The first poll of the year comes from Essential Research, and it shows Labor’s two party lead up from 58-42 in mid-December to 59-41. Also featured: leadership approval (Rudd steady since late October, Turnbull up five points), economic expectations, ranking of issue importance and the conflict in Gaza.
Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth
Essential Research: 59-41
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397 Comments
Although a story not yet writen but perhaps being penned as we speak by Shanahan to explain away what is an decisiv Essential Research 59/41 result for Labor Govt after 14 months …emphasing a snarrowing from there last poll (of 60/40) And good news for Turnbull 41% favorable approval , and when one adds th 29% “I don’t knows about Turnbull’ there is a potental 70% approval nand that is only figure of promise
Also 34% ar not confident we can ride out international finance issues , so there is a core of Rudd disatissfacton there about Rudd’s econamic credentals (without pro Lib econamic voter suport , only a (yet unknown) FA issue could assist them) Do not feel Greens figure of 8% loks right , should be higher than that , and perhaps Labors 49% Primary a bit over stated Other suprising figures was only 20% actual suport for Israel taking military action in gaza , so people ar looking at TV with there eyes hearing casualities 870 to 13 and ignoring some commentary & most MSN in deciding opinion Message clearly for Turnbull is people ar more aware today of events through internet & other optons , and if reporting or MSN slant is too far out of sink with reality , it will hav no effect although 100 million W/C add campaign of false W/C ‘benefits” should hav taught Libs that , but didn’t , and 41% 2PP reflects that
Oh Dear, those pesky climate scientists just are not getting with the program.
Dr Andrew Glikson in yesterday’s Crikey wrote a screed on CC response:
‘That an interest grows in atmospheric geo-engineering, including US conferences, underpins the bankruptcy of international attempts at emission cuts. This includes partly watered down IPCC reports and woefully limited emission reduction targets of Kyoto — not to mention failures in Bali and Poznan, Garnaut’ conservative emission cut recommendations, and the 5/15 whitewash paper.’
He quotes an article from the Independent which polled 80 scientists. Most of them thought that it was time to start investing in geoengineering research.
(Examples would be to dump lots of iron filings in the ocean, create algal blooms and get the dying algae to take lots of carbon to the depths. Another example is lace the upper atmosphere with sulphur droplets, as per volcanic eruptions).
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-scientists-its-time-for-plan-b-1221092.html
Those silly, increasingly desperate, scientists obviously don’t get it. What part of ‘balanced’ and ‘practical’ don’t they understand?
We can just count ourselves lucky that the political staff of the Courier Mail aren’t writing about this poll or they would be demanding in ever shrill voices that Rudd rush to an election before things get worse, unemployment rises, the GFC envelopes us, general pestilence strikes us, and we are all reduced to a generalized wailing and gnashing of teeth.
About a month gone by with Turnbull saying precious little about anything, and his leadership approval goes up by five percent.
There’s a message in there somewhere …
Steve
I think in the week or so after Rudd’s election I sort of recall predicting that Rudd would be facing a tough economic situation and that might contribute to a single term Rudd Government.
For me the turning point will be when global private capital once more takes real risks, something that is more less completely absent at the moment. The only activity on that front at the moment is takeover activity. The perceived risks are fairly minimal because the takeovers are of sound assetts that are virtually at fire-sale prices.
Current stock market movements are on very thin trade. No-one is taking much of a punt. People are essentially lying doggo.
I would actually stop calling it the GFC. It is certainly Global, but it is way past being simply a financial crisis and is steadily eating its way into the ‘real’ economy.
New private capital investment has virtually disappeared. Consumption underpinned by Government largesse and capital works underpinned by Government funding can only go so far. I believe that the challenge for the Rudd Government is to speed up its expenditure to create a bridge over the next couple of years.
The Rudd Government could speed up approval processes for Government capital works. There is plenty of stuff that urgently needs doing. No need for extensive policy development process. Just do it. These could include significant upgrades of urban public transport infrastructure and significant speeding up on spending on fixing the MDB irrigation infrastructure. Some of the former could be speeded up fairly quickly – replacement of urban rail tracks and such like, for example. The latter could be cranked up pretty quickly. These are labour-intensive works, with a fair bit of the irrigation stuff happening in regions that are already in trouble.
The other useful investment, again labour intensive, and a growth accelerator in the medium term, is higher investment in tertiary education.
The other thing that the Rudd Government could do is to announce that it wants every house in Australia to have a solar roof within ten years and that it will tip a couple of billion dollars into the kitty to achieve it. (I see no problems with borrowing to this – it will end up paying for itself at a national level). This will generate enormous economic activity just about everywhere in Australia. Lots of labour. The stuff could be manufactured in Australia. It would encourage private firms to invest in plant and equipment. Get the ball rolling. Good medium and long term pay-off as well. Each house should be able to contribute back to the grid. It would also turn a current political liability (all the frigging around with the solar rebate) into something big, visionary and something supported by pretty well everyone.
Speeding up expenditure on the Indigenous housing would also be a possibility. The funds have been allocated. It would just be about accelerating the timing.
Nevertheless, it seems to me to be very highly likely that this time next year employment uncertainty will be by far and away the number one worry for the vast majority of Australians will be job security. This will constrain prospects of a consumer-led recovery. People will pay off debts and save like buggery, for a change. The other thing they will do is constrain discretionary expenditure. Tourist areas within public transport reach of the capital cities, or within a couple of hours drive of the cities are going to do very well in the next year. International venues and more distant tourism destinations are going to be in real trouble.
Fortunately the Chinese Government knows it is sitting on a volcano and is going to use its cash reserves to keep the ball rolling. Nevertheless, I believe their latest predictions are inaccurate – too high. Private capital in China has had a huge hammering.
The other thing that the Rudd Government should give serious consideration to is the funding allocated for huge ticket items like the airwarfare destroyers. The funding should be re-allocated to domestic infrastructure improvements.
It is pretty clear that the Federal Opposition simply does not have a coherent response to the Crisis. It is highly unlikely that it will go the next election in its current form.
As for the Qld Opposition, I wonder whether they gave the trail bike policy any serious thought at all. It is a joke – and for once, a rather enjoyable joke. I am looking forward to a horse policy, a bullock policy and a chainsaw policy. What part of SE Qld sensibilities don’t they understand? They are looking shot already. Anyway, while Bligh has not been spectacular she looks a lot more competent than Springborg’s mob, so good luck to her.
Fulvio
Don’t forget he cemented the votes of 20 Tasmanian farmers with his Golden Galaxias Gambit.
So, Howard is acting like a spoiler. It is interesting to speculate on his main objectives:
1. Keep Costello out of the top job. (revenge)
2. Get Rudd out of the top job. (revenge)
3. Cement his place in history. (revenge, ego)
4. Get a populist, manipulative, egoistic chap into the top job. (father/foster-son rule).
I am so sick of self-congratulatory peace medals.
I think it is time for the Poll Bludger War Monger Medal. Here are some criteria:
1. It does not matter whether the war was declared or formal. The essential thing is that lots of people were killed with extreme violence.
2. Preference would be given to candidates who have come up genuinely spurious reasons for going to war.
3. Candidates who could reasonably have solved the problems by diplomatic means will receive preference.
4. Only wars that were started in the last ten years count.
5. Candidates who started multiple wars should get more recognition than candidates who started only one war.
6. Candidates who started wars that killed very large numbers of people should gain special recognition.
7. ‘Wars’ on poverty, starvation, malnutrition and disease do not count as ‘wars’ for the purposes of the Poll Bludger War Monger Medal.
8. Candidates who have managed with their extreme incompetence to keep wars going for longer than strictly necessary should receive recognition for their intiative.
9. Candidates whose wars resulted in the slaughter of significant numbers of civilians should also receive special consideration.
10. Candidates who showed special enterprise in lying about the reasons for going to war, or who showed special talent in deceiving their own citizens should also receive special consideration.
11. Preference should be given to candidates who launched wars that ultimately made the situation worse rather than better.
You desperately want to give John Howard another gong, don’t you Boer?
ANOTHER story in the Courier Mail that Bligh might be geting ready to call an early election:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24903409-952,00.html
I have lost count of the number of times they have run this. If teh opposition shoots itself in the foot again she might consider it, but otherwise why would she go early in the current climate?
Regarding the poll, it would be interesting to compare the holding up of Rudd’s popularity with other western leaders during the GFC. I suspect that, apart from Sarkozy and Brown (who were down in the polls but have tried to respond positively), most others would have gone down in their polls, so keeping at the 58-60% level is doing pretty well, I think.
Bush has given a bizarre part-defensive, part-unapologetic speech leaving office. He bagged elites for criticising him, ruining the credibility of some of the favourite lines of Gerard Henderson and fellow culture war warriors. Not much good soundbite material for them to plagiarise here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/13/2464412.htm
He was dissappointed the WMD in Iraq were missing!! WTF?? He was missoverestimated by 50 million US voters.
Socrates, wouldn’t it make sense to go now rather than in 6 months when the economy is even worse?
Bob
I don’t kow enough about what is going on in Qld now to comment. I just thought in the past Bligh had said she wouldn’t go early. But yes, if the coal industry starts tanking then she might be better off going now. However I am also aware of a lot of large projects in SEQ that will mean the economy there won’t go off the boil too quickly.
Further on that Bush speech, (and apology for the diversion), Bush has promised to do a Howard and keep comenting on his legacy, which should help reelect Obama in 2012:
“Thank you for giving me a chance to defend a record that I am going to continue to defend because I think it is a good, strong record.”
From cunning to clueless (without Karl Rove around), thats Dubbya.
with Howard keeping his finger in the pie stirring like mad that can only help Rudd’s chances of re election in a couple of years, every time Howard raises his head people remember just why they ousted him.
Joyce having a go at Costello out of the blue just after dining with Howard would have Howard’s fingerprints all over it as well, Howard keeps on giving and he’s too egotistical to see it.
I think the lady that brought up Bush and Howard in a positive way should be given the full 5 years jail. I am insulted let alone the sheikh
the government is looking at taking some more positive steps and obviously Turnbull has got wind of it and he’s trying to pre empt the government statement to look as if it was his idea and urging.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24904684-601,00.html
http://abc.com.au/news/stories/2009/01/13/2464550.htm
bob1234
Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 8:48 am | Permalink
“Socrates, wouldn’t it make sense to go now rather than in 6 months when the economy is even worse?”
Every morning th Pineapple party wake up & bleekly look at there sad future , and you want to spoil th fun , and put them out of there misery quickly as well , they deserve better
And I’d be worrying about econamy basket in NSW & some problams in SA long before Q’ld , and by way you need blatant continous poor econ mismangement for it to be a State factor and anna does not fit th bill but Rees does
QLD Labor is in a worse position than SA Labor, they’ve been in power longer. And SA Labor maintains the polling lead in metro areas that they did at the record-breaking 2006 election, with metro areas deciding elections.
And Socrates
glad to see you return , in th absense of you & diog Greek philosoghers of note , my blasphemys against th unmentionable and th uncritisisable led me to guillotine steps , and there i remain , gagged temp with Joe th plumber as my only sourse and Obama as my saviour Ah yes when Obama ascends on 20th I guarantee all will be quiet on western front its called “civilised courtesy”
Then i can unleash , although Bush should be first target , him with his ‘legacy” to defend what is undefendible , and who will believe Bush when all around is financial ruins accross America and mountains of red ink of debt
I like this comment from the ABC link Judith posted.
I had to read this twice, happy pensioners (fully clothed) not bashing Rudd for a change. The opposite in fact.
http://redland.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/cashedup-pensioners-go-on-spending-spree/1404978.aspx
Vera, Turnbull seems to be trying to make a career by pre-empting government announcements via leaks, i dont think it’ll take long before he’ll be getting some embarrassing doozies, it’d be worth keeping the leaker in the fold to use him/her.
bob1234
Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 12:17 pm | Permalink
“QLD Labor is in a worse position than SA Labor, they’ve been in power longer.”
No , Anna Bligh leads a brand new Govt , voters can see that…and will return her
.
whereas Rann has been there in SA much longer , and looks like a slick used car salesman for mine Who wuld you buy a car off Mike Rann or Anna Bligh
Hi VERA
“the clueless one….” Could he be th cluelessest or th cluelessless of th clueless
Haydo is retiring live on Sky. Haydo is all class not like JWH, good luck Haydo and thanks.
Ron, Labor has been in power in QLD for over a decade. The people know that.
Newspoll had Bligh’s latest Preferred Premier rating at 49%, much lower than Beattie’s. Rann has 50%.
Bob
True about the ten years, but Joh was in for 17, and the Nationals for over 20. As I recall it wasn’t until a competent opposition showed up that things changed. Looking at the pinneapples, that doesn’t seem to be the case yet.
Ron
Thanks for the kind words. I also think that Bligh might like the opportunty to pass one more budget in May, where she can probably make some more major (positive) announcements. There is a lot of activity in SEQ at the moment that should be seen positively whne it comes to fruition. And as I said, it also keeps down unemployment. Hence I think if Labor is clever they could still get returned in Qld via SEQ, even if they lose seats outside of SEQ.
Finns
Yes its amazing the difference in perception when you chose to leave graciously rather than get forced out. Perhaps an implication about character?
G’day Ron
think we’ll stick with clueless
Socrates, wtf?
Gerrymander anyone?
bob
The gerrymander was often a factor, but there were a number of elections in the early 80s where Joh was returned by a majority (foolishly or not). The labor opposition then, under figures like Keith Wright, was a rabble. It wasn’t until capable party secretaries like Beatty and Swan rebuilt the strucure, and Goss took over as leader, that Labor won easily. Anyway I still think the point is valid – Blight is a different style leader to Beatty, adn will be judged differently. 10 years is a factor except that (unlike NSW) it has been ten years of genuine prosperity marked by spending on social as well as physical infrastructure. I think Bligh at least has a chance, and Springborg is no genius.
If QLD had one vote one value during Bjelke, he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he did.
And Newspoll on Preferred PM has Bligh 49-30 Springborg, while in SA it’s Rann 50-25 Hamilton-Smith. I maintain QLD Labor is in a worse position than SA Labor.
More from the amazing world of George Bush’s brain. He is delivering a televised farewell address later this week, with the room carefully stacked with people with stories of adversity:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/12/bush-farewell-speech-thur_n_157260.html
You can see the spin – George W Bush, a president who may not have achieved much, but faced great adversity and overcame it to “stay the course”. LOL!! It sounds good till you realise he created his own adversity. He was given a country with good foreign relationships, a budget in surplus, and booming economy. He busted all those things. The only adversity he has ever faced is scrutiny of the consequences of his own bad actions, from his days as a drunk, to his days as a president starting the Iraq war, blowing the budget, and then letting the economy collapse. even September 11 generated great sympathy for him, till he turned it into a bizarre rant about an axis of evil. Meanwhile it only came out later that he had ignored warnings about the risk of terrorist attacks in 2000 and 2001. Not to mention ordering torture and phone taps.
He was the misoverestimated man.
Don’t forget his drug addictions.
I’m torn. I don’t know whether to post this or not since it’s about the ME, but specifically about elections. I figure I’ll post it and William can delete it if he thinks it’s inflammatory.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/2009112165350696500.html
The two parties hold 7 seats.
bob1234
Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 1:30 pm | Permalink
“And Newspoll on Preferred PM has Bligh 49-30 Springborg, while in SA it’s Rann 50-25 Hamilton-Smith. I maintain QLD Labor is in a worse position than SA Labor.”
Thats a Shanahan beauty argument , PPM …however if you look at th same polls you got that info from Qld Labor 57/43 , and SA 54/46 so i wuldn’t be maintaining your position on that cliff
2 PP
Either way Ron, it’s a bit rich to rank SA Labor as in trouble and QLD Labor as not in trouble – I think neither are in trouble. I think SA Labor is better off than QLD Labor as they’ve been in power for less time, the new leader thing doesn’t mean much, look at NSW or WA. Either way, in Labor, the party controls the leader, not the other way round. New leader, same party.
The rumours I am hearing re Queensland are that the state finances are in worse shape than generally expected and that Bligh will go to the polls in March to avoid the fallout from what will be a rather nasty budget.
Although Newspoll’s 2PP has Labor leading 57-43, Bligh’s approval ratings and preferred Premier figures have been falling throughout 2008. Likely, Labor will have their own polling which would also be part of the equation.
