Opportunity Lost

Labour’s slavish adhesion to this lunatic light rail idea, and worshiping at the altar of Mayor Rat is making the Libs a shoe in for the next election

Be nice to find out how much ‘legalizing’ gay marriage costed in the end. An investment that set back the cause by 10 years, cost millions locally and federally and p$%#%d off the many on both sides of the fence.

Its amazing that whenever the government wants to spend a big deal of money they also like to get benefit for themselves, in this case increasing the size of the assembly.

For the $0.6 billion for light rail we could get 1gb fibre to the home for everyone in Canberra, which would negate the need for many to have to go to work. Would save millions for the federal government as they could reduce office sizes for fed public servants.

The feds would probably pay half if asked.

I went to Spotlight in Queanbeyan yesterday. I couldn’t help noticing that Queanbeyan looked beautiful – very clean and neat. Unlike what I see every day in Canberra, there is no graffiti visible on the main entrance roads into Queanbeyan; no overgrown grass and litter (not a skerrick of rubbish to be seen); and there was a rather lovely, well-maintained roundabout of low plantings at the roundabout of Canberra Ave and Lanyon Drive. I looked, and I remembered that Queanbeyan also has green bins and a hard rubbish collection.
I do not understand why Queanbeyan can do all this yet Canberra remains scruffy and embarrassing and does not have the services available in almost all other medium-sized towns across Australia.
We had interstate visitors (ex-longtime-Canberrans) this weekend. They commented on the evident lack of general maintenance – the ‘look and feel’, if you like, of their former home town.
Then I realised – Canberra has become ‘struggle town’.
I want what Queanbeyan has. Can we please, PLEASE, have a government that demonstrates that they can do the little things properly BEFORE they try to take on big, expensive things like trams we do not need. I am so sick to death of show-off pretentious ACT Governments who want to be the ‘first’ to do something momentous, like heroin injection rooms, gay marriage, and human rights prisons. Now, it’s all about trams, which apparently are the cool toy lots of cool towns are getting. None of these things were never necessary. Prioritising these things is plain stupid – like a person who buys really posh, shiny furniture, only to put it into a house they never bother to clean or maintain.
I just want my local government to be a local government. Not cool. Not momentous. Just do the housework already.

Maya123 said :

Ha, ha, I didn’t put my bin out this week, or last week, or the week before that, and might not for several weeks as it is still almost empty. But plenty of others in my street did, although I can’t imagine what they find to fill their bins with week after week. I guess they don’t compost and spend extra on food they don’t use and then bin it.

I guess they must live different lifestyles to you! Live and let live!

Grail said :

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

Do you disagree that the current government are running up a massive debt to pander to a Green balance of power?

Do you agree that Jeremy’s promises are non-core and must necessarily give way to the austerity measures that he will introduce, should his party gain government? He’s already promised that rates will rise 10% per year.

Do you agree that Liberals have never been able to manage debt and are fixated with running at a surplus even when infrastructure, education and health have to suffer?

Do you agree that people who fund their house purchases with loans are fiscally irresponsible?

What the hell is this? Why are you shilling for Labor? Anyone can see this ACT budget is ridiculous.

Grail said :

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

Do you disagree that the current government are running up a massive debt to pander to a Green balance of power?

Do you agree that Jeremy’s promises are non-core and must necessarily give way to the austerity measures that he will introduce, should his party gain government? He’s already promised that rates will rise 10% per year.

Do you agree that Liberals have never been able to manage debt and are fixated with running at a surplus even when infrastructure, education and health have to suffer?

Do you agree that people who fund their house purchases with loans are fiscally irresponsible?

1) The ACT Libs “promises” have to be taken with a grain of salt – as nowday’s all promises/policies from politicians must, no matter what their persuasion !

2) I don’t recall the ACT Liberals saying that Annual Rates would continue to rise by 10% on average under them. Citation please ? But, how would they stop it now its been legislated and implemented ? With what would they replace the revenue shortfall ?

3) Debt has to repaid sometime. So, one day, infrastructure like education and hospitals have to suffer. So, why get into that situation in the 1st place ! The ACT Labor Govt is already deeply in debt and will be “borrowing” b$1 to cover the infrastructure “investment” costs in this budget. Thats going to bankrupt this place when it has to be repaid and education, schools, Ratepayers and all ACT residents will suffer much more than they should. History tells us that those increased ACT Gov’t charges will never be reduce, either.

