS totaling $284 billion .

Affirmative Action Man11:10 am 18 Feb 15

Mysteryman said :

Affirmative Action Man said :

I was hopeful Mr Hargraves might provide some insightful comments – maybe an insiders view on how the system works a bit like articles we see from Gary Johns or Carmen Lawrence instead we get lots of party political waffle. Really we may as well have Simon Corbell or Addrew Barr write the column for him.

You must be new here.

Not new just maybe naïve.

Affirmative Action Man said :

I was hopeful Mr Hargraves might provide some insightful comments – maybe an insiders view on how the system works a bit like articles we see from Gary Johns or Carmen Lawrence instead we get lots of party political waffle. Really we may as well have Simon Corbell or Addrew Barr write the column for him.

You must be new here.

neanderthalsis said :

rosscoact said :

It’s a funny thing but I’ve noticed the majority of Liberal voters no longer wish to discuss the Federal government train wreck that is determined to screw up pretty much everything they touch.

Dungers excepted of course

This is because most Liberal voters recognise bad government when they see it. At the opposite end of the scale are the rusted on, one eyed Labor voters who will avidly declare support for incompetence, ineptitude and even downright corruption.

Meh, I’m pretty sure everyone can recognise a bad government followed by a worse one.

There’s a very strong requirement for stability in government at the federal level. It would be severely bad to have the culture of political knifing embedded at a federal level of government.

Affirmative Action Man9:18 am 17 Feb 15

I was hopeful Mr Hargraves might provide some insightful comments – maybe an insiders view on how the system works a bit like articles we see from Gary Johns or Carmen Lawrence instead we get lots of party political waffle. Really we may as well have Simon Corbell or Addrew Barr write the column for him.

neanderthalsis8:28 am 17 Feb 15

rosscoact said :

It’s a funny thing but I’ve noticed the majority of Liberal voters no longer wish to discuss the Federal government train wreck that is determined to screw up pretty much everything they touch.

Dungers excepted of course

This is because most Liberal voters recognise bad government when they see it. At the opposite end of the scale are the rusted on, one eyed Labor voters who will avidly declare support for incompetence, ineptitude and even downright corruption.

It’s a funny thing but I’ve noticed the majority of Liberal voters no longer wish to discuss the Federal government train wreck that is determined to screw up pretty much everything they touch.

Dungers excepted of course

John thanks , but this has been really done to death. With your insight and contacts , please tell us about this tram thing. At the moment this is the main topic. Is it a go-er, is it all wrapped up. Do all the ALP MLA’s agree? Any faction play at all?

Thanks in advance. All the best. Merc

I used to think that perhaps his seemingly random blunders were part of some overall Plan; some Machiavellian plot we the public were not aware of. I figured that this kind of extreme idiocy could not possibly be accidental. But now I’ve come to the conclusion that Abbott really is as oblivious as he seems.

I hope he clings to power and defeats any further challenges to his leadership. I also hope he and his supporters continue to make shooting themselves in the foot an art form. Thankfully this seems very likely, as the extreme right in the Liberal party would rather lose an election than see someone like Turnbull take the reins.

I hate to see the fascinating organism that is politics in this country (not to mention the wonderful symbol of freedom and democracy that is our electoral system) reduced to this banal “pick us, because we’re not them” mentality.

And the blue vs red tie thing is just sad, on both sides of the house. I look forward to a day when this country ceases to be governed by a bunch of children.

Quite a long comment John. Feeling better now ?

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