However, given the NT & WA experiences, you would think the outlook must be pretty depressing if they are considering going early.
Down in Tassie, Paula Wriedt has quit parliament:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24904511-2702,00.html
So there’ll be a recount in the electorate of Franklin under the weird Tassie system, with some guy who got 620 votes last time apparently the favourite. (There was another recount when Paul Lennon quit, so this guy is the fifth and last Labor candidate on the list.) This quote’s interesting:
They got 3 last time (Libs and Greens one each), so I wonder where that’s coming from. Losing one, I’d pick, but being reduced to one seat out of five would be the kind of disaster NSW Labor is expecting. Anyone know more than me?
Also Wriedt’s website is down for, um, ‘maintenance’.
Superannuation entitlement of almost a million dollars…
Is that a lump sum or paid in perpetuity?
Why do we bother with Essential Research show me a poll they’ve done that doesnt have the ALP ahead by more than 15 points…bull butter to me!
http://news.smh.com.au/business/hong-kong-named-worlds-freest-economy-20090113-7fuz.html
Australia ranked the 3rd “freest” economy in the world.
Bit strange that we consider ourselves a country with a long tradition of social democracy, welfare and government run services but we’re more “free” then America, who bang on about it all the time.
Whenever the Qld election is held (my bet is Sept.) Bligh will win with a reduced majority.
The LNP cannot win Brisbane – without Brissy no Govt. Can the LNP hold its Gold Coast seats? Maybe but it will be a hard job, given that the LNP policies will be aimed at regional and rural Qld.
North of Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast is danger for the LNP. They could easily lose 3 seats.My prediction is a 15 seat Labor Majority.
“Why do we bother with Essential Research…?”
Glen, it’s called education.
bob1234
Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 2:08 pm | Permalink
“Either way Ron, it’s a bit RICH to rank SA Labor as in trouble and QLD Labor as not in trouble…”
I did not
You said in #13 an ECONAMIC point “wouldn’t it make sense to go now rather than in 6 months when the (Q’ld) economy is even worse?
I replied in #19 suggesting your ECONAMIC point had no great substanse
“And I’d be worrying about econamy basket in NSW & some problams in SA long before Q’ld , and by way you need blatant continous poor econ mismangement for it to be a State factor and anna does not fit th bill but Rees does”
so you THEN SWITCHED #in 20 & #33 claiming a POLITICAL poll point
“QLD Labor is in a worse position than SA Labor, they’ve been in power longer”
“And Newspoll on Preferred PM has Bligh 49-30 Springborg, while in SA it’s Rann 50-25 Hamilton-Smith. I maintain QLD Labor is in a worse position than SA Labor.”
so I repy to your POLITCAL point in my #37
“thats a Shanahan beauty argument , PPM …if however if you look at th same polls you got that info from Qld Labor 57/43 , and SA 54/46 ”
So you started with abit flawed econamic argument (which i replied to) , then you switched to a flawed politcal argument claiming Q’ld Labor were worse politcaly than SA (which i exposed as flawed) , and now checkmated you wrongly claim I said SA ar in trouble , i did not , after all I was one who quoted SA Labor 54/46
Only point you had a chanse on as its subjctive is , you tink Rann is da man , whereas he doesn’t over impress me and i’m for Anna IF given a choise
Date/ALP two party preferred
2nd Jun 56
21 Jul 57
22nd Sep 57
13th Oct 57
17th Nov 55
24th Nov 56
I know Labor are well ahead by seriously……..Essential Research is as bad as Morgan IMHO.
[Why do we bother with Essential Research show me a poll they’ve done that doesnt have the ALP ahead by more than 15 points…bull butter to me! - Date/ALP two party preferred - 2nd Jun 56] etc
Glen, just as well you are not Japanese. Otherwise you have to commit hara-kiri.
Howies gone,
and the polls are full of bullbutter,
Joyce is making a play
and Talcum seems irrelevant
Labortime and the feeling is easy
(to the tune of “summertime”)
Glen
I feel your pain
Enemy Marsupial
hav you any more up to date Essential polls than th 1950’s
.
vera
Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 12:58 pm | Permalink
“G’day Ron
think we’ll stick with clueless”
As usual vera you ar right , and watchg this new tech skill from you link thanks
Finns i am happy to live with some shame…but i still dislike Essential Research…
Oh and Gus Howie is and forever shall be known as a better PM than Whitlam and he has to go at number 3…..
Menzies
Curtin
Howard
Lyons
Hawke
Chifley
Fraser
Gorton
McMahon
Keating
ect…
Whitlam was a dud of a politicians and a PM…yes he did make some good reforms but he couldnt manage government and he couldnt manage his own Party infact Whitlam would be known as one of the worst ALP PMs had it not been for Kerr…
Glen surely even you dont believe your own bull butter spin. I just wonder what it will take for you and your fellow tories to start believing opinion polls?? Rudd’s re-election for a second term, a third term??? Surely you can hide your head in the sand for only so long.. what is it.. 2 1/2 years now of consistently bad polls. Pretending the polls are wrong wont get you back into power, which suits me fine.
Surely Keating and his deregulation of the economy in the early 1990s has to make himself rank higher than both Gorton and McMahon – both of whom did practically nothing in their terms…
Perhaps SL but
Keating did that as Treasurer he did bugger all except Superannuation…and the damage he did to the economy was more than enough to put him way down the list…
The polls arent wrong Andrew we are not popular atm but we arent that unpopular…
I dont understand why people continually forget that Keating actually implemented in 1993 what was at the time the largest industrial relations reform package in Australian history and which laid the foundation for wage rises to move with productivity growth ever since.
Where do we all think enterprise bargaining came from?
What about Qantas? And the Commonwealth Bank? And APEC?
It was the least he could do given that he had 13% unemployment…
He sold those off because he was running budget deficits…
If it weren’t for Whitlam we’d have godawful health and education. People complain now, try the American system.
Thank god for Whitlam.
AH!
So it’s bad when Labor does it, but good when the Liberals do it?
Quick question – Do you think Howard could have gotten surplus’ without selling off public assets? Bear in mind that these surplus’ were in the single and double digits and some of the asset sales were in the triple digits.
Glen you know it is deceit to blame unemployment on the government in a market controlled economy, especially since Keating’s IR reforms.
It continues to surprise me that it is the Liberals that blame unemployment on the government when it is Liberals who proclaim to know more about the economy and how it works. Can’t have it both ways you know.
We were selling them in principle not for a cash grab Oz…
Possibly but who knows Labor left an initial 10b budget deficit not to mention net debt so it was lucky we had surplus’s at all…
It is not deciet when Labor didnt change anything until the 1993 reforms…they had power to make the market employ more people but this took them 10 years to do!
I know Governments dont create jobs but they can creat the market environment in which unemployment can be reduced.
Glen
Howie just scrapes in ahead of Whitlam on the “official” list.
1. Curtin
2. Menzies
3. Hawke
4. Chifley
5. Howard
6. Whitlam
7. Keating
8. Fraser
9. Gorton
10. Holt
11. McMahon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_ranking_of_Australian_Prime_Ministers
That list is not genuine…after all where is Joe Lyons??? The guy won 3 elections during the 30s and was a very popular PM and yet supposedly McMahon is better than someone who brought us out of the great depression…
Glen
Those are the only 11 ranked. They didn’t go further back than WWII. So McMahon is ranked bottom.
Privatising Tesltra “as is” for no other reason than the “principle” of it makes that catastrophe even worse (if something can possibly be worse than the most negligent, incompetent, productivity and growth destroying piece of arsehattery in any western nation in 30 years and the most perverse privatisation in history)
So what you’re really telling us Glen is that Howard screwed up Australian telecommunications for 2 decades because of the principle of the matter?
He didn’t separate the infrastructure from the retail components in the privatisation and left us with an uncontrollable, price gouging, productivity destroying monopolist not simply to get the cash premium of selling a monopoly, but Howard actually did it purely on principle?
Christ – that makes Howard an even bigger tool than my already dismally low opinion of the little vandal.
Not to mention the musical!!!! PJK, a great composer as well as a great manager of the Ramrods!!!!
A candid admission, well done. Nothing to do about service delivery or balancing the budget or about what’s best for Australians. No, much of the country was sold down the river because the Liberals felt icky about all Australians owning and running critical services.
I hardly think owning Qanatas and the Commonwealth Bank are critical services…
Having a Government owned telecommunications monopoly isnt good for anybody Oz just so you know.
PJK didnt win the Presidential Medal of Freedom lol!
Also PJK did lose big time to Howie so that is quite a bit of shame Keating has had to burden himself with for all these years especially considering how popular Howard became until his last term…
Rate PM’s from 1940 on how they change australia , not there term or popularity
1/ CURTIN ………oz “invaded”/threatened , war time great leader
2/ WHITLAM…… socialy/equity changed oz forever , Medibank , Schools etc
3/ HAWKE………financial deregulation & Accords (laid base of later 90’s growth
4/ KEATING…….employemtn part deregulation to some decentralised + net , Supa
5/ HOWARD..open market deregulation (inequitable & standard for macro settings
6/ MENZIES..modest , gav stability to countrys institutions postwar , failed oz ww2
7/ FRASER…….made inflaton/ecom understood by oz , but didn’t follow his words
8/ CHIFLEY….a “true believer” but PM at wong time , oz suffering war post probs
9/ GORTON….intent fine , leader , lacked exp and cunning , wasted
10/HOLT……..well intentioned but soft leader , all th way with LBJ a terrible legacy
11/ MCMAHON…quite able aminastraor , not qual for PM , too distrustful of own
RUDD , probably somewhere in 4/ 5/ or 6/ but will need to deliver Schools revolution/IT and/or CC results
Menzies won elections but didn’t do much–I remember 20% inflation and credit squeezes! No 9 on the list. Howard similar but divided the country–and lost own seat! #10
Whitlam did a lot but only lasted 3 years, won 2 elections. In second five.
Keating gave us our modern economy but only lasted 1 election as PM–doesn’t rate that high.
Billy Hughes lasted 8 years as PM, made Aust. an independent nation so has to be in first 10 tho he was a maggot.
Curtin, WWII PM and stood up to Rooseveld & Churchill together and separately (and the conservative hangers on like Stanley Bruce) and had our diggers from ME sent to Aust to go to Kokoda Track and eventually push Japs out of PNG.
While Curtin was doing this also steering through a hostile Senate economic reforms (to give birth just after WWII to the RBA) as well as planning the post war migrant intake and projects like the Snowy that employed them and the demobilised returning soldiers.
No further reforms to our economy untill Treasurer Keating! Imagine that, 1949-83 no reforms made!!!
howard as Treasurer and PM was dreadful!
As long as the Coalition continue to believe that Howard won elections because he was popular rather than the usual state of affairs in Australian politics for the last 25 years – incumbents win because of a powerful lack of viable alternatives – history (and long term governments) will continue to repeat itself.
Possum many ppl on here believe Rudd will win in 2010 because he is popular….
“I hardly think owning Qanatas and the Commonwealth Bank are critical services…”
I dunno about Qantas, but I think recent crises have shown that a state run financial institution is a very good idea. Of course you neglect a swathe of other privatisations including health. Not critical? Can’t imagine what is more critical.
“Having a Government owned telecommunications monopoly isnt good for anybody Oz just so you know.”
I think you have zero knowledge of Australian telecommunications and the telecommunications industry in general, so I’m going to call BS on that. First point to make, monopolies are not ideal in most circumstances. There is a need for monopolies in a number of circumstances, particularly in the ownership of fixed line network infrastructure, particularly in a country the size of Australia. It doesn’t make sense for every company to lay it’s own cable down every street and in every town. So the best compromise is a well regulated monopoly on the infrastructure side. The best way to regulate a company to insure that it acts in the best interests of all Australians is for it to be *owned by all Australians*. By selling it, what Howard did was create a private monopoly, with a pathetic regulation framework. That’s even more abhorrent than a public monopoly.
Comparable countries consistently ranked above Australia in terms of price and speed have structurally separated entities owning the infrastructure. What they don’t have is an enshrined private monopoly thanks to Howard.
One of Whitlam’s great achievements was the Trade Practices Act. This really pissed off the merchant classes.
Can anyone think of, any major consumer protection reforms, introduced by the Liberal Party?
At the moment he is – but that won’t last.
Never does.
Hahahahahahahahahaha
Quote of the day!
I was reading Oakes book and really what he had to say about Keating happened exactly to Howard…politics runs in circles….
Ronster
I notice that George W has come out swinging and lashed the “elites and opiners” who have pointed out that not only did he get everything wRONg, but he was warned by us liberals that he what he was planning to do was wRONg. I seem to recall a few pundits here who were wRONg about Obama vs Billary, who didn’t learn from that and went on to be wRONg about Obama vs McCain. And they even used the phrase “elites” to describe the wRONg positions the liberal progressives took.
Oh, how sweet a good, long memory is! I’m looking forward to the 20th January for the Change We Can Believe In!
Hmmm if that is true about Whitlam and TPA, and remembering his slashing at the tariff wall that would mean Whitlam should be rated higher.
Anyone can confirm?
80 Diog
And wasn’t that similar to Howard & his ministers lashing the “chattering classes” and “elites” etc.
To my mind one of the major achievements of the 2020 conference was to say “intelligence, intellect and debate are welcome once again.”
The Whitlam Government (1972-75) introduced the Trade Practices Act and slashed tariffs. It established a comprehensive national health care system with Medibank and opened the door to State-funding for non-Government schools based on need. It brought the vote to 18 year olds, made university education free and replaced adversarial divorce laws. It recognised that national governments have a critical role to play in urban planning, development and renewal. It established diplomatic and trade relations with China and ratified international human rights treaties
http://www.whitlam.org/whitlam/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=51&Itemid=74
Confirmed JM ?
And abolished the iniquitous conscription laws of the previous Liberal Government which sent unprepared, mostly reluctant young Australians (over 500 of them) to die for the glory of the United States of Utopia, and the belligerence of cowardly politicians.
Ruawake…two words sum of Whitlams incompetence.
Tirath Khemlani
Also having two senior ministers mislead Parliament doesnt look good either!
Whitlam also did nothing about the Indonesian Invasion of East Timor…
Not to mention the high unemployment, inflation and bank interest rates that were common place during his leadership of the Nation…
Whitlam was saved from being a disgrace by Kerr, without his dismissal Whitlam would be just another failed ALP PM like Keating…
Glen
Stop re-writing history.
From Whitlam’s 1972 policy speech.
“Do you believe that Australia can afford another three years like the last twenty
months? Are you prepared to maintain at the head of your affairs a coalition which has
lurched into crisis after crisis, embarrassment piled on embarrassment week after week? Will
you accept another three years of waiting for next week’s crisis, next week’s blunder? Will
you again entrust the nation’s economy to the men who deliberately, but needlessly, created
Australia’s worst unemployment for ten years? Or to the same men who have presided over
the worst inflation for twenty years?
http://bancroft.uws.edu.au:20018/cgi-bin/Pdisplay.cgi/TMP.objres.6553.pdf?type=application/pdf&path=/m1/encompass/repowpmdb/clipboard/.outgoing/TMP.objres.6553.pdf&fileaddr=137.154.156.22&fileport=20042
How many ministers resigned during Howard’s first term?
I was on the steps of P-House when “nothing can save the GG” was said. Kerr was wrong – legally and ethically (don’t quote Barwick at me).
Jovial, yes Whitlam did reduce tarrifs and made television,whitegoods and cars more accessable and affordable to the public.
Ron re the PM listing. The best post you have written.
and colour television was introduced in Gough term (1974)
Glen also
Unemployment under Whitlam was only just surpassed by the Rudd Govt in Feb at 3.9%.
Unemployment is the same now as when Howie left office.
OK!
It was large considering we just about had full employment under Menzies…
I still contend that Whitlam would be just about one of the worst PMs we have had had it not been for Kerr who made a martyr of him for the Left.
A pendantic point.
When referring to colour TV in Australia it was agreed to be spelt Color.
I saw the first thing to be “recorded” in Color, the 1973 Melbourne Cup, although it was broadcast in B&W – the joys of working at a TV station.
My Best PM list;
1. Curtin
2. ?
