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Election 2010

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Rob42

John Solomon (38)
G'day guys and girls. Long time reader, first time poster - perhaps a little sad that my first post is on an election thread rather than something more substantial? - like whether Matt Giteau will still have a seat by Aug 21?

Anyway, I love Winston Churchill's "Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". I agree that the Greens will likely hold the balance of power after this election - and I think that will be the beginning of their decline. The problem with having the balance of pwer is that you become responsible for actual legislation. Whatever ETS/carbon tax/etc ends up being proposed by the Labor government will be insufficient for Greens supporters, but if the Greens don't support it in the Senate, there'll be no action at all. That's how the GST killed the Democrats - they couldn't disagree that Howard had a mandate for it, but their supporters couldn't forgive them for passing it.
 

cyclopath

George Smith (75)
Staff member
One of my issues with the Greens is they campaign on a "Green" platform (fair enough) which gets a lot of peoples' attention, but put very little about their "other" policies out there, and in that area they are bereft. I for one do not want them exercising their balance of power with regard to policy issues on which they have no credentials. Same for any minority party, except Family First. I don't want them exercising their balance of power on anything, but that's just me.
 

Lindommer

Steve Williams (59)
Staff member
I don't fit the profile: raised on a farm, rugby player, university educated and small business owner, but I'll be voting for the greens. Their values are more closely aligned with mine than either of the major parties. At least the greens seem to stand by their values. It's hard to know what the big boys actually believe in given their choices are invariably based upon what is politically expedient at any given time.

Well, I was raised on a farm, rugby player, private school and university educated, small business owner and I haven't got a fucking clue who to vote for in this election. The Liberals are patently not ready to be returned to government (when oh when will they jettison the old dead wood of Bronnie Bishop, Ruddock and Tuckey?) as I don't want ANY remants of Howard's petty unimaginative insomnia to be revisited while the bully-boy tactics of the union heavies rolling KRudd offends me. But what he did trying to put his stamp on Australia far too quickly with the deadly insulation rollout, the disastrous school building project and the "green loans" fiasco smacks of a Whitlamesque "I know better" arrogance. The standard of government in Canberra is quickly heading the way of that in Sydney.
 

Ash

Michael Lynagh (62)
Lindommer; surely nothing can be worse than the crap NSW has had to put up with for years. It was all rolled up nicely when the moderate Brogden was rolled by the far right of his own party (Liberals) so that their far right (incompetent) puppet Debnam could be put into Opposition leader - and lo and behold, Labor run a huge smear campaign and one of the dirtiest elections ever, and win an unwinnable election. Both sides completely and miserably incompetent. Luckily we're not quite there yet at the federal level. There's no completely corrupt power brokers like Tripodi and Obeid pulling the strings federally yet.

Anyhoo, sorry for the digression. I am not a fan of the current Labor government. Rudd was a huge fuckup and I had no real problems with him being deposed. Rudd had issues on micromanagent and lack of consultation with his own party, not to mention everyone else, on too many issues. He had to go. Plus agree with Lindommer that the home insulation scheme and BER (and green loan scheme to a lesser extent) are major, major fuckups, despite them having a good mandate to run them as a stimulous measure. I don't have much faith that the Labor party are too competent (actually, I think they are pretty incompetent to be honest).

But I will hope they beat the other guys of Abbott and co. Abbott is a fundamentalist catholic who can't help but make moronic gaffes. He's too far right and just can not be positive or rarely honest. And don't get me started on "iron bar" Tuckey and the rest Lindommer. I know someone who worked for Ruddock when he was the Attorney General, and he had his lawyers writing speeches on why the church should be more involved in government, despite us being secular and the lawyers themselves being against it. Quality. Oh, and it's disgusting that Tuckey even became a politician, if you know how he got his nickname of "iron bar". Lindommer, and don't forget Mark Andrews in your list too.

Plus the interest rate lies from the Liberals really really shit me. Anyone who understands how and why the interest rates are set by the RBA knows that Hockey is lying directly to everyone with his statements, as Howard did before him.

I really want to vote for the "none of the above" box this election, but will probably put the right-wing parties last again this election. I'm one of the guys who numbered every fucking Senate box so I could have the satisfaction of putting the last number in that idiot Fred Nile's box.

