Anyway, I’m seeing heaps of Labor stuff around Grafton. Haven’t been into Lismore recently but also saw more Labor stuff on the way to Casino. Also, 3 anti-Nat leaflets to 1 pro-Nat leaflet in the letterbox so far. Its not like I am off the beaten track, Summerland Way is HUGE and the major way into Grafton. Its not hard to get herr Galuptis!!!!! Come and knock on my door!

They have bitten the bullet and grudgingly, reluctantly are moving over to WA in the new year with a promise of better paying work in the mining sector, cheaper housing and lifestyle, *hope* anyway.

But what economic wealth? I’ve been very lucky to manage to stay in relatively secure employment with good conditions, in a city setting, but I’m worse off after 11 years of Coalition policies. 11 years of educating 3 kids through high-school and Uni, I’m worse off and my kids are worse off too. I don’t know who got their piece of the economic boom-boom party times, but its not in my neighbourhood. What’s the use of a strong economy if it isn’t doing anybody any good?

My other daughter is a Uni graduate in medical science, but only health service industry jobs are poorly paid, and on punitive unfair AWAs, so she’s working as a sales rep for a national hardware chain. (Quite well-paid too, but appalling AWA conditions – like 1-day notice of dismissal clause?) She’s thinking of joining the increasingly large number of young graduates leaving this country Mr Howard – a “brain drain”, getting bigger every year as the starting salaries and career opportunities for graduates are much better overseas. Thats your “skills shortage” Mr Howard, you can own that one too.

And I am old enough to remember 1987 Mr Howard, when you said that Medicare was just a rort, there were too many doctors over-servicing. You said it again in your 1996 Budget speech, and cut medical training places.

Education is cheaper in the USA, Mr Howard. Do you know Uni education is so expensive here, that its now a viable option to send Aussie kids to the USA for University education at UCLA?

Then my third child, who is disabled but able to live independently with minimal services and help. Don’t get me started on years of battling Centrelink on his behalf, only to see their pension and services whittled away to nothing.

Mr Howard: Stick your “strong economic management skills” where the sun don’t shine. You’ve had 11 years to put your money where your mouth is. I *know* I wont get a piece of the action from your mob, you’ve proved it to me after 11 years, you’ve had your chance, lots of them. I don’t care anymore how good the economy is. If I lived in a key marginal, I might see something every 3 years, but I don’t.

If I was 10-15 years older in the baby-boomer retiree demographic maybe I’d have seen something by now, but I’m not – and when I last checked my super, its gone down significantly in “real terms” value over the last 11 years too.

And then other indirect taxes like mandatory private hospital cover, that I can’t afford to use – my only “choice” Mr Howard, is whether I pay my private health “tax” to the private sector or to the public. I still have to use the public system, I can’t afford the excess for private hospital treatment, and I would have liked to have ancillary private cover – but I can’t afford that either since I have to pay for private hospital cover I can’t use – so while I should be in an income bracket that allows me to cover my own teeth, optical etc – I can’t even do that!

I’ve been paying off a very small, modest home for 16 years, and with some reasonable equity, so – yes – I am not as badly off as those just starting in the mortage belts of Australia, but rising interest rates keep setting me backwards too.
I have to continue to borrow against that equity to put my kids through school education, or just to pay off other rising debts.

Perhaps I’m just one of the unlucky losers in a demographic minority Mr Howard. Just my bad luck being the wrong age-group, wrong postcode, wrong industry, wrong income-bracket, with the wrong age kids etc.

Maybe I wont get a share under federal Labor either, but I’m willing to take a chance on the “possibility” Mr Howard, against a definite, 100% “sure bet” that I wont under your government. Maybe Labor will stuff it up – but at least the pain of any national economic stuff-up, might be shared more equally across all Australians, since the wealth sure isn’t. Misery loves company they say.

Thats just on the personal self-interest side of the hip-pocket, if thats all Aussies vote for.

On the broader moral side, you can stick your “nationalism” where the sun don’t shine too, since it leads to events like the 2005 Cronulla beach race riots, with skin-head neo-nazi thugs wrapped “proudly” in the Australian flag. Thats your version of Australian national pride? I guess they are our next generation of young ANZACs, huh? And sending the army into Indigenous communities? I thought I had cringed in national shame enough with the Tampa fiasco, but the depths of my “national shame” was still to come! But then, I thought, democracy is majority rules, and hence a majority of Australians must be thugs, too.