3. Keating
4. Whitlam–introduced TPA & slashed tariffs. won 2 elections, incl a first-ever DD
5. Billy Hughes, PM 1915-23. Maggot. Made Australia an independent nation (from a quick google)
6. ?
7. ?
8. ?
9. Menzies
10. Howard–didn’t do much, divisive, lost his seat in general election
But Glen Menzies had gone.
We had Howie with double digit inflation and unemployment.
All those superfluous ‘u’s make me sick.
A corruption of English to frenchify it. Stuff the French!
Color, flavor, neighbor etc!
And the season after summer used to be called Fall.
Just for completeness, I’ll list the greatest British PM’s of the 20th C (just the top 6 out of 20).
1 Clement Attlee
2 Winston Churchill
3 David Lloyd George
4 Margaret Thatcher
5 Harold Macmillan
6 Tony Blair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_British_Prime_Ministers
AHAHAHAHA Attlee number 1!
What about Gladstone or Desraeli???
They were 20th C?
The only thing I will give Howard credit for is the introduction of a Consumption tax -even if he deliberately understated and failed to compensate people for it’s introduction.
Why when the make lists they have it only for 20th C some people in the 19th C did more than those in the 20th!
Ruawake what about Gun Laws and cleaning up the Waterfront?
The worst PM and Ministry? Surely Howard and his final term with WorstChoices. Stephen Smith, House of Representatives, 2 November 2005, on the proposed WorkChoices:
And on the big money Howard was beginning to spend on this stinker …
An absolute bloody disgrace, in the way they gagged debate on it and restricted Opposition access to the proposed bill before “debate”.
The second reason for my choice: the appalling biased Speaker, David Hawker. What a disgrace he was. I doubt there has ever been someone so biased in that role.
Possum
That’s not really true, in the US at least. Look at these beautiful graphs of President’s Approval ratings.
Bill Clinton kept increasing his popularity (although it wasn’t ever huge). FDR was always popular and kept getting more popular. Reagan’s and Eisenhower’s are pretty flat lines.
Nixon, Bush 1 and 2, Truman, LBJ, Carter and JFK all show a distinct downward trend.
I’m sure a regression analysis would show an overall trend downwards in popularity with increasing time in office.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_rating
Gun Laws:
An over reaction to a tragic event perpetrated by mad person. But I loved the bullet proof vest.
Waterfront:
The means do not justify the ends. But it led to Work Choices
ruawake @ 83 – you credit the Whitlam government for replacing “adversarial divorce laws”, but my (rusty) memory is that the Family Law Act went through as a private member’s bill, with (I think) government members having a free vote: Kim Beazley Snr spoke in the House in opposition to at least bits of it.
Glens earlier nonsense about Menzies caused me to look up Wikipedia on our past PMs and I found this gem about dear old “pig-iron Bob”:
“When World War I began Menzies was 19 and held a commission in the university’s militia unit. Menzies resigned his commission at the very time others of his age and class clamoured to be allowed to enlist.” – wikipedia
Isn’t it always the way, that the biggest war-mongers turn out to be cowards at a personal level, never daring to risk themselves what they are happy to force others themselves. Menzies was a lot like Bush on this one; derision intended. Ever serve yourself Glen?
As for Keating and reform, there was a lot more not mentioned. Keating oversaw the floating of the dollar, deregulation of banking (still with equity requirements that prevented insolvency), capital gains taxes that forced better investment, crackdowns on expense rorts etc. Government infrastructure contracts were changed to competitive tenders, rather than simply handed to public agencies, greatly improving efficiency. Keating’s problem was arrogance and not being able to admit he had put interest rates too high, but he was a great reformer.
In Whitlams economic defence, it should also be pointed out that many of the reforms he did attempt were defeated by either a coalition Senate or a partisan High Court dominated by the notorious Garfield Barwick, the man who said that citizens had no obligation to pay tax. And what idiot sent a Kerry Packer-in-silk to the Court? I’ll give you a hint; it wasn’t a Labor PM. As history shows, conservatives saying they seek to reform or even protect principles is just spin; history shows that their first and usually only priority is protecting the priveleges they enjoy for themselves. Conservatism is all about entrenched power protecting itself; nothing more.
Socrates
A lot of those Keating reforms were as Treasurer. Most of his best work was already done by the time he was PM IMHO.
Dio
True but Keating still did the tendering reforms, APEC and greater links with Asia, and working nation as PM. He also overhauled TAFEs and workplace training. But overall no, he did more as Treasurer.
Keating manged to “steal” an extra term for labor, a lesson that Rudd and the Labor party has learned.
Despite the media waffle about Julia and a leadership challenge, Rudd will stay for 3 terms then hand over to the next young gun, it will not be Gillard.
ruawake
And that person could be almost anyone, including someone we have barely heard of. Nine years ago, Rudd had just been elected to Federal Parliament and his most prominent concern was a parallel runway at Brisbane Airport.
It could even be Matthew Hayden, he shares a dream with Ruddie. I’m sure Labor could find him a seat in OLD. They could run him against that National party great white hope who is looking for a House of Reps seat
From Hayden’s retirement speech
http://inhome.rediff.com/cricket/2009/jan/13hayden-i-am-retiring-from-cricket-not-life.htm
Why do we go through the same Whitlam vs. Howard (As it usually boils down too) every few month? Gets tedious.
And it ALWAYS ends with Glen talking about the waterfront and gun laws to which the the general consensus is gun laws good, waterfront bad -> IR reform under Howard bad -> WorkChoices -> Kevin Rudd is a hero -> Contemporary politics.
Oz
You too young to remember??
OOoops Sorry Oz
Bob Brown rules and a 5% ETS is criminal – OK ?
Idiot to the end. Did anybody pick up Dubya’s uttering during his “farewell’ press conference that the media has “MIS-UNDER-ESTIMATED” him.
Amigo Ronnie, have u been tutoring him?
And Glen’s worst nightmare will be replayed tonight with a repeat screening of Bastard Boys at 9.30pm on ABC1
diog
My top 10 aussie PM’s in #71 had Whitlam at number TWO , a centrist , keynes type econ , universal health , schools suport , equity , TPC , & if CC was around then Gough wuld hav tackled it head on as well
Whitlam simply modenised lites on th hill core left policys , and neither th culteral warriors of th right nor intelectual elitists can weaken them Hawke Keating & Rudd follow Whitlams template , beit recogmnising a global econamy My top 10 list is there
diog you then swing to culture wars in USA you lost I ALWAYS said no US politcan compared to our core left policys of Labor in full , but of those who took just 3 of th key bits…Keynes type econs , universal healthcare & suporting CC Ktoto ratification ….there was only Gore , Hillary & Edwards & not your change man
To me they were just all names in th nite , it was there 3 few core left policys that counted in there bags , and had your change man had them and not H , then your change man wuld hav been my da man with H dustbinned Now we hav Obama in white Houses and yes he has switched policys to our side , keynes type and isn’t that great Now all he has to do is get that Kyoto raitifcation and uni healthcare & his transformaton complete to who…to some core left bits
Then those intelectual elitists will be looking at there man who will look th same but wuld hav lost there culture wars man & all those politcaly corect libertarien words he spoke in primarys now dustbinned Diog join th centrists , we ar always right and our core left principals never lose cause they ar folks directed
Ronster
You’ll have to prise my membership card to the Intellectual Elitists Ivory Tower Liberal Progressive Party out of my cold, dead hand.
Hmmm, those pesky scientists are at it again. They simply don’t get it. From today’s Crikey:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/4221039/Climate-change-fears-spiral-as-warmer-seas-absorbing-less-carbon-dioxide.html
“Climate change fears spiral as warmer seas ‘absorbing less carbon dioxide’
Scientists have found evidence of a sudden and dramatic drop in the amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the sea, sparking fears that climate change is accelerating.”
As those of you know who have an interest in climate change (other than how it will affect the outcomes of the next Federal elections), oceans are a major natural sink for CO2.
My follow-up questions are: ‘Is this phenomenum unique to the Sea of Japan (where the study was done), is it due to some temporary factors that will smooth themselves out? or is it simply symptomatic of a global phenomenum?’
Scientists have speculated for some time that the CO2 absorption capacity of the oceans would decrease with warming. The reasons have been varied. One was that increasing acidification would negatively affect all those CO2 fixing bugs which use lots of calcium. (I think they correctly predicted the rising acidification but I am not aware of any connected studies on impact on CO2 fixing marine fauna – happy to be corrected on these points).
The interesting pattern about the climate change models is that they have fairly consistently underestimated various positive feedback loops (eg minimum summer Arctic sea-ice extent), so that interactions between Earth and humans is generating an ‘unbalanced’ and ‘impractical’ outcome a bit faster than originally modelled. There is thus an increasing mismatch between an unbalanced Earth and the ‘balanced’ and ‘practical’ responses being generated by Earth’s master politicians.
The Pine Bark Beetles are delighted with the news about the oceans’ decreasing capacity to absorb CO2 and are trying to figure out how to get to the Eurasian land mass before they have destroyed all of the north american conifer forests, thus eating themselves out of house and home.
Boerwar
Can we buy shares in the Pine Bark Beetles franchise?
As the ocean gets more acidified, it dissolves more carbonate, as it’s more soluble in acid solutions. The calcifying organisms (coral, algae etc), which use CaCO3 to make their skeleton, need the CaCO3 in a super-saturated solution. So the skeleton dissolves away releasing sweet, sweet CO2 into the atmosphere.
If you’re a Pine Bark Beetle, it all good!
118 – The purist’s delight. Unfortunately most people are not purists, a sad but true fact, one you seem to have difficulty grasping obviously, given the constant sarcastic asides that feature in your posts. People like myself are not the people you should be sniping at. What is and what should be are two different things.
Have you ever thought that if the population as a whole thought like you and those “pesky scientists” much more would be being done on CC by those in power and you and people like myself wouldn’t be having the purist/reality debate?
Please keep providing the info that reinforces what I, and most here would suspect is true but how about saving the sarcasm for all of those many out there who are either sceptics or just plain don’t care. They’re the ones that need enlightening.
Diogenes
Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 9:25 pm | Permalink
“Ronster
You’ll have to prise my membership card to the Intellectual Elitists Ivory Tower Liberal Progressive Party out of my cold, dead hand.
”
I hav hope for you diog , you will not be abandoned to intelectual rustheaps its not th “left” way , anyway mrs diog a greenie at hart told me you were worth saving
starters , grab an auto biog of gough reel 700 pages of what he did , changed completly this coiuntry socialy & equitably from ramshackles of 23 years of instatutionalized darkness of fairness principals to 20th centurys you knows diog that way your premier Rann th man if doesn’t measure up dustbinn him , but principals remain And everytime you or kids go to a doctr there’s one of thems medicare care forms they’re Goughs legacy , and in 30 years times it will be there , but where will Howies legacy be
.
by way , you say your new year resulution new Gravator & moniker from diogenes greek philosogher lived in tube , well new research shows his less well known brother Diogrones had limelite hogged by th greedy diogenes in ancient Athens , but now true greek equitay libery philosophies now discoverd were work of brother diogrones (with gravator ?) Lucky i’m on your side here
Bird of paradox @ 41
“They got 3 last time (Libs and Greens one each), so I wonder where that’s coming from.”
There are a few reasons some clear others abit more subtle. Firstly the third seat held by Paula wreight was the last decided if my memory serves me correct and took a long time to decide as it was extremely close. The federal redistribution alone will give the liberals that seat as it removes the Labor stronghold of Bridgewater and adds marginally liberal Richmond. More subtlety Paul Lennon would have had some people who voted for him simple because he was the premier and where they will go or how many of them there are, I’m not qualified to say. A degree of demographic change may be a small factor. Possibly a sympathy vote, due to the death of former Premier Jim Bacon also inflated the numbers.
Hope that helps.
Diogenese @ 119
Unfortunately, there is a cloud for every silver lining. My investment advice would be as follows:
1. There is almost no sovereign risk because the master politicians will continue to generate balanced and practical responses, that is to say, nothing that will seriously inconvenience pine bark beetles for the foreseeable future.
2. Industry-based responses to Pine Bark Beetle control (spraying, cutting and burning of infected trees, and so forth) have all failed.
3. Current massive industry salvage operations are unlikely to affect Pine Bark Beetle Futures because they are focussed on forests that Pine Bark Beetles have already killed.
4. There is an unknown risk of competing organisms also suddenly reaching a climate-based variable threshold and becoming effective competitors of Pine Bark Beetles. (This is typical of the variables and unknown thresholds that make investing in climate change futures such an uncertain prospect. This risk premium is being factored in by global re-insurers but master politicians have yet to twig to it.)
5. There is an unknown risk of a parasitic organism, or disease, suddenly finding that the Pine Bark Beetles are a huge lunch. As we all know, nature obhors a vacuum.
6. There is also an unknown risk of increased wildfires. Wildfires in forests recently killed by Pine Bark Beetles are in themselves irrelevant to Pine Bark Beetles because there is nothing left for them to eat. However, there have been instances of wildfires from these dead forests spreading to forests where Pine Bark Beetles are currently having lunch. It needs to be kept in mind that wildfires in forests killed by Pine Bark Beetles are more difficult to control because of all that dead standing timber.
7. There will be downturns in the Piine Bark Beetle Futures markets coincident with natural climatic variability. This will create some short-term buying and selling opportunities for day traders, but medium-term investors will need to hold their nerve at such times.
8. The major problem with Pine Bark Beetle Futures is that it is one huge Investment Bubble. I have seen footage of literally clouds of beetles. Their population graphs would look very, very geometric. Unfortunately, when the final few north american conifers die, there will be a massively-leveraged overhang and there will be nothing but grief for investors still holding Pine Bark Beetle Futures. It is not far off being a massive coleopteran Ponzi scheme. The human communities that used to rely on north american conifer forests will not be very happy either
9. However, there is a way to fox the market. Pine Bark Beetle eggs are virtually udetectable by the customs folk. It would be ridiculously easy to transfer these to the eurasian land mass, not that any profit-based multi-national would even think of doing anything as destructive of the environment as that.
Putting it altogether: Buy for massive short- to medium term profits.
A close watch should be kept on the amount of conifer forest left and the rate of spread of bark beetles. Timing your exit will be crucial for maximum realization of profits. Investors should consider exiting earlier rather than later, because by the time the Pine Bark Beetle Crash happens, alternative climate change investment opportunities will have presented themselves.
Socrates Menzies 2 brothers served you dolt this happened in many families during WW1 get that through your thick head!
Boerwar
“Unfortunately, there is a cloud for every silver lining”
Good for me i cann’t see either a cloud or a silver lining
What i can realistacly see is a 4th updated IPCC Report containing 6 climate & levels scenariois which world is in varyng degrees addressing for coppenhaggen
What i can also see is theorists unrealisticaly thinking world Leeders will NOT ALSO consider either econamic politcal or social consequenses of dramativcaly altering there economies for CO2 emmissions mitigaton
Such thoerists ar part of th problam in finding solutions , not part of th solution …ditto CC skeptic Th IPPCC Reports already provide details of th problam , its managng solutions and bringing people with you is dificult part , and pine bark beetles will add no orotorial eloquense to those high level negotiations
glen
have just finished curtins bio, very sad at the end
anyhoo re menzies,curtin actually found him a bit difficult to deal with,but I cant remember any direct reference by curtin re menzies ww1 non-service that I can recall.
Curtin was a complex mixture of idealism and pragmatism,so I suppose that Menzies actions were part of the “times” and in isolation shouldn’t be held against him
btw my granpa served in both ww1 and 2,In those times duty to empire was the driving imperative
Ron @ 125
Hmmm, the economic and political rationalists? The same people who have always treated the environment like an irrelevant externality. Old habits die hard. They are now trying to finesse the environment with ‘balanced’ and ‘practical’ solutions.
It will not work.