4) No – I for one do not agree that “people who fund their house purchases with loans are fiscally irresponsible”. Thats not, IMHO, not an apples-to-apples comparison. People borrow $ to buy a house. THEY pay it back – not others (eg. all householders). It remains their personal asset. Mortgages eventually end but subsidising loss making Gov’t infrastructure (like the light rail), sale of assets then leasing them back, increased water charges, increased parking and rego charges, etc, will go on forever – for all ACT residents to pay (like the ACTION bus subsidy). This ACT Gov’t had no mandate to press forward with the Light Rail and the consequent cost impost onto all Canberrians/Ratepayers. The ACT Lib’s actually got marginally more of the vote at the last election – but lost due to the Greens (Shane Rattenbury) supporting the incumbent Labor Government. So, responsibility for the Light Rail folly, the average 10%pa rise in Annual Rates for the next 20 years, etc, can be put fairly and squarely on Rattenbury’s shoulders. Long may that be remembered !!

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

Do you disagree that the current government are running up a massive debt to pander to a Green balance of power?

Do you agree that Jeremy’s promises are non-core and must necessarily give way to the austerity measures that he will introduce, should his party gain government? He’s already promised that rates will rise 10% per year.

Do you agree that Liberals have never been able to manage debt and are fixated with running at a surplus even when infrastructure, education and health have to suffer?

Do you agree that people who fund their house purchases with loans are fiscally irresponsible?

gazket said :

I bet you put your bin out to be emptied this week.

Nope. The garbage bin goes out when there’s smelly stuff in it: usually about once every three or four weeks. The recycling goes out every fortnight though.

gazket said :

“The Liberals are only complaining about the 90% renewable target because it means the end of the line for their buddies in the coal-fired electricity industry”

Grail is still butt hurt, How would we pay Labour debt if there are no coal fired power stations ?
The 90% renewable target is an ideological dream.
Remember no waste by 2010, a previous ideological dream. I bet you put your bin out to be emptied this week.

Ha, ha, I didn’t put my bin out this week, or last week, or the week before that, and might not for several weeks as it is still almost empty. But plenty of others in my street did, although I can’t imagine what they find to fill their bins with week after week. I guess they don’t compost and spend extra on food they don’t use and then bin it.

Jesus, I didn’t know Jeremy was still alive – I thought he’d fallen into some Zed-like coma and died!

Anyway, good to see he can come out and thump the side of the tub sometimes; it’s just a pity he doesn’t do it more often, and a little more effectively against this hopeless government. Also, it’d be nice to hear how the ACT Liberals would do things differently if they ever get a chance to hold the steering wheel…..

Grail said :

The Liberals are only complaining about the 90% renewable target because it means the end of the line for their buddies in the coal-fired electricity industry.

Nothing Jeremy says makes any sense. Neither does believing anything he says. The Liberals at national and state levels have well and truly passed beyond the days of promises meaning anything: in John Howard’s day he at least put up a show of “core” and “non-core” promises. Tony Abbott just dismisses all the promises under the umbrella of whatever the Liberals believe they have the “mandate” to do.

The way to interpret Liberal bleatings is to see what they accuse everyone else of doing, then expect the Liberals to double-down on that behaviour: especially in this context where Jeremy is telling us that “the Government cannot show restraint … Canberra [has lost] its way but the Canberra Liberals will bring the opportunity back. I want … (insert list of Jeremy Hanson’s ideologically driven goals for Canberra’s future here)”

So Jeremy’s idea of the future of Canberra is one where Coal and Nuclear are the only options for power, where housing is affordable because the bottom has fallen out of the market (because the Liberals at the Federal level have gutted the APS), and he wants to build economic prosperity (for whom, he doesn’t nominate) and make our health system the best in Australia (again, because at the Federal level, everything is being done to break the health system for the whole of Australia to render it worse than what we have in Canberra).

Every time a Liberal makes statements like this you have to ask yourself, “what do they really mean? where is the money coming from? who is providing the direction for this party?” They are, to the last individual, morally corrupt to the level that abandoning an elected position six months after an election is expected to be condoned as the best thing for Canberrans as opposed to Zed simply looking out for the only person he cares about.

They are traitors, abandoning the rest of the nation to appease their multinational corporate masters in the hope of lining their own pockets with scraps from the masters’ tables.

We’ll I am in shock Grail, now that you’ve exposed the fact that every Liberal, ‘to the last’ is morally corrupt.