What really irks me is the populist favourtism of politics in Australia. My major gripe is home prices - yet one of the issues that has bipartinship support is keeping house prices high. In a recent interview, Abbott said he doesn't want house prices coming down, in fact he saw a two bedroom apartment sell for $900k and thought it cheap. He believes that homeowners don't want to see prices come down and high house prices are better for the economy than a collapse. Which of course is true in the short term, but a complete and utter lie for the long term. The long term harm to the economy of FHBs spending 60%+ of their take home salary on servicing a mortgage is horrific - the spending people cut to pay interest to the banks will cause long term damage. NAB has been the one Australian bank to come and publicly admit it so far - hats off to them.

On the bright side, Glenn Stevens isn't too bad as far as reserve bank governers go. I mean, we could have Wall Street pandering morons like Bernanke and Geither here, but that's another issue entirely. Get ready for several more trillion of monetisation in the US as the double dip approaches. But I digress again...

Sorry for the rant :(
 

Aussie D

Dick Tooth (41)
Hang on a second fellas some of you are breaking from the steroetype for rugby supporters. We are all supposed to be private school educated executives who live in the Eastern Suburbs.

After the fiascos perpetrated by this government I want to vote for someone else but who is their? Greens - a bunch of socialists masquerading as environmentalists; liberal / national - a disorganised rabble who have forgotten what they stand for. Their is no-one else. My mate had the best idea, turn up and say I am here and then walk away with the ballot paper.
 

barbarian

Phil Kearns (64)
Staff member
WThe Liberals are patently not ready to be returned to government (when oh when will they jettison the old dead wood of Bronnie Bishop, Ruddock and Tuckey?) as I don't want ANY remants of Howard's petty unimaginative insomnia to be revisited while the bully-boy tactics of the union heavies rolling KRudd offends me. But what he did trying to put his stamp on Australia far too quickly with the deadly insulation rollout, the disastrous school building project and the "green loans" fiasco smacks of a Whitlamesque "I know better" arrogance. The standard of government in Canberra is quickly heading the way of that in Sydney.

I wanted to hit the agree button but thought that too impersonal, considering the level to which I agree with this statement. The Liberals don't deserve to get back in yet, they havent completed a proper cleanout of the front bench to allow younger, more talented people to come through. Bishop, Ruddock, Stone etc. Plus they are still way out of touch with the public on a number of issues- climate change for example.

I am voting Labor, which is a first. I don't particularly like them or their policies, but they are the lesser of three evils so to speak. Am not very happy about the curent situation though. Agree with the guy on Q&A who said this is the least important election in recent history- the parties stand for the same things, there are no massive issues on the horizon. Just boring really.
 

Moses

Simon Poidevin (60)
Staff member
Lower House I'll vote for whoever is not in power in my seat - do my little bit to make the seat marginal so they spend some cash in my area.

Upper House, will probably number all the boxes again. Easiest to start with who I hate the most and work the way down to 1
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
Yes, the state of politics in this country is very poor. From what I'm reading above no one really knows who to vote for. I suspect that if Turnbull was still the leader the the opposition, he would get many more votes from people on this site. But I may be wrong.

Anyway, so we have:

Labor - consistent failures during government
Liberal - haven't cleaned out the dead wood

Like it or not there is one big difference between the options. The liberals had no where near as many failures as the labor party had. In fact I would rate their failures over 11 years similar to Labor's over less than 3. So what I can't understand is how people are willing to forgive the Labor government for being the worst Australian government for at least 20 years. How can we possibly risk giving them another chance? I shudder to think about the damage that they could perpetrate over the next 3 years.

The Liberals without Turnbull might not be a very exciting option. In fact they are considerably boring and will also make mistakes along the way. However the Labor team (with a few exclusions - Tanner, Ferguson), while being more exciting, also represent a huge risk to this country. They might do a lot better than the last 3 years, but I shudder to think where we will be if they do a similar job, or even worse.

To those of you that are small business owners (like me) - would you re-hire a contractor for another 3 years after he had stuffed up completely for the previous 3? After he had over promised results, under achieved, over spent, caused damage to your customers (some leading to deaths) and reneged on many jobs he was meant to get along and do? Would you really re-hire him? Or would you be inclined to give another person a go, even if you didn't like their views or background?
 

Scarfman

Knitter of the Scarf
You are pretty full-on Scotty. I don't mind at all that you are furious with Labor, but it's pretty silly to call any of the current parties socialist. Makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about. The Labor party in 2010 is far to the right of the Liberal party in 1975. Nobody is socialist any more, but some parties believe in 'social justice' of some kind, which seems to be an idea which brings on the red mist for you.

cyclo: Greens do have more than environmental policies. They would be smart to shut up about them because they are not nearly as appealing to the general population as their environmental policies.