Glen
and Menzies failed this country , first as Pig iron Bob suppliying raw material that came back fired as weapons at us oz , then worser in our darkest hour WW2 potential invasion by Japanese Menzies dismelly failed us with Leadership , even lost PM-ship ….then where did he spend rest of War , with us aussies oh no …with th Lords of th manor in UK as an adopted englishman
Its partly why in my #71 i rated Menzies at no 6 best oz PM , after Howard just before Fraser….but did tink about putting chifley & Fraser abov him ecscpet for 1950’s stability factor brought
.
also Glen , socrates is a elite Greek philosogher here , so a thick head is a complement …it means he’s bursting with wisdom , but soft heads mean an echo
Boerwar
“political rationalists? The same people who have always treated the ENVIRONMENT like an irrelevant externality”
sugest you go to th Franklin river & Strachan …its reel world environment , and it was saved ….and it was not saved by inner Sydney suburbs latte words , but by Labor politcans & Brown
Bob Hawkie went to a dificult 1983 electon on a promise of stopping damming th Franklin river ….KNOWINGLY knowing this promise ofended Tasmanian voters KNOWINGLY in advance it wiuld lose Labor ALL 5 Tasmanian federol seats…and it did
th franklin was saved by exposure by Bobby Brown and politcal ticker principals FOR th environment by politcan Bob Hawke
9ps/ last year was 25th annerversy , an upp thatFranklin on a boat party together was Bob Hawke , Bob Brown & botologist Belamy
ron
actually the “pig iron’ bit was mostly spin
and curtin was in charge when the sons of nippon threatened our fair shores
besides that I agree with your earlier PM rankings BTW.
info i had was
“In 1938 (as deputy leader of the UAP) he was given the pejorative nickname “Pig Iron Bob”, the result of his industrial battle with waterside workers who refused to load scrap iron being sold to Imperial Japan.”
Menzies resigned in late aug 1940 , Pearl Harbour happened early December 1941 and reckon by late august 1940 our pig iron bob had been used pretty alot to build weapons (even though by december 1941 and 1942 Curin was by then in charge)
And GLEN , not only do i make above charge , but failed oz i said , well mmore like prepared to sell this country out to save his precous england empire Menzies as PM wanted to send aussie troops to england to0 save th empir….Curtin refused , wanted trrops here to protect us aussies , it was KEY issue in Menzies losing his grab for a conbined war canbinet with him as PM , Curtin said no & 2 indepenfents backed curtin so an “Australian priority thinking PM in curtin took over , and asked for USA co op , just as well that occured….had Menzies NOT later been elected in 1949 , he’s be rated th worst PM in oz histary , like from 1901 to 2009 , worse than even th guy , maybe forde or sometink who had only 24 hrs as PM So when I put Menzies at no 6 , i thought that was faily fair taking his stability contibuton of 50’s into calcs
CORRECTON
Menzies resigned in late aug 1941 , NOT 1940
‘the result of his industrial battle with waterside workers who refused to load scrap iron being sold to Imperial Japan.’
as I said spin (Ron he actually didnt profiteer or commit treason) we werent at war with japan
Ron menzies said of curtin
“at least all his attacks were from the front”
I will let you draw your own conclusions on how many in his own faction “knifed” him in the back.
The late 39-41 period was a state of constant flux-in retrospect menzies was only acting as per his “realpolitik”
Ron @ 129
Good point. I should not have said, ‘always’. I should have said, ‘nearly always’.
I very much wish we had Bob Hawke now. He was prepared to lead.
Gusface , was unaware of profiteering or treason alegatons against Menzies , so was not thinking that when posting , just tinking that pig iron bit shipments to Japan and wharfies resisting
and “re in retrospect menzies was only acting as per his “realpolitik” ”
I agree , but reckon Curtin’s “realpolitik” for australia first was correct , and Curtins priority was Australia re WW2 , and Menzies re th Empire …I’m for Curtin’s view
both were for the empire
curtin had the foresight to see that the USA was the new big brother-though only in a materialistic sense-we were still “sons of britain” even in Curtins eyes
yes , but criticaly in august 1941 PRE PEARL HARBOUR , PM Menzies wanted to send Ausssie troops to england to sav th empire , Curtin would NOT agree he wanted to keep them here to protect Australia without being aware of Pearl Harbour coming
PM Menzies resigned PM ship mainly over it in august 1941 , Curtin took over…so in cruucial action taken , Curtin chose australia over Empire despite his Empire words , Menzies chose th Empire first consistent with his empire words
Winston Churchill used his old Army connections to get himself to the trenches and served as a Tommy at Flanders after he was wracked with guilt for his part in the planning of Gallipoli as First Lord of the Admiralty (he was blamed for Gallipoli and the Tories sacked him from office).
Not all war politicians are spineless.
Ron
without incurring the moderators wrath- aaargh
the troops in Q were in the Middle East- it was the convoy decision that created the break with churchhill.
plus the fact that India was considered as the alternative base to repulse the japanese from.
Further to my post at #138:
You tube clip from History of Britain by Simon Shama.
Gusface
correct where they were , but
“The Australian Labor Party, under John Curtin, refused Menzies’ offer to form a war coalition, and also opposed using the Australian army for a European war, preferring to keep it at home to defend Australia.”
As i said , Curtin despite hisd empire words in action wanted aussie trioops brought here to oz for oz defense Menzie in words but also in acton was for troops to defend th Empire first …in far away m/e , and on that Menzies lost me
From an English point of view, Australia was quite rightly of very low priority in world war two. England had lost its Chinese markets, was no longer getting tin or rubber from the Malay Peninsula and had access to alternative sources of Australian raw materials.
Bottom line, Australia was more expendable, as were Australians. Given the extremely low levels of investment by Australia in the military during the 1930’s, there was a certain symmetry to this.
Does anyone know the truth of the story I have heard that following lengthy begging by an Australian PM, Australia was finally provided with a sincle Hurricane, the job of which was to fly over Sydney and Melbourne from time to time to impress the punters?
Boerwar
“From an English point of view, Australia was quite rightly of very low priority in world war two”
True , but from an AUSTRALIAN point of view, Australia was quite rightly of number one priority in world war two , and thats what Labor leader Curtin reckoned , whereas Menzies thought th Empire was first priority in Aug 1941 , and so wuld not agree to a combined war cabinet , got th decising 2 independents on his side ….forsing Menzies an empire first PM to resign th PM-ship , and Curtin an aussie first PM became PM ….and he is our greatest PM , leadership under greatest pressure , smart to get americons co op also
Ron
We are going to have to stop this! I agree with you @ 141.
If I remember something right, while all this was happening the English were still trying to stop Australia opening up commercial flying routes with the US across the Pacific.
Boerwar , a revuluton has occured here ….gusface and i hav depossed Adam as histary professor Emporutus’’s….not sure how he’ll handle th cuture shock of dethroning , probably with humility as norm
nite Boerwar
nite Ron
Boerwar , suppose to be fair should mention Nats had reins for a month after Menzies , but never counted Nats anyway You never answered my query other nite by way of whether you now got water Boerwar
Boerwar @ 140 – you are correct, only one RAAF Hurricane flew in Australia during WWII. I doubt Australia would have had to beg for Hurricanes though – the British recognised by the end of 1940 that the Hurricane airframe had reached the end of its development potential as a fighter and was offloading them (mainly to the Soviets, who used them very capably – mostly around Murmansk and Leningrad in 1941-42. Ironically, their Axis opponents in that region, Finland, also flew some Hurricanes, having purchased them from Britain during the Winter War of 1939-40)
A couple of RAAF squadrons in N. Africa operated Hurricanes though – No. 3 Squadron was fully equipped with Hurris for a few months in early 1941, and a couple of other squadrons had a mix of Hurricanes and other types (P-40’s probably?).
The lone example flying in Australia was probably for evaluation – presumably the RAAF found it to be lacking, as they received the superior P-40 and Spitfire instead, which began entering service in Australia 1942 (March and August respectively). I recall reading somewhere that that poor orphaned Hurricane
ended up as a liaison aircraft, but I’m not certain of that.
Ron
Yep, forgot. So far, zero allocation, and not looking too good.
Since we were using the money from selling the irrigation allocation for rehabilitating the river banks (fencing off and planting with natives, with generous set backs – nice to get a good bit of depth in the riparian veg), this may only mean a bit of a delay for us. For irrigators who depend on this for their livelihood, and for the townies who depend on irrigators to make money so they can spend it in the towns, it is a disaster. MDB storages were at 22% in mid-December.
For the sake of Australia I am hoping that there will be very good Autumn, Winter and Spring rains in 2009. It is almost unthinkable what will happen if these don’t arrive.
Listy @ 147
Thank you. Very interesting. How certain are you that the Hurricane was for testing and not for show? I would be very interested in knowing this.
dont read this if you have a weak stomach first thing in the morning, i’m still dry retching, Howard’s medal presentation.
http://abc.com.au/news/stories/2009/01/14/2465324.htm
Not content with lashing the media, now bloggers are in the sights of Palin.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/13/palin-lashes-out-at-bored_n_157569.html
Steve, nobody knows better than i that most of the media are a pack of pirihanas in a feeding frenzy, but when someone stands for such an important public office as VP. of course they should expect to have every word vetted and every part of their background investigated, i have a healthy dislike and disrespect for most of the media {we’ve turned the hose on them in our front garden at 6.30 am before now} Julia and Kevin have both had to tolerate their origins and past being dissected in minute detail, Palin chose to use the media to help her cause but decries it when it pries further than she wishes, silly woman expects them to keep to her version of rules, how dumb can you get!
Well some conservatives can admit the truth about Dubbya. Boris Johnston has written this very amusing piece on the Bush presidency in the Age today which I know Glen will love:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/dubya-was-in-a-league-of-his-own-20090113-7g2d.html?page=-1
To be fair, Johnston points out, Bush made some of his worst mistakes with the support of Blair and Howard. As Johnston concludes “Bush may have beaten all comers in his joyful mangling of English, but you could not say that when it came to political ineptitude he was in a league of his own.”
Ronster
The new gravatar is one of the greatest men of the 20th Century. He was more of an idealist and sceptic than a cynic.
I won’t comment on this (mainly because I don’t have anything worth saying) but it’s worth reading what Hillary’s approach will be in the Middle East in general.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24911107-601,00.html
The “no ETS is better than the one proposed” proponents may be happy with this. Is this the first step towards it?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24909718-2702,00.html
Off topic buy most relevant. Stimulus spending -v- tax cuts.
“So bang for the buck — increase in GDP per dollar of added debt — is 3,
…and look at the effects of a tax cut; the multiplier is 0.75, half that for public investment, but bang for the buck is 1, only 1/3 that for investment.”
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/bang-for-the-buck-wonkish/#comments
Gary
Idiots like Barnaby Joyce are the reason why we are better off with an ETS, even if it is inadequate. At least we get our foot in the door and have a mechanism which can be ramped up in the future. I love Barnaby’s logic about AGW “Experts have been wrong before, so they are wrong this time.”
“For the next year, newspaper excerpts will be restored and scanned from German publications such as Nazi paper Der Angriff, Communist Party mouthpiece Der Kaempfer – which was shut down shortly after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 – and conservative daily Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.”
http://current.com/items/89711106/british_company_sells_nazi_newspapers_to_germans.htm
GB
Much as I dislike the political tactic of using the ETS as either a bargaining chip or a wedge to force a DD, the Nationals really are fools for suggesting that. It makes Turnbull look weak and them look irrelevant. Technically, with this ETS only asking for a five percent reduction, consumers and business compensated, and rural industries being exempted anyway (!) they have no coherent basis to oppose it, unless, as Joyce has said, they don’t believe in CC anyway.
In that case, someone should ask him why the Murray basin deserves any special assistance. They should also be able to ask him some interesting questions about arctic ice melting around September this year, whne it will reach a maximum. See:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
So in that case roll on DD; Joyce said he wants to leave the Senate anyway. Lets give him and Fielding a hand.
Boerwar @ 149
I did a bit of googling and theres some info about the lone hurri on the RAAF Point Cook museum website:
http://www.airforce.gov.au/raafmuseum/research/aircraft/series2/A60.htm#
“In 1941, the British Government presented a Hawker Hurricane Mk I fitted with tropical equipment to Australia. The RAAF serial A60-1 was allocated, but the Hurricane retained its RAF number, V7476. The aircraft was erected at No 1 Aircraft Depot in August 1941, and joined Central Flying School (CFS) on 6 September 1941, where it was used for familiarisation flights and war-loan demonstrations. In mid-1942, the Hurricane was transferred to No 2 Communication Flight and, while at Laverton, it was used for testing an anti-”G” suit designed by Professor Cotton, of Melbourne University. Between 1943 and 1946, the Hurricane operated mainly with No 1 Communication Unit and Central Flying School, except for a month with No 2 Operational Training Unit.”
so it did serve as a morale-booster for a few months in 1941, amongst its other duties
Listy
You don’t play wargames by any chance?
“Fresh tensions have emerged within Coalition ranks over climate change, with Liberal moderates and the Nationals at loggerheads over whether the Opposition Leader should embrace Labor’s plan to cut emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 to bring them down to 2000 levels.”
Bring the down to 2000? I thought it was a 5 per cent cut OF 2000 levels. Has the plan changed or is The Australian rubbish.
If the Nationals vote against it, then there still isn’t a need for a DD, presuming the Liberals vote for it.
Dio and Socrates – I agree 100%.
What do you mean “or” Oz? Don’t you mean “and”?
Perhaps Joyce is getting the ETS mixed up with the Nats polling figures. So a 5% reduction over 2000 levels might equal present levels?
and after being Governor of Alaska, Joyce would be more aware of AGW…
oh oops
I get those two mixed up.
Put Barnaby in a dress and…
If there are any policy types pondering 2009 Oz budgets, there is a good post on Krugman yesterday about what stimulus packages actually cost. The answer is that they cost in total much less than the “headline” figure. The reasons are that first the government gets some money coming back via taxation and second it avoids what it would spend otherwise on unemployment benefits. Basically $1 in stimulus spending gives about a $3 increase in GDP (assuming there are idle resources in the economy).
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
Applying this to Australia, a $30B stimulus package equates to a 1% boost in GDP.
Socrates,
I’m not sure if it really qualifies as a ‘wargame’ per se, but I’d hate to count up how many hours I’ve spent playing the various versions of ‘Civilisation’ on the PC over the last (eek!) 20 years!
Listy
I must confess I play the odd wargame myself (my little painted men as Xanthippe calls them). I was just curious because your handle matches a frequent poster on a wargames forum I also read.
FINNS
#114
“Idiot to the end. Did anybody pick up Dubya’s uttering during his “farewell’ press conference that the media has “MIS-UNDER-ESTIMATED” him.
Amigo Ronnie, have u been tutoring him? ”
Obama wanted Dubya to go out not looking a complete fool in intersts of POTUS credibility & wanted lingoistic expertise , but dubya st.ffed th speling line supplied
the media has “MIS-UNDER-ESTIMATED” him.
should read
the media has “MISS-OVER-ESTIMATED” him.
As socrates quoted : As Johnston concludes “Bush may have beaten all comers in his joyful mangling of English”
Nah, that wouldn’t be me – I do post under this name on a flight simulation forum also, but only very occasionally.
cheers,
So those masterful economic managers have launched a “LaborWatch” site. I suggest Labor launch a “Liberalpolicywatch” site. There wouldn’t be much on it. This smacks of the “born to rule” mentality to me. Only the masters know how to spend money.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24911819-12377,00.html
Diogenes
Posted Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 10:28 am | Permalink
“Ronster The new gravatar is one of the greatest men of the 20th Century. He was more of an idealist and sceptic than a cynic.”
But you haven’t yet changed your moniker name from that heretic diogenes to his worthy now esteemed brother diogrones
And just that line ..haven’t got anyting worthwhile to say and adding a Link , like actualy suggesting can I scarcely believe that I do …as I get Voltaire-ed You know diogrones that Hillarys ‘that is an absolute’ ruling out any direct discussions with hamas is pathetic , yet Hillary & Obama ar happy to “direct talk someway’ with Iran…why cause they hav/close hav nuclear
So first Hillary pathetic is message is gt some wmds or nuclear and people will ‘talk someway’ with you (not a clever message & hypocritical also) then 2nd Hilary pathetic is by not “directing talk someway’ you cann’t get peace as peace needs complex negots & need direct bit to do so Then 3rd pathetic is World did negot with mugabe as he was ‘democraticaly’ elected leader although thought a low lifes so Hilary saying you won’t talk to a democratically elected Govt means democracy is now qualified to whether people elect a govt th other side tink ar ok
Last & most important Hilary pathetic , repeating pathetic Bush & Obama & US wrong starting points & instead using is using oiliness patented words ..”security for one and legit political/economic aspritations for th other”…..how about instead security and full ilegal (per UN) land withdrawal for one and separate 100% normal independent State of contigous pre 1967 war borders for th other …both concurent But he who wants security will not agree to either of th others abov 2 justise requirements (full withdrawal & 1967 borders 100% Statehood) , and then uses there own non agreement to these as pretexts to stay , thereby guaranteeing no resulution , sort of a self created and self fulfilling chicken & eggs exrcuse to remain
Pity is I reckon Hilary & Obama pathetically fully understand this , and pretend not to know , and many forses camouflage these realities by disinformation and/or subtle gagg its communication to th masses , and diogrones…..yes we can libetarienly
SNIP: Comment perfectly typifying why I was right to stop the Gaza discussion deleted – The Management.
oops, sorry William.