As for Australian history, Mr Howard – if you read your textbooks, you will find Unionism played a large part in our history from the late 19th century onwards, as big a part as any ANZAC battle, if not more so. Like much of history its a mixed bag of good, bad and indifferent. I guess those parts can be wiped from your version for our kids schools? Or painted as historical boogeymen and thugs, while the real-life thugs “inspired” by your vision, can be admired on the beaches of Cronulla, and the suburbs of Melbourne as they beat the crap out of anybody they don’t like.

And then there’s the long list, broadband, telecommunications, transport and other forms of modern civilised infrastructure which have all deteriorated – and stop blaming the states! All states have received around 40-50% of their Budgets via C’wlth revenues since before WW2, but you have cut that too – I think its a credit to the states, that they have done as much as they have, with so little from the feds.

Then internationally, the Iraq and Afghani tragedies, and refusing to sign Kyoto – plenty of countries cannot meet the agreement, maybe it was over-ambitious, or even meaningless symbolic rhetoric, but still they signed in “good faith” and some commitment to the concept of being a member of a global village with a global problem, and I’m sure they have as many concerns about their own economies as Australia does.

Ok, I’ll get off my sopa-box now….

You beat me to it! Good one.

“The poll, conducted between Tuesday, October 30, and Tuesday, November 6, shows Labor candidate Janelle Saffin leading Nationals candidate Chris Gulaptis 44 per cent to 41 per cent, with 15 per cent of voters polled still uncommitted.”

Follow the link for the full story.
http://www.northernstar.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3754937&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=

I agree with you about the railway line.
IMHO it is safer, and better for the environment, to use rail instead of road freight.

I also hope Ms Saffin wins. It should be an improvement over the current member.

True, what you say about the state government’s road improvements and the Lismore Base Hospital upgrade.

The Pacific Highway, while a great asset, is a mixed blessing with the horrendous truck traffic it has brought through the area. It intensifies focus on the closure of the rail link with Murwillumbah. Instead of upgrading the rail line and linking it into the SE Queensland system to take some of the pressure off the road they went and closed it.

It’s an area under huge development pressure and infrastructure and services need to keep pace. The incoming population appears to be better educated and brings a wider world-view with demands for services that they were used to where they come from. (NSW has the most apallingly under-funded library system in the whole country, for instance.)

Anyway, good luck to Janelle Saffin. Hope she gets in. It’ll be nice to have a rep who’s on the side of the underdog, someone to be proud of.

The answer has to be ‘nothing’!

Broadband outside of towns is appalling, they didn’t stand up for the pig farmers, cattle farmers or grain farmers. The Nationals may as well give the game away if the last 10 years is the best they can do for regional areas such as Page.

All Causley did was stand beside Howard to invade other countries and tow the Liberal line… he may as well have been a Liberal.

Nice bloke doesn’t cut it, we need someone with a bit of thought about the things that matter to the people of Page.

Saying Jobs are at an all time high isn’t help the large numbers of people in Page who can’t get a job! Telling them to move to the city with the huge rents isn’t an option, we want and need more than rhetoric.

Personally it’s a pity the Greens can’t seem to get a decent candidate in Page that looks and acts like they’re interested in more than legalising marijuana, which is great for the Hemp party but doesn’t assist the Green vote one bit with the mainstream voters now living in Page.

If they had more Bob Browns the country may have hope, as it stands all we have is Liblab.

There’s little love lost for the Sydney-centric Iemma mob to whom anything outside NSW (Newcastle-Sydney-Wollongong) is non-existent except for opportunities for some land-grabbing for mates

Pritnam,
I encourage you to visit the North-East corner of New South Wales. I’m sure you would be pleased to discover the following:
1. It is not in Sydney, Newcastle, or Wollongong
2. The current State Government, that you refer to as the Iemma mob, has spent a lot of money upgrading the Pacific Highway. The Highway is now dual carriageway from the Qld border to Ewingsdale (near Byron Bay). There is also a dual carriageway bypass of Bangalow. All of this work has taken place since the state Labor was elected in 1995. The most recent section (Yelgun to Brunswick Heads) opened about 3 months ago. Preliminary construction work has commenced on a bypass of Ballina.
3. Lismore Base Hospital is currently undergoing a major upgrade. This is being funded by the State Government.

At both levels the “It’s Time!” factor has gone past code red due to dead-duck oppositions. Rudd looks like a messiah in these conditions!