Can you give us some more detail about this evil conspiracy? How for example, does the coal and nuclear industry(?) actually funnel the money to someone as low on the totem pole as Jeremy Hanson? How much do they pay him? How did you find out? Please post the links.

I’ll have to stop reading the Murdoch papers. This is huge news but I knew nothing about it!

“The Liberals are only complaining about the 90% renewable target because it means the end of the line for their buddies in the coal-fired electricity industry”

Grail is still butt hurt, How would we pay Labour debt if there are no coal fired power stations ?
The 90% renewable target is an ideological dream.
Remember no waste by 2010, a previous ideological dream. I bet you put your bin out to be emptied this week.

Jeremy should stick to criticising Hitler impersonators.

Grail said :

The Liberals are only complaining about the 90% renewable target because it means the end of the line for their buddies in the coal-fired electricity industry.

Nothing Jeremy says makes any sense. Neither does believing anything he says. The Liberals at national and state levels have well and truly passed beyond the days of promises meaning anything: in John Howard’s day he at least put up a show of “core” and “non-core” promises. Tony Abbott just dismisses all the promises under the umbrella of whatever the Liberals believe they have the “mandate” to do.

The way to interpret Liberal bleatings is to see what they accuse everyone else of doing, then expect the Liberals to double-down on that behaviour: especially in this context where Jeremy is telling us that “the Government cannot show restraint … Canberra [has lost] its way but the Canberra Liberals will bring the opportunity back. I want … (insert list of Jeremy Hanson’s ideologically driven goals for Canberra’s future here)”

So Jeremy’s idea of the future of Canberra is one where Coal and Nuclear are the only options for power, where housing is affordable because the bottom has fallen out of the market (because the Liberals at the Federal level have gutted the APS), and he wants to build economic prosperity (for whom, he doesn’t nominate) and make our health system the best in Australia (again, because at the Federal level, everything is being done to break the health system for the whole of Australia to render it worse than what we have in Canberra).

Every time a Liberal makes statements like this you have to ask yourself, “what do they really mean? where is the money coming from? who is providing the direction for this party?” They are, to the last individual, morally corrupt to the level that abandoning an elected position six months after an election is expected to be condoned as the best thing for Canberrans as opposed to Zed simply looking out for the only person he cares about.

They are traitors, abandoning the rest of the nation to appease their multinational corporate masters in the hope of lining their own pockets with scraps from the masters’ tables.

If that’s not a frothing at the mouth Labor rant I don’t know what is.

Do you disagree that the current government are running up a massive debt to pander to a Green balance of power?

Bosworth said :

“what Canberrans want”

how is this measured?

Hanson cannot speak for all Canberrans, that’s Hon Dungers job.

Over to you Mr Dungfungus

“what Canberrans want”

how is this measured?

The Liberals are only complaining about the 90% renewable target because it means the end of the line for their buddies in the coal-fired electricity industry.

Nothing Jeremy says makes any sense. Neither does believing anything he says. The Liberals at national and state levels have well and truly passed beyond the days of promises meaning anything: in John Howard’s day he at least put up a show of “core” and “non-core” promises. Tony Abbott just dismisses all the promises under the umbrella of whatever the Liberals believe they have the “mandate” to do.

The way to interpret Liberal bleatings is to see what they accuse everyone else of doing, then expect the Liberals to double-down on that behaviour: especially in this context where Jeremy is telling us that “the Government cannot show restraint … Canberra [has lost] its way but the Canberra Liberals will bring the opportunity back. I want … (insert list of Jeremy Hanson’s ideologically driven goals for Canberra’s future here)”

So Jeremy’s idea of the future of Canberra is one where Coal and Nuclear are the only options for power, where housing is affordable because the bottom has fallen out of the market (because the Liberals at the Federal level have gutted the APS), and he wants to build economic prosperity (for whom, he doesn’t nominate) and make our health system the best in Australia (again, because at the Federal level, everything is being done to break the health system for the whole of Australia to render it worse than what we have in Canberra).

Every time a Liberal makes statements like this you have to ask yourself, “what do they really mean? where is the money coming from? who is providing the direction for this party?” They are, to the last individual, morally corrupt to the level that abandoning an elected position six months after an election is expected to be condoned as the best thing for Canberrans as opposed to Zed simply looking out for the only person he cares about.

They are traitors, abandoning the rest of the nation to appease their multinational corporate masters in the hope of lining their own pockets with scraps from the masters’ tables.