GB
Perhaps “back-flip watch” where successive versions of Liberal Party are stored for comparison over time? Poss could then produce some lovely saw-tooth shaped graphs from them.
Ron
I’ll try to tread a fine line on Gaza here. There’s a good article in Crikey about the deafening silence from Rudd (and the Opposition, such as it is) not only about Gaza but also about the media blackout which I find very disturbing. Setting aside the rights and wrongs of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the suppression of any media coverage is always a bad sign and should be condemned unequivocably. The media might be crap but they are necessary in a democracy.
http://www.crikey.com.au/Crikey-Says/20090112-Crikey-says.html
The US has the same problem as Australia does. During a recession, the current thinking (Keynesian) is for the Federal Government to stimulate the economy and increase GDP (which Rudd, Obama, Brown, Bush etc) are all doing.
But in the US and in Australia, the State Governments are cutting spending which will prolong the recession/depression. In the US, Krugman describes it as having 50 Herbert Hoovers. So does that mean we have eight Herbert Hoovers in Oz
How can we fix this? Should the Ruddster be giving more funds to the States?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
diog
there ar 2 matters arising One is th parameters I blunted said in #177 , and won’t be last time i explore these fundmentel policy issues here iether Secondley is freedom of press issue that Crikey article highlited
quote “But at least one person is satisfied with the limited coverage coming out of the Gaza Strip. Danny Seaman, head of the Israeli government’s press office, who has in the past described foreign journalists as a “figleaf” for Hamas, told The Guardian over the weekend that the exclusion of reporters from Gaza has worked in Israel’s favour as it has forced a greater focus on Israel’s side of the story:”
What one guarantees with muzzling of press getting access is to hear th other side , so that people can make an informed decision based on both sides…usualy one finds some merit in both sides , and surely this is th case here BUT World is getting ’spin’ only one way Result is justifiably objectiv people just can not believ anyting th one sided mob ar puting out , seeing you don’t know whats spin and whats truth
In fact suspicon is created they hav indeed got someting to hide , cause if your cause was 100% corect then why be scared of others opinions getting coverage
This is perfect example of th MSN being beter than people tink it is , when you do not hav it then you realize what you’ve lost When you got it , you freely decise whats bullsh.t , soin , reasonable , magnifico blah blah
And our oz politcans , disgrace silense on not talking humanitarien bit , and where ar there suport for a pilar of democracy th free press
“Danny Seaman, head of the Israeli government’s press office……..told The Guardian….that the exclusion of reporters from Gaza has worked in Israel’s favour as it has forced a greater focus on Israel’s side of the story:”
grater focus ? I did call it biased focus , BECAUSE th genisis of there overall argument is fataly flawed (notwithstandng other side th P people hav also been wrong & immoral as respondees) thats hardly democracy no press freedom , our govt should think we deserve beter than that
Dio
That is a good issue (State spending) but to be fair I don’t think the situation is as bad here. Firstly the arrangement of state and federal funding is different – here States depend more on direct federal funding whereas in the USA states are more on their own, with their own powes to raise sales taxes and even income taxes.
Second most states here are doing the right thing – Victoria, here in SA and especially Qld are all pressing ahead with investment plans (good). WA and Tas are a bit less certain. The additional infrastrure funding from Canberra is effectively passed out to states and spent by them also. So there is little risk of massive state sackings here a la Jeff Kennett.
The exception (and big problem) is NSW. They are in worse shape financially, and have reacted very poorly to the problem. They are 25% of the national population and economy, so can’t be ignored, but other States might resent it if they get special treatment – rewarding incompetence type arguments will abound.
Bludgers
The Pine Bark Beetles and yours truly are off for a well-earned holiday so will be out of touch for the next fortnight…
Listy
Thanks. If you google the wikipedia on hurricanes the odd bird gets a specific mention, with a bit more context to it. It looks like it was the sole survivor of about 99 that were destroyed in and around the Malay Peninsula and the Netherlands East Indies.
Barnaby Joyce
You are a star. Any hope that Howard had of using you as a populist foil to anybody remotely sensible on CC has just gone out the window.
Sitting week should just about be my next set of political entertainments, now that Turnbull has decided not to do a reshuffle over the silly season.
Stephen Conroy will be unhappy; it don’t work and the reason is overblown:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/technology/internet/14cyberweb.html?_r=1
Perhaps it just the Rudd spent too much time in China.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/30/australia-joins-china-in-censoring-the-internet/
Socrates
Hey, I learnt something that I’m sure everyone else here knew.
What % of our GDP is respectively from Federal and State expenditure?
I thought Foley had cut or postponed quite a few projects in SA, like the new prison and facelift for Football Park.
Boy I wish I had proof read the last post:
Perhaps it is no more than Rudd spending too much time in China.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/30/australia-joins-china-in-censoring-the-internet/
fredn, more on the myth about “Child porn is everywhere”:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24902335-5012475,00.html
And the Brooklyn School of Law savages Conroy’s policy in a detailed report:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/13/internet_regulation/
Diogenes -
Our GDP according to the CIA World Factbook is $773 billion (PPP) and government expenditure is $293 billion.
The US’ GDP, for comparison, is almost $14 trillion and government expenditure is 3 trillion.
Dio
They have really only cut “wish list” projects in the future. I am not aware of any current commitments (i.e. people working on them now) they have cut.
Given that NSW has been ripped off on GST funding for years, the other states can politely **** off if we get special treatment right now
I think the other States should get over their stupid 1800’s mentality and realise that if NSW, and in particular, Sydney, doesn’t get into shape the ramifications are going to far worse for the entire country then any perceived “special treatment”.
You need to take care comparing the US and Australian federal budgets, the division between federal and state responsibility is a lot different, and the services support by the Australian federal budget a lot greater.
The trouble is Oz how do you get NSW into shape, the NSW labor party is stuck in the past and the Liberal party is held by incompetent right wing nutters. Labor has to be chucked out to force them to sort themselves out, but the result is going to be painful.
#193 – That was part of my point by showing how much more our government spends as a percentage then theirs.
#194 – I don’t know how to fix it all, but some things the Federal government looks like it might be doing such as investing in infrastructure upgrades in areas like health, education and transport are a good start.
The NSW Half Yearly Review is here. Not to be confused with the Mini-budget that was released about a month earlier than this document.
http://www.treasury.nsw.gov.au/?a=12934
Cheat sheet for the US pres.
http://www.236.com/news/2009/01/12/iraqs_inability_to_destroy_our_1_11072.php
So how do we help NSW ?
Ship more high quality coal? Help the financial services sector? What? Set up a pulp mill at Eden? Come on guys surely it is not too hard?
I have this theory OZ, Victoria has been very lucky, back when the Liberal party could produce real leaders we got two long term planners, Bolte and Kennet, and even today Brumby, another long term planer. The pipeline, deepening the port, all long term stuff. NSW has not been so lucky. Money won’t fix it, you need leadership. How many states build freeways and then knock them down again.
Maybe NSW could develop its regional centres, Albury, Wagga, Newcastle, Woolongong, Armidale?
Or is it a case of Sydney – crap place to live but we love it.
steve
So the NSW Govt budgeted for a $264M surplus in 2008-9 and they’re projecting a $712M deficit, a turnaround of almost a $1B. That can’t be good.
Can’t Rudd give them extra GST money with strings attached if they perform?
Diogenes, page 19 supplies the only five things going their way at present.
Given the very sharp downturn in global and domestic economic activity indicators since mid-September 2008, downside risks to the NSW economic outlook are clearly present. However, there are a number of factors which will support the economy, and prepare for a recovery in 2009-10.
•
The aggressive RBA interest rate cuts will impact quickly for mortgage holders and potential mortgage holders. Unlike the United States, the great bulk of mortgages in Australia are floating rather than fixed rate, and hence Australian monetary policy is more effective in its impact on the housing sector than US monetary policy. Given that NSW mortgages are higher than the national average, NSW will benefit most from interest rate reductions. Further declines in official rates are anticipated by markets.
•
While a substantial federal fiscal stimulus is already in place, the Federal Government has indicated that should conditions require it, further stimulus will be forthcoming.
•
The 24.2 per cent increase in NSW total state capital expenditure in 2008-09 is providing support for NSW economic activity and jobs. The increase in the total net lending deficit, from $4.7 billion in 2007-08 to $8 billion in 2008-09, represents a significant fiscal stimulus in New South Wales.
•
The recent sharp depreciation of the Australian dollar will also provide support for the NSW manufacturing and services sectors.
•
Latest projections from ABARE (Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics) for the 2008-09 crop year, while marginally below previous estimates, continue to suggest a strong rebound in farm production and rural exports from the drought-affected 2007-08 result.
2008-
I agree NSW needs Federal help – I was explaining that it carries political risks, not implying I hate NSW citizens. I feel sorrry for them with their predicament, which they can’t avoid.
However Dario the GST share claim for NSW is really spurious. Every State can make a claim of that type if they chose teh right comparison base. First its not even clear if its true. Many corporate head offices might pay their GST in NSW but the activity happens elsewhere. So its very hard ot actually prove that NSW residents pay that tax. The same problem holds with fuel taxes. Plus faster growing states correctly argue that tax distribution formulas based on (after the fact) population statstics don’t get them their correct current share of revenue. Second NSW gets more than its share of many other taxes and Federal funds. Third lots of federal public servants in NSW result in a net inflow of federal fudns via wages. Fourth they don’t generate anything like the export revenue of Qld or WA.
I would expect that the states witha legitimate grievance on federal funding vs tax paid would be WA and Qld, with Tasmania traditionally heavily subsidised by the rest of us. SA, NSW and Vic are probably about square.
The problem in NSW is that any of the solutions are painfull and hard to implement in a downturn because they might cost some people their (undeserved) jobs eg in Sydney Rail Corp.
The Commonwealth Govt. paid $9.85 billion to NSW in 2007-2008, nearly $3 billion more than any other State.
Enough said
http://mirror.nla.gov.au/budget/2007-08/bp3/html/bp3_main-04.htm
I am really surprised that not much has been out of Barnaby Joyce’s comment that to be called “CC Skeptic” is an emotive term like calling someone a “holocaust skeptic”. Methinks Barnaby has reached his Peter’s Principle and should clarify himself where he really stands on “holocaust skeptic”.
Socrates back at 162. You need to be very careful of that graph. It’s showing something that is probably not terribly useful in terms of climate change. For a more extensive and informed explanation, go to Larvatus Prodeo, and the posting on Science, Denialism and Fraud, I think it’s called.
The Finns, I reckon Barnaby is a gift that will go on giving, particularly if egged on by Howard. Very entertaining Possum post on the subject, if you haven’t seen it.
I don’t live in the Rum Rebellion State and have been somewhat bemused by the decline of the ALP there. From outside it looks like incompetence and corruption. From what tenuous connections I have to NSW Labor, it looks to me like no-one ever told them their behaviour was pretty obvious to all. i.e., they are incompetent and/or corrupt. Unless there is a competent State gov’t. in NSW, why would anyone give them more money?
208 Harry “Snapper” Organs – hell, they could be waiting many years.
I’m still wondering why anyone would feel sorry for any New South Welshman.
By the look of these graphs, housing is about set for a bounce too.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5609.0?OpenDocument
“Unless there is a competent State gov’t. in NSW, why would anyone give them more money?”
because Australians live there , what sort of people say this
and you earmark funds for projects , it called governanse
BTW do you understand $3 billion increase in captial monies is already happing rthis financial year , and more Fed funds ar needed in that area for infra and for stimuli
I remeber when vic was financialy st.ffed after Kirner , and Kennett comes to Canberra begging for money , and without know ing whether his liberal enemies were just as incompetnt as kirner , keating gives th money with strings for specifacs
now Keating didn’t worry Kennett was Liberal aor why waste money in vic its st.ffed when money could be spent in home srate NSW or growth state Q’ld …no he gav it cause it was needed full stop as vic was part of oz….just made sure of governance & strings bit
Some of you guys hav your own state bias’s and stuff th rest , except when another State may be a plus or assistanse ….a 3 state resident over years being progressively deported one by one , one sees such pettiness by a minority by indiv Statee , and its not good Fortunately our Fed politcans both sides ar not so small minded , understanding this in a Federaton , and all states hav ups and downs in cycles with Tas permanently in need for obvious reasons
I think it’s a matter of dispute as to how fairly the States are treated with Commonwealth revenue distributions in general and GST funds specifically, under the aegis of the Commonwealth Grants Commission. These issues are canvassed in a Parliamentary Library research note by Richard Webb:
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/2002-03/03rn01.pdf
I had assumed that historically NSW and Victoria had been disadvantaged in this process, largely as a function of their earlier development and their larger tax bases. Webb implies that this (Vic, NSW) grievance is legitimate (while indicating that the basis of what is “fair” treatment is highly contentious), but he also suggests that WA has grounds for complaint about the distribution. The difficulty in moving to a new deal is in getting agreement among the States, when the status quo serves the interests of the other three States.
This is not to excuse what appears to be poor performance by the current NSW Government over quite a long time. However, I question Socrates comment (#203) on the thread which implies that NSW has had little cause for complaint about their share of Commonwealth funds.
Ron, Whitlam spent buckloads of money on Queensland even though the only thanks he got from the flying peanut was truckloads of abuse. The National interest has always been a more generous beast than states rights.
“The National interest has always been a more generous beast than states rights.”
Yes that was what my post was saying And on Sir joh , he used to then claim HE had got th monies for queenslanders and we hav been short changed by those Southerners….again ….but i’m in charge ‘don’t you worry about that”
Gary, it’s not that I don’t feel for my fellows in N.S.W.. One of my good buddies has been corresponding for ages about why N.S.W. is so different to Vic. Labor. We’re not imsiders, so really don’t know. I can tell you that working in Vic. Labor land in the public sector, is a total p.i.t.a. Mostly because they’ve employed control freaks or ex-lib politicians, probably to keep them off the streets, even if temporarily. I’m thinking long service leave.
Ron 211, you are a patronising git
1
Sorry. I didnt mean to do that
Harry
#208
“Unless there is a competent State gov’t. in NSW, why would anyone give them more money?””
Your comment reeked of social , equitable , politcal & econamic foolishness , so in hindsite my reply comment on how States ar trated and governance requirements treated you better than you deserved… ‘patronising’ usualy logicaly ends up at th feet of th one saying it
MC @ 218
Strongly disagree with your 1.
A major problem with NSW is that Sydney is just so big, and so integral to all means of communication. Hence politics has allied with geography to put the bulk of road/rail/air infrastructure in the most congested space. Another is that Sydney is the world capital of nimby ism. Everybody knows that more rail, port and road infrastructure is required, and knows roughly where it is required, but the world champion whingers sure dont want these things near them. In addition, most Sydneysiders seem to think that public transport is just the thing, but only for other people.
Any decentralisation of NSW should only be considered for east of the great dividing range. West of that should be left to decline to widespread service towns for very broadacre farming to take some of the pressure off the MDB.
No, I take it back – your post at 218 was better than 222.
“Infrastructure is in the most congested space”?
You mean where most of the people live? Outrageous.
It’s not really a surprise though why Sydney is currently in a mess. When you have no cohesive, long-term, strategic plan that you actually follow through with and implement for a city of this size what do you expect?
I’m a fan of Sydney, I’ve lived here almost my whole life. I also travel a fair bit so I’ve seen cities from all around the world. While I’m not going to say “Sydney should be the London/Singapore/San Francisco/etc of Australia” I really think we can do a lot better, even compared to other capital cities in Australia! Unfortunately we’re cursed with the two most disgusting political parties in the world – NSW Labor and the Liberals.