NSW Labor: I'll be directing prefs to Liberal ahead of Labor. This bunch of criminals has to go.
 

Ash

Michael Lynagh (62)
Scarfy; damn straight RE the clusterfuck that is NSW Labor. Can't see why they would get one vote next election. Anyone who votes for them should be taken around the back and summarily shot.

Scotty - the current Liberal opposition are not much different from the Howard government when they were last in power, except the people in the key positions are worse at their key roles (Abbott v Howard, Hockey v Costello). Howard and co. were removed for a very good reason (and I will freely admit I voted for Howard in the mid to late 90s too), and I was glad to see the back of them. Consistent lying, pork barelling, arrogance, shifting to the right, attempted involvement of the church, treatment of refugees, and so on. The Hicks saga was a sad indictment of the end of the Howard government - don't give a shit for years until public outrage gets loud enough to be heard, then some token motions and a backflip. Don't forget thgat the Howard government invented the "non-core election promise". I think you remember the Howard government in its final term/s a little too fondly.

Oh, and don't mention economical management. The Howard government weren't that good. They weren't quite true economical conservatives - sure they gave tax cuts, but (like Bush Jnr) they were massive, massive spenders. They rode through periods of the mining boom and Greenspan monetary pump priming (which later caused the GFC). Nothing like neglecting infrastructure spending to instead through loads of money at Howard's favourite projects and marginal electorates.

Oh, and Scotty, a few mornings ago Abbott was on Sunrise or some other shitty breakfast show and promised to LOWER interest rates if he got in power. The guy is either economically clueless, or a flat out snake and liar. You can choose which one.

Personally, I am hoping for a Labor victory, so we either 1) see a much improved Labor government (however unlikely), or 2) the Liberals clean themselves out and present themselves as a real credible alternative. I think Labor will win, but somehow doubt 1) or 2) will actually happen.
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
My big gripe with with politics, and the key reason I'm generally non-partisan, is that none of the parties really represent me. My default position is to be pro-freedom/liberty, which means I align with elements of the social policy of the Labor party, but I disagree with a lot of their economic management. On the other hand, the Liberals sometimes actually live up to the pro-trade liberalisation stance and pro-small business ethos that they are supposed to be founded upon, so I agree with that. But their stone age views on social policy (e.g. gay marriage) just leave me cold.

I used to frequently vote for the Dems in the senate, especially back in the days when they really did "keep the bastards honest". They are a spent force these days though. I just can't vote for the Greens. I'm pro environmental protection, but the Greens other policies are like kryptonite to me. They irritate me with their obsessive negativity, done in the full knowledge that they will never actually have any power. It's pretty easy to stand on the sidelines and throw rocks, much harder to get in there and do the real heavy lifting of managing real policy (and its consequences).

In any case, I'll be voting for the party most likely to leave me the hell alone. Hmm, maybe that means a donkey vote.
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
Hang on a second fellas some of you are breaking from the steroetype for rugby supporters. We are all supposed to be private school educated executives who live in the Eastern Suburbs.

Yeah, it's pretty funny reading that stereotype about us rugby nuts, especially seeing as few of those things apply to me or many of the rugby people I know.
 

cyclopath

George Smith (75)
Staff member
cyclo: Greens do have more than environmental policies. They would be smart to shut up about them because they are not nearly as appealing to the general population as their environmental policies.

NSW Labor: I'll be directing prefs to Liberal ahead of Labor. This bunch of criminals has to go.

I know the Greens have other policies - my point is that they say little because they are bereft (of ideas about much outside Greeniness). I don't like them weighing into other policy areas where they are out of their depth, and really have even less mandate than for their Greeniness, just because of their senate position.
 

Cutter

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
Scotty, as Ash says, the Howard Coalition were dishonest in so many ways. They were/are dominated by the Christian right. Religion has no place in politics. An increasing number of Australians are agnostic or atheist and yet it seems that our politicians are increasingly demonstrative church goers. That the coalition shafted Turnbull for Costello gives us an insight into their culture and how little they've changed. They need a serious cleanout.

I will also fill out the whole senate paper.
 

cyclopath

George Smith (75)
Staff member
Scotty, as Ash says, the Howard Coalition were dishonest in so many ways. They were/are dominated by the Christian right. Religion has no place in politics. An increasing number of Australians are agnostic or atheist and yet it seems that our politicians are increasingly demonstrative church goers. That the coalition shafted Turnbull for Costello gives us an insight into their culture and how little they've changed. They need a serious cleanout.