People in the Western Suburbs lament the lack of public transport options available to them and they’re right to do so, but seriously, they’re screwed. If we can’t get a comprehensive, integrated and economical public transport system in high density areas there’s no hope for the ‘burbs. And we’re a bloody rich city!
Spot on with the nimby-ism and the “Yeah the government should invest more in public transport but I sure as hell ain’t leaving my car”, Michael Cusack.
Ron
following on from last nite
I found out that Curtin was banged up for a few days in WW1 for resisting a general mobilisation (he had already been called up before but had not passed)
The details are sketchy but he was attacked by a gvt member over it.
The quote “sons of britain” was curtins. (he envisaged an imperial council at the time of the quote)
“Hence politics has allied with geography to put the bulk of road/rail/air infrastructure in the most congested space. ”
partly true , however that congeston is also a by product of histary , also where decades ago planning it not account for what sydney now is & further where population centres started there
and it does not alter that NSW is biggest per capita contributer then vic , and that Grants commission sython offf funds to other States based on 1/ capacity to rise moneies and 2/ expenditure needs eg a young populaton state is compensated for needing greater resourses for educaton etc Thats why its Federaton but formula’s don’t account for expenditure efficiuencys from hard reforms one state in say hospitals may make , that another mmay not/not as extensiv…and thats why States don’t agree on changing formulas
HSO 216 – Sounds like a good move re long service leave. I must admit my tongue was firmly in my cheek when I wrote that last post. NSW is a basket case. I suspect Rudd could get away with helping them out. The Libs would crow that they are helping a failed Labor government but wouldn’t they also be helping the people of NSW? Labor would have a good case to argue IMHO. Having said that I don’t think Rudd will do anything out of the ordinary for NSW.
Anyway Oz, not sure that page 19 of their Mid year Economic doesn’t consitute some sort of a plan. With housing bursting through that trendline in today’s ABS graph, it might not be as hopeless a future as conventional wisdom would have us believe. Just hope you own a dwelling or two.
Oh really, Ron @ 220.My comment reeks of foolishness does it?
“I found out that Curtin was banged up for a few days in WW1 for resisting a general mobilisation (he had already been called up before but had not passed)”
Thanks for that Gusface….hope you notised when letting know Boerwar know of passing of Histary professor Empororatis batons from Adam , you gained first honor mention there
Seems in WW! Curtin was a pacificist , and am just guessing your Curtin coment : “sons of britain” was curtins. (he envisaged an imperial council at the time of the quote) ” may reflect WW! view of our place in world as part of an empire I assume
Also do you hav name of that Curtin book and author as never read an autobiog of him , just info via from auto biog of Fred Daly & others
Harry “Snapper” Organs
Posted Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 11:40 pm | Permalink
“Oh really, Ron @ 220.My comment reeks of foolishness does it?”
I posted at 11.14 , and its taken you 26 minutes to come up with that line….and its a queston whose answer is self evident….. for anyone serously reading my 11.14 post #220
john curtin
melbourne uni press
lloyd ross
Gary, I reckon Rudd has got just the most diabolical Prime Minister job since the last one really counted i.e., WW2. Howard doesn’t count because he was and is a …..name your expletive deleted.
The Infrastructure Australia shortlist looked heavily biased towards NSW.
That said, a lot of the projects looked like a waste of time to me. Tens of billions on freeway upgrades when half that money, or even less, could create comprehensive urban and suburban metro network.
Page 20 of that Mid Year Review kind of proves my point:
Defer NW Metro
Approve CBD Metro
Defer South West Rail stage 2
Revised Clearways
Defer, defer, revise. Not quite cohesive or long term.
Well, Ron , it might come as a surprise to you, but sometimes some of the people who you seem to think below you, actually have a think before posting.
oh Harry old boy , you just cann’t avoid that patronising streak , quite unbecoming reely
When someone is Barry Hall-ed a few times , glazed they unwitingly rise but equity demands there indignatys suffered is already enough Like quit when you’re so blatantly behind
That’s true and if you read the South Australian document there are probably even more deferments and that was the point being made in the New York Times someone posted earlier today that the states are not necessarily up to date with what the Federal Governments are trying to achieve. Sad but true, Oz.
Thanks gusface , I’ll seek it out…probaly will reinforse my view he is our greatest PM
Is this man shoring up the hayseed vote or just determined to make it impossible for the Liberals to win marginal seats in Brisbane?
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/nats-stick-by-green-nazi-jibe/2009/01/14/1231608777504.html
The last brilliant statement I heard from Springborg was that global warming was caused by volcanoes.
“that was the point being made in the New York Times someone posted earlier today that the states are not necessarily up to date with what the Federal Governments are trying to achieve.”
apart from communications break downs & diferent expertise levels , it also a by product of hugeness of machinary of respectiv govts and & need four more inter govt efficiencys & less overlaps functons
“The last brilliant statement I heard from Springborg was that global warming was caused by volcanoes.”
Does that place Springborg in advance of CC skeptic Barnaby Joyce …, or behind him
Oz
I agree with you on the skew of the spending to road but the problem in Syney is that the existing rail operator is so inefficient that its not just the capital – there is a huge yearly operating deficit to make up (hundreds of millions). Hence treasuries are reluctant to expand the system, fearing it will expand their annual loss.
I should add that, as I said before, I still think money needs to be spent on Sydney (even though I live in Adelaide). It is not healthy that 20% of the nation is a net economic loss. In the end that will cost all of us. However, Rudd shoudln’t just hadn’t the money over. Some reform must be demanded in return.
Michael 222
Its not geography in Sydney – its straight lack of planning. Sydney’s higher population density should make public transport more economic, but Sydney rail is the most inefficient (high unit cost, high staff, low performance) in Australia. Even recently, plans have been developed for new areas like the north west without adequate corridors for future rail infrastructure. So theyd ream up expensive metros (tunnels) instead, btu they never get built. Nimbyism is a problem eveywhere, but the politics is more broken in Sydney.
Ron, that places Springborg behind him, the sequel is never as good as the original or after the pied piper come the rats.
Ron @ 236. I’m not your old boy, and please stop patronisising me. I actually read what you write, and mostly understand it, and I’m buggered if I’m going to be spoken down to by any one. Let alone you.
“Let alone you.”
well young boy , th ‘let alone me” quip reely still shows patrnising …dare i say ego hurt when your 3208 blog was esposed (kindly) by me in #220 as social equitablty econamicly & politcly foolish …you made ablue …it got rebuted …just move on Deel with it
I would have thought that one of the things that could be done with climate change and population growth, and it may just be a short term solution, is to create a highly mobile population to produce food. It would create crap in terms of societal stability, but maybe it’s a plan b. Gotta say I’m in the “too late” basket as defined by Boerwar, type a.
steve
Posted Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 12:30 am | Permalink
“Ron, that places Springborg behind him, the sequel is never as good as the original or after the pied piper come the rats.”
Whuilst i’m an ex Banalander , you’re still living there Steve so you’re th expert and so I’m totaly happy with your judgment call that Springborg is behind Barnaby….that takes some efort to be behind Barnaby
Is Barnaby Joyce a lobotomised Bob Katter clone? The vacant, vacuous stare gives it away…
Ron, you need to get your head around some basic information I’ve freely told to other bludgers fro a long time ago. I’m about to turn 60 and I’m a woman. I’m an old bastard social worker who’s been fighting for social justice for a very long time.
Tautology alert. Vacant or vacuous not both. Unless “vacuous” derives from the Latin “vacca” meaning cow. In which case it would be acceptable.
Winston -Good cheap shot! What I meant by that comment was the obvious like the major airport in the inner southern suburbs, the port in the same area requiring trucks/rail to transit suburban areas, the road and most of the rail system feeding into the central city and not efficiently into port Botany, Port Kembla or Port Hunter, the commuter rail mixed up with the freight rail, an inefficient intra state road system frequently funnelling traffic, especially freight traffic through the inner city and only marginally improved by the western orbital (whatever the M # is).
For my sins, I know a long time ALP member and sometime Minister of the NSW Govt, he was my football coach eons ago, and he freely admitted to me that the political pain inflicted by nimbys at any specific plan for transport in metro Sydney was much worse than the general dissatisfaction at the lack of such plans. The current howls about increasing housing density along train lines is just the latest manifestation of a long long saga.
Fulvio, I’ve obviously missed something. What?
The page turned over, Harry. See my last post on the previous page.
Or better still, ignore my poor attempt at humour at Barnaby’s expense.
and so that somehow allows you to make a quote “social equitablty econamicly & politcly foolish in your #208″ , and when its exposed in my #220…then “somehow”
you carry on for 2 hours trying to camoflage that blue and/or your ego …pretty ordinary efort , and your last post is just another now I’m down trodden “appeal” You don’t just don’t move on , your stuck in clay 2 hours ago , with a blue that for some strange reason embarasses you …deel with it , you’re making yourself unhappy , but I forgive you but fglad for any scial work done by anyone
You didn’t think I was silly enough to get involved in your little stoush with Ron did you Harry?
Michael Cusack, it’s sort of weird that you’re speaking about pretty much equivalent infrastructure deficiencies in N.S.W that we’re hearing about in Vic. increasingly. It’s probably managed slightly better in Vic., but it’s problematical cause public transport is privatised.
Fulvio, quite right. No. It’s unutterably stupid.
a conclusion you should hav made of yourself in #208 2 hours ago , instead of spaming to camoflage
Don’t know why people just pick on Sydney …its same on alot of main oz cities except sydney biger is more obvious …politcal and polticaleconamic prevent snesible rail infrastucture planned & built which obviousley is far superior , in lieu of freeways & tunnels…until there is serous and i mean reely serous politcal lobby groups to offset pref for roads/freeways & tunnels this will not change
Ron, please see my last response to Fulvio.
but you didn’t obviously see my #260 , i agreed ….re read it in context Then move on
correection but you didn’t obviously see my #259 not #260 , i agreed ….re read it in context Then move on
For Barnabys referense
“On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is “unequivocal,” and that human activity has “very likely” been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had “likely” played a role.”
Th addition of “very” is important , it signifies a 95% level of scientific certainty of hypothosos , and this from a collection imput of 3,700 of world’s best scientists fr4om 130 countrys Later Report highlites co2 emmissions as principal cause
Harry
I don’t know about the mobile population (it takes a heap of energy to move a lot of people around) but there are alternatives to Woolworths and trucking fruit from the Ord River to Melbourne. People I know in Adelaide are strongly in favour of people growing more of their own food in backyard gardens. Its surprisingly feasible – you can grow enough fruit and veggies to feed a family on not that big a block as long as rainfall is adequate. In WWII most of Australia grew half its veggie needs at home (needed due to wartime rationing). The main thing that stops people is time.
Xanthippe started a veggie patch here and I was amazed how much she got out of about 4 square metres.
Harry SO. Yes, in many ways the problem is a national one, but Sydney/NSW is the worst example with the other states rapidly catching up. The reasons for Sydneys parlous state can be attributed to two main pieces of maladministration. Firstly, the NSW ALP before it found the benefits of developers with large brown envelopes used to fund its activities by “selling jobs”, particularly in the railways. Hence the historically inefficient nature of the railways, and the tendency of large railway works to be near “buyers” rather than necessarily commuters and freight forwarders.
Secondly, Nick Greiner came to power and made popular the later Costello mantra that state budgets should be run as simplistically as a suburban housewifes budget. The idea of deficit budgets became unpopular with the economic illiterate just as those same people began to wade neck deep in debt and hire purchase on a personal basis. Hence we have just gone through a period of minimal spending on infrastructure because of fear of public debt simultaneously with a period when private citizens have run up historic debt levels on such landfill as 4wds, multiple TVs, mobile phones and personal tatoos.
Socrates, there’s already a number of places in Melbourne doing similar things at a community level. Good on Xanthippe. We’re just trying to get it going here in our local area, with a communal herb garden established, and we’ll expand it to vegies. I suppose I was thinking more about the need to shift people from areas where their jobs have depended on industries that are going to screw the planet, and how that might be done. I only have so many hours in the day to think about this, so very much appreciate coming to speak with the bludgers.
Michael cusack
“The idea of deficit budgets became unpopular with the economic illiterate”
no , do not agree , more importantly liberals fostered th idea of public debt was made by liberals as unpopular and sign of poor econamic mangement , and th liberal financial engineers came up with PPP’s , private equity invovemetn at higher longer term public interst etc costs…plus misdirection to freeways instead of rail & other public infrastucture Its not deficits they just made unpolur but public debt
Michael Cusack, so short of shooting both the current and alternative NSW State gov’ts in their entirety, do you have any idea what could be done with NSW?
If you ar serously intersted in NSW issue , then suggset read by #211 reply to your #208 that i critisised NSW hav increased there capital expenses by over 3 billion in curent year compared to last year…its a stimuli , now Rudd has said he’s prepared to consider for stats further capital stimuli if neede …I feel it wqill be needed , and soon in most states as downturn I tink is worser than people ar predicting
However thats separate issue to direction of that capital into my pref long term rail vs freeways /tunnels , thats a further policy choise
Amigo FINNS
a politcal exercise in cause and efect , and focus on what is and not what is not
he who was a consistent lingo Amigo basher , ventures into politcal coment with foolish assertions but only to find that damn iliterate simply exposes that foolish poltical comment ……but hell now having ones foolish politcal coment exposed ,
would he who Amigo lingo bashs then tink well I just made a blue , i’ll move on , oh no …pride that an iliterate actualy did so is too much for pride of th superior…so spam away to camoflage that pride and when that doesn’t work , well sympathy trick is th last card to play and amazing it works on some bystanders , but one is not observant and can only smile at games played
BTW tributes now flow for Haydo now called a legend…yet by some who so cruely bathed for demise only a week ago
“The current howls about increasing housing density along train lines is just the latest manifestation of a long long saga.”
To be fair, I don’t think there was as much outcry as some of the papers would have you believe.
Regardless, it was a rubbish idea. Urban consolidation is all good, but I don’t think you should start in the inner-west and inner-city which are already pretty bloody consolidated.
Victorian Liberal senator Judith Troeth to not contest next election. No huge surprise there… she would’ve been pushed out in any case I suspect.
With the Nationals promised the number 2 spot on the Senate ticket at the next election, it’ll be interesting to see who the Liberals put as first and third spot. You’d imagine Michael Ronaldson would be fairly safe, the question is whether Julian McGauran is bumped for new blood for the third Senate spot (and in any case, whether the manage to get that person elected).
“Michael Cusack, so short of shooting both the current and alternative NSW State gov’ts in their entirety, do you have any idea what could be done with NSW?”
I know I’m not Michael Cusack, but I’m going to respond anyway. I seriously think the situation is so bad and the problems are rife not just within the government but most layers and sections of the public service that nothing short of some kind of structural reform at government level will do the job.
In Sydney, I think some kind of Greater London Authority-esque body should be set up. Now clearly that’s never going to happen as the politicians won’t want to cede power, but I think even some kind of unelected, quasi-independent authority that can manage transport and development in a cohesive and unobtrusive way. I, of course, should be head of such a body.
Note to self: Never bring up a topic which could lead to interstate rivalry on PB.
Of course, if the states were companies and the Premiers were CEOs, Brumby and Bligh would both be looking at the possibility of a hostile takeover of NSW.
SA would have gone when the State Bank lost $3B.
Big News
Steve Jobs is stepping down for health reasons.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/14/steve-jobs-leave-of-absen_n_157963.html
The ABS has released the latest unemployment rate and it is unchanged at 4.5
%. The doom and gloom merchants are having a bad week.
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0
Actually steve, that’s up 0.1%, but check out the classy reporting from the news.com.au site for example:
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,24915737-462,00.html
And the SMH:
http://business.smh.com.au/business/massive-drop-in-fulltime-jobs-20090115-7hdk.html
Actually, total employment only fell by 1200
could someone please tell me how i can change my avatar, theres nothing i can see on my profile page to help me there, i’m bluddy useless at these things.
just finished reading Tom Switzer *frmr senior Fib adviser” in todays SMH.
A thoughtful and well considered article it aint
basically he reckons they keep their jackboots nice and shiny and if anything turn a tad to the right (not sure if he meant ala Genghis or Tamerlane )
i think ive worked it out this will tell, sorry for going off subject.
Judith, you need to do it through the Gravatar website, which is at http://en.gravatar.com/ – unless there’s more than one site that does this. It works through these external sites rather than the profile page, so it will appear on any blog that has Gravatars enabled so long as you use the same email address to register.
nup i’ll try again
thanks William maybe this time it will work, fingers crossed ive worked it out, i want to use nemisis –i think it’s time and i believe in karma.
sigh just another try, i’ve followed all the instructions, now i’ll see if it works.
The employment figures are not great but probably still amoung the best in the western world. Remember the US has been losing one million jobs per month and all of Europe is now in recession. Combined with the upturn in housing loans for first home buyers and the governments stimulus policies appear to have worked. They just need to do more of the same. They should consider extending the first home buyers grant, both because it is equitable, and it is underpinning the whole housing market.
I’m a NSWelshman and this might come as a shock but I gotta say I’m happy with my lot. I remember NSW Lib govts and how they treated the workers. This is a bit fuzzy but I recall back when Greiner (or around that time) was in power the state awards were being made so crook that Hawkie (think it was ) offered to allow people to switch to federal awards?
.
The msm have been trying to get rid of Labor here since before last election, broke their hearts when after election we still had a labor premier
Every night 10 news starts with at least a couple of Labor beat up bashings as their main news stories. Hardly a night goes by when the ambulance chaser Skinner isn’t havng a press conference along side some unfortunate member of the public being used for political purposes. My experinces with hospitals here in NSW are all good, sure I had to wait 7 months a year ago to have a tonsil remnant removed but I wasn’t suffering and when I had it done it didn’t cost a cent.
So I”ll still be voting Labor next election, and loving it (as Max would say)
Judith I recently changed my avatar, had a bit of trouble, Finns said I had to empty my cashe so tried that. Funny thing is that on my old desktop computer I still see the old avatar whereas on my laptop I see the new one? Strange.
We’ve been having a lot of trouble with our trains of late in Victoria. The opposition constantly come out with the “this government should have acted long ago” and says no more. As much as this is right how does it solve the problems we face now? What does the opposition propose the government should do? Our government has its transport plan, what is the oppositions? Pointing out the failures of the past may feel good for an opposition but the present and future are now more vital surely.
And hypocritical as it was the Libs under Kennett who privatised them in the first place
Here’s a piece to keep the Oz position in perspective – so far the GFC has cost the US $4600 billion.
http://business.smh.com.au/business/more-please-sirs-20090114-7gej.html
As the article points out
“It has even surpassed the aggregate cost of the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the Race to the Moon, the Savings and Loans crisis, the Korean War, the New Deal, the Invasion of Iraq, the Vietnam War and Nasa combined. And that’s inflation adjusted.”
If Australia’s losses had matched the US in per-capita terms, we would have spent $300 billion. So far we have spent $20 billion. We should be congratulating Glen Stevens and Dr Henry.
What Tony Windsor thinks of Barnaby Joyce
Vera i think i’m going nuts here, i’ve been over and over the damned thing, what do you mean by emptying my cache? how do i do that? any help is welcome.
sorry forgot link,
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/joyce-is-sarah-palin-of-the-north-mp-20090115-7hcz.html
Gary and Frank
I take it the main problem is just straight lack of capacity in the trains? If so there is one more group you could blame – transport economists. One idea that has caused a lot of grief in recent years is the concept of “travel demand management”. In principle it sounds good, but gets badly misapplied. You can change travel demand from cars to something else, and build fewer roads. But you can’t make the demand dissapear. That means, in a growing city, if you don’t build more roads, you need to build more trains and buses. But govenments simply stopped spending on PT in the 90s, so now we have a problem. It takes 3 years to build and commission a rail line, assuming planning is done, so there is no quick fix.
Judith I’m pretty useless at this sort of stuff but this is the link to show how to clear cache
Poss having a blinder on the Borg’s campaigning in Qld.
“How to lose an election in 27 easy steps”
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/01/15/how-to-lose-an-election-in-27-easy-steps/
I think the problem the NSW ALP have stems from the Premier Bob Carr, a LIB dressed in ALP clothing. He did everything the Libs would have done, except he did not sell the NSW Electricity, that was left to Morris Iemma, which the Unions derailed, if anyone believes that the Libs want sell if the get elected they have rocks in thier heads.
Bob Carr gave us surpluses but no infrastructure in Health,Education and Public Transport. Just like Howard’s Government did. He sold the Road infrastructure to Private Companies.
However where I live, on the Coastal part f the Northern Rivers, I am quite happy with the NSW Government.
I tend to agree with the criticism of Carr. Particularly because when he was in NSW actually had high revenue and the money to do something. But he did nothing, although much was wasted. By the time Iemma took over the income was starting to dry up and problems emerge. NSW was a basket case when Reese took over.
Can anyone in NSW think of something big and positive that the ALP government has done since 1995 that they started?
I am not a liberal voter but I just want to get rid of the ALP. Today, there is speculation about dumping Rees and putting in Sartor. There is this perception that the people can be treated like mushrooms. The people of NSW liked Iemma, they like Rees, but they can’t wait to get rid of this lot of do-nothings who are obsessed with their own games.
The NSW ALP treats government as a fiefdom and not as a mechanism to achieve anything positive.
Queensland and WA have both made major impovements to public transport under ALP governments and so it can be done. But what has the NSW government actually done.
Maybe the problem in Sydney is the use of double-decker trains, which was a good idea at the time to increase capacity, but they are slow and costly. Now that demand is increasing it is impossible to increase train numbers.
But we have had major PT announcement after announcement for the last 10 years but nothing gets done. The NW train line, the innner city metro……. What they have given us are the Cross City Tunnel and the Lane Cove extension – both policy and patronage disasters.
But if you go to single deckers then they may run more often but they carry less people per train, so the capacity problem still remains. That’s just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic IMO. More lines are needed, simple as that.
Dario
In a practical sense the double deckers have LESS capacity than the big singles in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. The main capacity problem with running trains on time in the peak is loading and unloading time, not number of seats. The double deckers are very inefficient at this and hence constrain system capacity, despite the seemingly high capacity per train.
But overall you are right – they need more track capacity. Again though, its not just number of tracks. The main bottlenecks in their tracks are a number of rail junctions they need to grade separate, to get full capacity out of each track. Good junctions (and signalling) can mean the difference between running a train every 3 minutes on a track (Brisbane is doing this now in places) or every six minutes. So you can double the capacity of your tracks by taking out the system constraints.
Those unemployment figures are quite good really. In net terms, only a few thousand jobs went and 40,000 full-time jobs were converted to part-time. That is the pattern in the US and UK but their increase in unemployment is much greater and they were starting from a higher base. The estimate of 6% by the end of the year looks about right, which is much closer to Gillard’s 5.5% (which was the official estimate) than Bishop’s histrionic 8%.
Another bad day for the Libs and Bishop especially.
VERA
#287
“I’m a NSWelshman and this might come as a shock but I gotta say I’m happy with my lot. ”
Hi Vera , and am happy you ar….. I get sick of small minded non NSW posters saying don’t giv NSW any money presently as govt is no good , as was said by Harry last nite What alot of damn nonsense , oz govts do not work that way at all , and also put in strings & governanse as well s (others were just tounge in cheeks perhaps)
NSW has been th financial engines room (followed by Victoria) for supplying money to smaller States for decades so those smaller States can hav services & can grow Then when these small minded non NSW posters get chalenged for there foolish statement like Harry they back pedal & arrogantly spam to camaflage there ilogical nonsense
Thats why we hav a Federaton , so richer States subsidize poorer/smaller States so public services and standard of livings is equalised as posible accross our Country Now its NSW’s turn to hav a tough trot , and of course Rudd WILL ‘lend’ money to NSW unlike what was said by poster , and has already done so has already & has promised more if needed because its part of oz….actualy NSW to spend over 3 billion extra capital expenditure already this fin year vs last
Unfortunattely Howie kept alot of infrastacture monies , and NSW needed it th most , as Sydney is th biggest need as its bigest City , and its th oldest so less planning went into Sydney it just grew long before others and that slippery Greiner cared voters Govt Debt is bad so Carr & later guy ddidn’t borow enough Govt Debt for public transport etc , & but what money he got went wrong ways to freeways Remeber Fed libs in power
And th petty minded State righters don’t mind taking th benenfits of th oz Federaton when it suits there own State , and forgets th cycle see saw always turns ….and no don’t live in NSW anymore
So we can hav NSW Labor warts and all , with chanse Rudd will point them right & giv them money that he’s started to , and especialy to get more rail blah blah , or we can hav th right wing Lib nutters in power in NSW , who ar more right wing than most other Lib States …cause they sure ar not going to build public transport or care as much re hospitals etc Anyway VERA who else has th Harbor Bridge
Amigo Vera, i will keep you in my CACHE anytime, especially with that hairdo.
thankyou so much Vera, thats obviously worked, i’ll remember next time, things are getting closer here and i wanted my avatar changed to nemesis, i’ve always believed things would move, i’ve left the revenge emotion way behind, but if some can be named and shamed for other things thats great, especially as someone had a big court loss today, they are the minnows, nemesis is really catching up on the main fish though, so i can only wait and see what happens.
the job figures are really exceptional considering the doom and gloom we’ve been expecting, a lot of economists are expecting the turnabout to start later this year with things getting back to normal early next year, if thats the case and we can stay under 6% unemployed we’ll sail through after looking at what other countries are going through.
In terms of passengers per hour per line, yes. But the ‘increase’ by moving to single deckers is just not a big enough difference to solve the problem, at a huge expense.
Dario
No, true; they might get 20% more capacity out of changing to single deckers at best. Of course some of the double deckers are very old and past their economic life, hence should be replaced anyway.
But overall you are right – Sydney rail will only get “fixed” when someone puts some serious money into fixing network constraints like new high speed signaling ($2M/km), grade separating key juncitons (can cost $150M+ each), rebuilding and improving ped access to some inner city stations ($10M+ each) and extra track on some key inner sections of busiest lines.
As a non engineer i’d query can design more eficient separate access to top and bottom , or extrend stations length (and wear th “cost” and so add cariages per train ….building new innner lines has big hurdles , doing nothing won’t do
Finns you aren’t a bad hairdresser , I owe it all to you!
Hi Ron
The only money Howard didn’t mind giving to a labor run NSW was the bailouts he gave to his brother. He gave $2mil of taxpayers money to bail out his brother Stan when he was chairman of a failed textile company in Sydney so the workers could be paid whereas other workers in same situation (companies gone broke no money for employee entitlements) were more or less told to go jump.
Also I seem to remember there being trouble when brother Stan was chairman of Hills Motorway . Don’t know if there was a bail out there or not, just remember it being in the news a few years back you might know more about it than me Ron.
Judith you’re welcome, glad to be of help
I saw a piece by Bob Carr last year where he claimed that critics of his government that claimed he underspent on infrastructure were wrong and cited figures that showed how much he increased capital expenditure.
I did a bit of checking and found that he was right. The problem is that a lot of the infrastructure was for the Olympics so isn’t providing a lot of benefit now.
There’s not much point saying that the opposition hasn’t got a plan to fix NSW’s transport problems either. The ALP will have been in government for 16 years by the time of the next election. Voters will feel fairly justified in feeling that any problems that exist are either their fault or something that they’ve had long enough to address.
Ron
The answer on the more efficient carriage entry design is not really. One of the biggest impediments is the stairs inside each carriage. To fix it you are firtually rebuilding every carriage. The cost would be so high you might as well build new trains.
Extending the stations is not cheap, because you have to do all of them and many are space constrained by buildings etc near the end of platforms. The EMUs (trains) run as fixed units so you need to get enough extra length to add an entire consist on; very costly.
The cheapest solution to getting major capacity imrpovement would be to increase the nuber of trains per line you run on existing lines. i.e. get the most out of what you have already got first. But even that would cost several billion, for signals, grade separations, fixing sub-standard track, station access improvements and probably extra rolling stock. This sort of 3exercise is going to be done in Adelaide in the next few years and even here there will be little change out of $2 billion. Sydney’s system is five times as big and in worse condition.
VERA
“but you might know more about it than me Ron.”
Vera there ar just too many comflicts in Howie brother Stan Howards affairs , they were everywhere as he was I think on Boards of alot of companies Your memory is good alright , we had NSW Lib chief Bruce Baird ‘assisting’ with moneyies re Hills Motorway where Stan Howie was a director Then there was a US IT crowd , forgototn name , where Fahey ex NSW lib premier when Fed finance honcho desided to outsourse Fed Govt IT and this US IT crowd got contracts for over 100 million or approx that , and low and behold Stan Howie was in mangement as well there too or as a director Remeber thinking , these coincidenses just keep rolling along with Stan Howie , always th wrong man in th right place So you ar right (as usual) Vera thats when lots of Fed Liberal Govt monies did go to NSW or at least th “right” people
Ron
A valid point on where federal money went in NSW, though it doesn’t entirely get the State off the hook IMO. What about the schools – how many stories have there been of very wealthy schools (or small obscure ones for religeous fundamentalists) getting millions while the state system fall further into decay? Health and Education are the two biggest items on most State and Federal budgets. If you bugger up expenditure in those areas you will never have enough cash spare to fix the trains, or anything else.
Mumble is spot on with this. It will be IR stupid at the next election.
http://mumble.com.au/
“how many stories have there been of very wealthy schools (or small obscure ones for religeous fundamentalists) getting millions while the state system fall further into decay?”
I thought under Howards Schools Comission grant formuli system you couldnot avoid that with wealthy private schools etc
With public schools , apart from Federol monies for public schools , th NSW Labor Govt did hav significant monies for NSW public schools to split but don’t tink there ar many wealth public schools that dollars would be great
Having said that , i’ve prevously said awhile ago , I’m not happy Ruddy had to commit to 2009- 2013 schools commission grant formala scheme as I feel its totaly unequitable Reason he did so so to prevent Howard labelling him with th 2004 latham rich list bit …which cost labor heaps of all private schools voters in 2004 electon , but there is some golden lining to my schools rudd critiques and thats th ‘education revolution’ expediture on School computers etc….as thats abit of a clever way around th Schools comm grant system in capital expenduture terms , seeing most wealthy schools may hav numerous computers etc and most poor public & poor private Catholic type schools may not hav lots
.
“The cheapest solution to getting major capacity imrpovement would be to increase the nuber of trains per line you run on existing lines.” But what happens when you’ve get to max load capacity doing that and population/need capacity starts exceeding that , and that station length suggeston do costs of trying build a brand new line a new station at each station and numerous homes demolished for length of new line & logisitics dificulties exceed not having to widen exising line at all just constructions area effected at each station but not in between & not widening corridor however wonder if costs diff may not be great
UNeven handed Channel 9 news says both sides hav rejected a cease fire This is blatantly false
Channel 9 has an obvious political bias when reporting on NSW state politics.
If Labor runs on IR and Workchoices again they are a pathetic mob….
And what is the appropriate epithet for a mob that loses an election to a pathetic mob?
“We waz robbed!”
Glen old chum, your going to have to accept work choices will keep on giving for quite a while yet, especially in these precarious times, workers are adding up at just where they would be now if WC was still in play, the extreme right nutters in the coalition are still banging the WC drum, more fool them.
Judith when the Unions want pattern bargaining and want increases in wages that will cost jobs i hardly think Labor has a perfect IR system anyway…
Gary Bruce at 317 wrote:
I hope so. They have surely earned one or two more good defeats on IR.
Have seen some tools on ABC News blogs this week referring to Labor’s ‘Forward with Fairness’ package as UnionChoices. LOL, how dumb. I guess they thought they were being realllly clever by conceiving a rhetorical counter to the appellation ‘SerfChoices’ which is thrown in their faces every time IR is mentioned. I know that being original is a bit too much to expect of some conservatives, but still…
Didn’t have the heart to tell them that, besides revisiting attention in the minds of readers to their lousy WorkChoices, UnionChoices speaks to no one but fellow diehard Liberals anyway. Read any blog, any news comment from the public, and any time there’s a gratuitous, out-of-context reference to “unions” you know you’re looking at a live hardcore Liberal loon.
UnionChoices – All that brain-strain to come up with a rhetorical attack .. to no net gain. Plunk!
so Glen, what have been the Union pattern bargaining and wage increases which have produced the recent, widespread loss of jobs in the mining industry?
Why? It is/was deliberate Liberal Party policy. Imposed in the full knowledge and intent that workers would be worse off.