I will also fill out the whole senate paper.
I always fill the whole senate paper - you just gotta keep the lunatic fringe down as low as possible. That currently includes NSW Labor, only marginally lower than many in the Liberal party, Fred Nile's bunch, One Nation analogues, Family First et al.
Need some QWADES badly.
 

Scarfman

Knitter of the Scarf
On the Greens's other policies: it always amazes me that people who would put money 3rd or 4th priority in their lives (behind family, health, schools, community, etc) think that it's sheer madness for a political party to want to govern like that.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
Scotty - the current Liberal opposition are not much different from the Howard government when they were last in power, except the people in the key positions are worse at their key roles (Abbott v Howard, Hockey v Costello). Howard and co. were removed for a very good reason (and I will freely admit I voted for Howard in the mid to late 90s too), and I was glad to see the back of them. Consistent lying, pork barelling, arrogance, shifting to the right, attempted involvement of the church, treatment of refugees, and so on. The Hicks saga was a sad indictment of the end of the Howard government - don't give a shit for years until public outrage gets loud enough to be heard, then some token motions and a backflip. Don't forget thgat the Howard government invented the "non-core election promise". I think you remember the Howard government in its final term/s a little too fondly.

I agree with pretty much all you say. The Howard government's last term in particular was average, and it was time for him to go. I very nearly vote labor in the last election, but I just didn't trust Rudd and his way of talking without actually saying anything. Turns out my views of him were vindicated, it just took a lot longer for the majority of the Australian public to catch up and to find him out.

So while I have no issue what so ever with the change of government at the last election, and actually was happy enough to see it happen (and was encouraged by Rudd's performance early, and his apparent economic management skills prior to the GFC), the fact is that this current Labor government has performed even more poorly than the previous Liberal government. I think, from what i am reading here that most are going to vote Labor this time around for two reasons - 1. they don't like Tony Abbott and his religious beliefs (I am agnostic by the way) and 2. incumbency and giving a Gillard led Labor another go. In light of my question in the last paragraph and re-hiring contractors, are these really good enough reasons.

The responses to my post above seem to mostly be about how Howard was also dishonest. I'm not sure where I brought honesty into this, but my response to that would be 'no shit'. Lets face it there aren't many politicians that are honest all the time. Both sides have failures in this area.

Scarfy, as far as socialists or socialism is concerned I think you probably know very well that I am exaggerating, and using it for affect in comparing the parties. I would probably class the Rudd government as 'progressives'. The seem to advocate big governments, and want to take more decisions out of individuals hands and into government hands. While there is a time a place for our national government to 'look after' citizens, this by and large should not occur.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
On the Greens's other policies: it always amazes me that people who would put money 3rd or 4th priority in their lives (behind family, health, schools, community, etc) think that it's sheer madness for a political party to want to govern like that.

Strange comment Scarfy. The government needs to collect taxes and distribute money in order to provide the health and education services. Money is what drives this.

I think there is very little doubt that if the Greens were in power there would ultimately be a degradation of these essential services.
 

Scarfman

Knitter of the Scarf
While there is a time a place for our national government to 'look after' citizens, this by and large should not occur.

I think we must be talking across each other, because to me this statement is very strange. Maybe you are loading the expression 'look after' with implied socialism.

Other than that, it comes down to the very reasonable argument between a social-democratic system and a free-market system. For me, the evidence is overwhelming that a social-democratic system will produce a better society than a free-market one. I've been to America quite a lot and I regard it as a failed society. Anyway, this is a pretty fundamental disagreement, and I'm not about to budge and no doubt neither are you.
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
I think we must be talking across each other, because to me this statement is very strange. Maybe you are loading the expression 'look after' with implied socialism.

Other than that, it comes down to the very reasonable argument between a social-democratic system and a free-market system. For me, the evidence is overwhelming that a social-democratic system will produce a better society than a free-market one. I've been to America quite a lot and I regard it as a failed society. Anyway, this is a pretty fundamental disagreement, and I'm not about to budge and no doubt neither are you.

Scarfy, I lived in the US for a number of years and I wouldn't describe it as a failed society. I guess it depends on your criteria...

I don't totally buy that social-democracy is "best approach" either. There are a few countries in Europe battling as much or more than the US at the moment because of the debt burdens they carry. As much as I am in favour of a lot of social programs, they still have to be paid for somehow.
 
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