How much mileage did the miserable Liberals make of “Labor’s 17% interest rates”? I couldn’t count how many times I’ve heard the phrase leave their lips. And they ran in 2004 on lies about interest rates with that same phrase as textual background on their TV “ads”.
Cuppa, how could you? The Liberal brains trust have just come up with some propaganda that unemployment is going to be their lifeline back to government. Oh well, back to the drawing board to dig up another theory for the Liberals.
Steve, WorkChoices would see huge numbers thrown out of work, especially in a slowing economy. Unfair Dismissal protection gone. Fire without notice or reason necessary. Abolished the disincentive to firing of redundancy compensation. It’s the green light to skyhigh unemployment.
That’ s even before taking into account the effect of declining wages on business takings. Reduced takings, leading to more firings and pay cuts. Recipe for disaster.
Glen, the unions havnt been given pattern bargaining and i’ll confidently lay a bet with you that they wont get it.
well how can they , th new legislation as with w/c disallows it
glen if you’re going to throw red herring bait , make it accurate quality
Liberals don’t care if it’s factual or a red herring. It’s an attack on workers’ unions, and that’s enough for them.
Creepy that they are so dead set against the idea of workers organising and lobbying for their mutual benefit, when any other sector of the economy can and is allowed to do the same without attack.
Here’s something for the Libs to bitch about, that Ruddie Kev747 going OS again between Jan 28th- Feb 3rd
Won’t Talcum be jealous, Rudd mixing it with 40 world leaders while he’s left at home. Obama will be in charge by then, will we see some happy snaps of him and Kev
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/rudd-to-visit-india-png-switzerland-20090115-7hvg.html
Have to agree that Labor will try to make IR the centrepiece of the next election. They’ll probably succeed, too.
Can’t see why some PBers think today’s unemployment was good. It was mediocre, an overall figure in line with (or perhaps 0.1% better than) expectations, but a surprisingly large number of jobs becoming part-time.
We are still in the “don’t know” stage about how hard the world downturn is going to bite us.
agree there , suspect if it ends at no more than 6% peak this country will be fortunate , feel GFC effects in other countrys not at rock bottom and iits gotta come here
Privatisation kills.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7828901.stm
th times they ar a changin
Last Saturday in London there was a 100,000 plus crowd protesting against Israel
In 1967 Europeans supported Israel’s side 73%… (support Palastiniens side 27%)
Now Europeans suport Israel’s side 33% …(suport Palastiniens side 67%)
UN Chief himself condemns , and so th Vatican , and so th Red Cross condemns
.
Fair peace for both is needed with securitys , but more dark clouds ar there to fear as almost by day resentment protests occur in Egypt for its pro US , and non suport for Palestiniens rightful claim for there own State with th pre 1967 borders contigous efective , and what if Egyptian protests sucede and Egypt is controlled by that ” Muslim Brotherhood” crowd take overs …and they also said USA’s close ally th Shah of Iran wuld never get overthrown too , but he did , now what they got
I’m not sure any of us think they are good, but they certainly aren’t as bad as the media is trying to portray either. The US is already up over 7% unemployed, and the EU is nearly at 8%.
Oz, thanks for standing in for me this morning. A good suggestion too, although like most good suggestions to politicians it has no chance of coming off, unlessss Rudd demands something of the sort to implement his capital works plan cum GFC antidote. Undoubtedly a large proportion of Rudds plan will be spent on NSW because of its importance to tne national economy and its role in the national bottleneck.
Re Sydney rail, I agree with all PBers including Ron. My fantasy plan for Sydney would be to institute a system of regional hubs such as Liverpool, Parramatta, Penrith, Richmond, Chatswood, Windsor and several others where localised train/metro lines and buses fed into an express system into the city where a new network on the eastern side of the CBD helped take some of the strain off the current Central/Town Hall/Wynyard bottlenecks. In addition there should be a northern beaches line possibly tunnelling under the harbour near Neutral Bay to join the Eastern Suburbs line which would be extended to Bondi and thence southward to Botany and join the Airport line. All this would require the building of several new main lines and an enormous network of secondary lines. I dont see it happening until petrol is in nightmare range.
When reading figures on employment /unemployment in the near future, take into account the one of the employment categories most endangered is journalism, especially business journalism. Then remember the old saying “a recession is when my neighbour loses his job, a depression is when I lose my job”.
The figures are unarguably good. The possible black lining on the silver cloud has been emphasised by every commentator in the press and TV. They are using these figures to extrapolate out into the future, the same future the almost universally failed to correctly predict at the peak of the boom.
Doris Day was the best economist I ever heard. Que sera,sera!
“The figures are unarguably good.”
A very courageous statement, that. Time will tell.
Interestingly the breakup of the oligarchs in the financial,computing etc industries will create,in a much shorter time,the enterprise of thatchers britain.BUT without the tremendous upheaval her “privatisations” caused
More interestingly it wont be the breakup of gvt control but the breakup of those “private” sectors that abused gvt controls.The opportunity for small business is probably better than its ever been.
Once the capital flows return that is.
ps Ron do you post at LP?
Hey Diog, Yes, it’s time to be quiet, as the lady is on stage. We love youse all, she said. Hang on, who the POTUS elect here. Hillary or Obi. Obi will be too busy handling his mum-in-law in the White House anyway. Brave man. Que sera, sera indeed.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17476.html
Breaking News – Paul Armstrong – Editor of The West Australian has been Sacked as of 6pm WA Time.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/west-australian-editor-armstrong-has-been-dumped-20090115-7hzy.html
Gusface, your post reminds me of Naomi Klein’s book “The Shock Doctrine”. Her argument is that right-wing corporatists utilise a national “shock” like a war or natural disaster to ram through free-market reform. She uses Thatcher as an example
Interesting hypothesis but a terrible, haphazard book.
Dyno, I didnt make any predictions based on the employment figures on purpose. As they stand, they are very good figures, probably worldbeating figures. What they forecast, I leave up to Doris.
Well, Michael, you are right about Doris being the best economist ever.
But they are only worldbeating figures if you ignore the fact that no-one was expecting Australia’s unemployment to be bad by this stage.
They are, in fact, very ambiguous figures, susceptible of any number of interpretations, a point which you tacitly acknowledge by “on purpose” not making any predictions.
Sorry Oz
but who is naomi klein? (excusee ignorance)
The funny thing is back in 1991,I helped start a business at the height of the recession then.My two top guns were from the uk and had a drive that was inspirational at the time.
Their perspective was Gvt= bad,private = good
Now I think the reverse applies.
Obama says Bin ladin is bigest threat to US security , thought i heard that 8 years ago from Bush
Th biggest problam is not Bin Ladin , but whats in millions of peoples minds in …….of what they perceve th USA represents , and you kill that only by reel policy changes & actions not words , and not by killing one guy however evil he is
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24915311-2703,00.html
AAP :
Condi Rice drew up a UN Security Council resulution calling for an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal from terirory last Thursday for a friday UN vote , which obviousley she wuld vote for , her resolution
Ehud Olmert PM said
” She (Rice) was left shamed A resolution she prepared and arranged , and in th end she did not vote in favour (abstained)
In th night between thursday and Friday , when th Secretary of State (Rice) wantd to lead th vote on a ceasefire we did not her to vote in favor ,
i said ‘ get me President Bush on th phone ‘
They said he was in th middle of a speech in Philedelphia
I said ‘ I didn’t care I need to talk to him now ‘
He got off th podum and spoke to me
I told him ‘ th US could not vote in favour of such a resoluton ‘
He immediately called th Secretary of state (Rice) and told her not to vote in favour ”
Th UN Security Council Resoluton for an immediate ceasefire & withdrawal from th Terirorys borders was passed 14 votes to NIL
(with 1 abstention , th USA)
US State Dept official denied Olmert’s claim and said says “Mr Olmert is wrong”
Whichever you believe means….for Mr Olmert what ….or for USA what
Gusface, she’s a jouranlist/author known for her anti-globalisation views.
Her first book “No Logo” kicked off the whole “It’s trendy to hate sweatshops and corporations” fad.
Liberal MP Pat Farmer must be laughing. In the 2007 Federal Election, he got a 10% swing against him and retained his seat by 200 votes, but now that Labor is unpopular in NSW, Pat Farmer will probably get a 10% swing to him. The Labor man that challenged him must be really pissed off now because he won’t be able to unseat him in 2010!
Why do people think just because a party is performing badly in state politics that it carries over to federal politics? People are smarter than that.
355 – Right on Bob.
What’s Lindsay hope to gain from this? He won the bloody seat.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24917030-952,00.html
GB, probably just letting people know Liberals do exist in some isolated outposts in Queensland. I couldn’t remember the last time I heard from Lindsay but he is alive and well, if not exactly busy, apparently.
Opposition backbenchers typically aren’t busy.
Lindsay probably less so than others. Wasn’t he going to retire before the last election but Howard talked him into another three years of doing little?
“What’s Lindsay hope to gain from this? ”
quote “he is alive and well” , did you want more
Steve your definiton of “another three years of doing little?” , how little is little
The Libs couldn’t find anyone to stand against him for preselection.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,21001574-1248,00.html?from=public_rss
Ron, the biggest decision to make in Canberra these days is which leader to choose. Lindsay is a Costello backer and might just be living in hope of his vote being valuable one day.
Well when Linday retires in 2010 and he’s asked just what contribution he’s made in th last 3 years he can proudly say ” I was a Costello backer and I was just living in hope that my vote may hav been valuable one day , but that day just never came”
You know i just reely feel Costello does not know what to do at th moment , he never had a plan B , and certainly neverplanned to be irelevant after th electon Costello thought th Party wuld draft him but it didn’t Then he thought th Private Sector would flock to him , but they didn’t His presumptons that he would be handed a ‘gift’ rather than having to fight for it , is I reckon why Howard played to his giullibility initialy years , and in later years played to his lack of fight
Re Editor of The West being given a taste of Workchoices – here is the full story from Perth Now.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24918135-948,00.html
I wonder if William will still be writing CD Reviews ?
Hooray!!!!
The got rid of the Poopyhead Armstrong
First class twat.
So who will be the new editor ?
no…not Paul Murray..again…
Paul will be the next more deserving. Give it time.
I’m looking forward to the time I can buy the West Australian without feeling guilty, when I can read it without feeling embarrassed, when I can talk about it without getting angry, when I can think about it without becoming contemptuous, and when I can believe a single word within its pages.
According to the Perth Now Article
Or we could lobby for BillBowe to rise from Part Time CD Reviewer and Full time Pollbludger to Editor.
And what’s the bet Paul Armstrong will be offered a safe Federal Liberal seat as a reward for handing Government to the WA Libs
, or more likely will be appointed Barnett’s Media Adviser 
My, that snip was more silent and quicker than a vasectomy ….
Environmentalists have decided to preference tories in eight marginal seats in Brisbane and the Environment Minister’s seat of Hervey Bay in this year’s Queensland election as protest against the proposed Traveston Crossing Dam.
*Also note the compulsory News Ltd phrase at beginning of sentence, it is morphing from February to the more general “soon”.
[With Premier Anna Bligh tipped to call an early poll soon, Labor strategists concede the move could cost Mr McNamara his seat, close to the dam site, and hurt the party in Brisbane seats such as Mount Coot-tha, held by Treasurer Andrew Fraser, Greenslopes and Redlands].
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24918947-5006786,00.html
“With Premier Anna Bligh tipped to call an early poll soon”
CM demonstrates how to convert an opinion to a fact…
State an opinion – AB may call an early election (they hope) – then (self-)reference this with the statement above a few days later.
Voila.
Colin Barnett is a very lucky man. If Paul Armstrong was sacked before the state election, Colin Barnett would be retired by now!
Frank, as an old drinking buddy of Chris Wharton’s, I reckon I might be all right.
William, I’m trying to find your 2006 SA election guide, but the links (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2006/04/13/south-australian-election-wrap-up/sa2006.htm) seem to be broken. Is there an archive of your old material somewhere?
thnaks!
d
My old election guides are still on the pollbludger.com domain, so you want http://www.pollbludger.com/sa2006.htm. Obviously I need to correct my links in the sidebar.
Ah, thanks. The index of the old site redirects to crikey and I assumed it had been taken down.
d
Turnbull says capitalism didn’t cause the current financial crisis:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/capitalism-didnt-cause-crisis-turnbull-20090116-7il3.html
This is justa poor attempt to head off badly needed reregulation of Turnbull’s corporate cowboy friends. But it contains two great pieces of news for Rudd IMO:
- first Turnbull agrees there is a crisis, so Rudd’s actions are justified.
- second, if the markets didn’t cause this, what did – Bush and Howard? Please explain Malcom
That’s amazing Morgan reckons confidence is rising and 59% of people think “Australia is heading in thr right direction”.
A new Morgan face to face is out if anyone cares – ALP 60/40
Morgan looks pretty good to me. Looks as if our consumers have been going much better than US consumers.
On another matter, does anyone have a good idea of the WA statewide 2PP from the 2008 election? I’m currently trying to do a history of all Australian elections since 1997, but can’t find any WA 2008 2PP estimate.
Beurre de taureau!!
The Essential Research and Morgan polls, even allowing for deficiencies, indicate that the ETS adopted by the government hasn’t dented the government’s popularity. Must have been a good move.
Malcolm’s going to be the one with the problems. How ironic.
Socrates
I’m really beginning to wonder just how bad Turnbull can get. He says that capitalism and free markets are not to blame for the crash. The fault is the sub-prime home lending. He neglects to point out that sub-prime crisis was due to unfettered unregulated capitalism driven by a belief in free markets.
Gary
The ETS has clearly gone down well politically. The Opposition, such as it is, has been atomically wedged.
Dio didnt you mean anatomically wedged
as in “they are still talking out of their…..”
Congratulations to Trooper Mark Donaldson on being awarded the first Victoria Cross for Australia and the first Australian to win a VC since 1969.
Saw the presentation ceromony on Sky news, our GG is all class .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/16/2467488.htm
Dio
I agree of course Turnbull’s logic is false, but it amuses me that he runs such lines. Even assuming he knows nothing about economics, they are politically risky. The first question he should be asked in parliament is “what did cause it”? There is no good answer:
- “I don’t know” – then why should we put you in charge of the country Malcolm?
- “Its just bad luck” – so was Howard’s good economy just good luck?
- “it wasn’t my banker friends” – then who was it? and if the bankers don’t cause anything, why do they take so much money in fees?
- “it wasn’t Bush and Howard” – then Labor caused the recession in advance of taking office?
- “we didn’t react strongly enough” – then why did the coalition block budget revenue measures in the Senate?
He’s on a hiding to nothing on this one.
Gary at 383 says about ETS
You could be right there,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/16/2467569.htm?section=justin
Of course, no surprise.
In the same sense that children overboard and a hardline immigration stance were “good moves”.
This is the two big things that will happen in 2009:
1. Anna Bligh will win a landslide victory in the Qld state election
2. Peter Costello will oust Malcolm Turnbull
All this ETS talk reminds me…
Look at what the British Tories are proposing:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7832384.stm
“The Tories want to turn the UK into a pioneer of green innovation and technology and say their proposals will make British homes and businesses dramatically more energy efficient.
They say “decarbonising” the UK will help create hundreds of thousands of jobs, raise skills and improve competitiveness. ”
Meanwhile the Australian version….and the ALP for that matter…..
389 – Thanks Oz for backing up my argument that anything tougher would be political suicide for the government. What government is ever going to put themselves in that position? Not even a Greens government would do that.
zombie mao – why leave out this quote?
Oh and this one.
No detail, no targets and not in government. How easy it is to be in opposition.
I don’t recall saying that and I reject that proposition.
There’s a lot of middle ground between overwhelming support and political suicide.
Pat (Forrest Gump) Farmer aka the Running Man has been laughing at us all for years. Politically acute as a sea slug his time in Parly has been notable only for the high turnover of his office staff and the vacuity of the utterances that made it to daylight after that same staff failed to persuade him to keep his mouth shut.
At the moment he is, according to his local rag, making all the moves appropriate to those on their way out ie. failing to turn up at local school presentation nights after previously accepting invites, moving residence to location well away from the electorate etc..
Given that there may well be a Liberal MP with something actually resembling a profile looking for a seat after the redistribution Farmer may have the decision on his future taken for him.
New thread.