Breaking news: Newspoll has Labor’s lead down from 56-44 to 55-45. Since you all know about it by now, a link will suffice (although I will observe that Malcolm Turnbull’s ratings seem to have bottomed out). Here’s a first: Essential Research has the same result as Newspoll, with Labor’s lead plunging from 59-41 to 55-45. Further questions focus on the parties’ capacity to handle various issues, emissions trading schemes and climate change, and perceptions of politicians’ honesty (better than you might think).
Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth
2,843 Comments
Actually, it’s a third: The 15th March and the 7th December 2008 results were the same as well.
Just sayin’
Funny that the MSM have stopped reporting any polls that aren’t positive for Malcopops & the Coalition, I wonder why(rolls eyes)?
Was there any mention of Newspoll on ABC radio this morning? Didn’t hear a peep myself.
Wow! There have been some significant movements in the questions dealing with economic management over the last few months.
Has anyone kept a copy of the 2 March breakdown of responses for ‘Neither’ and ‘Don’t know’?
I’d be interested to see if the movements are driven by people making up their minds, or by changing their minds
Frank @ 412
“it is the Kath & Kims that decide Elections”
Your constant unjustified attack on the Greens with such vitriol suggests to me that you have too much red meat in your diet. You need to eat more vegetables. Try a tofu burger instead of a BigMac. As Climate Change manifests itself more so will the Green vote increase. Labor and the Greens are a natural synergy. Learn to love your lentils otherwise you will be known as the “Kel Knight” of the Labor Right.
BBill @ 3 – there was an unadorned and quite detailed piece about the Newspoll on the ABC’s News Radio at 8:30.
OK I found it -(now that I am unemployed, I have too much time to spare)
For most questions, the number of “don’t knows’ have fallen 2-3%.
There are also some big increases in “neither” category… at Labor’s expense, but providing little gain to the Opposition
Here’s a sensible court decision, from one of the apparently many smart and savvy US Federal Court judges (unlike the Supreme Court, unable to be completely stacked by Bush):
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/us-must-release-gitmo-evidence-judge-20090602-btbe.html
That will be interesting reading. I wonder how many proven monsters there really are.
Federal judges ordered Bush to release stuff all the time, he just ignored it.
“Radio Liberal Party”, otherwise known as 2GB in Sydney, this morning was again bleating about the “Rudd tantrum on the plane”, and the poor flight attendant getting abused – someone should tell them this stuff is old news.
Is 55-45 a record low for the ALP in Essential polls? Or was there a 54-46 at some stage?
Oz – The legal position has changed now though after the Supreme Court ruling last year bringing at least some of the cases under US courts – whereas before Bush was able to rely on the contention they were outside the jurisdiction. I think this order is enforceable – Justice Department officials potentially before the court facing detention if they dont’ comply etc.:
Neo-liberalism?
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25572606-3102,00.html
Riddle me this -
The roads budget for NSW has been leaked to the opposition and the media but there’s two completely different takes on it by the Herald and the Telegraph.
The Herald says “The big choke: roads lose out in Rees budget”.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-big-choke-roads-lose-out-in-rees-budget-20090601-bsz8.html
The Telegraph says “PREMIER Nathan Rees has approved a rapid acceleration of major road projects across Sydney and NSW, with a record $4.4 billion expected to be announced in the state Budget in two weeks.”
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25572394-5006009,00.html
Frank Kelly and Michelle Grattan discussed Newspoll on RN at 7.40am. They agreed that Turnbull’s position had improved slightly but he was still miles behind.
I reckon Bligh is just about to become the most unpopular State government in the country.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25573916-952,00.html
A large privatisation package AND removing the Qld petrol subsidy on the same day…. in Qld….
It will not end well for her.
Well if such things are to be done it makes sense to do them at the start of a term.
Now we know why they went early…
Well we always knew, but there’s confirmation.
Not sure if it’s been discussed already (likely has been), but dumped 2007 ALP candidate for Franklin and ETU Tasmanian secretary Kevin Harkins is set to be endorsed as the number 1 candidate on the Tasmanian ALP ticket for the next election at the expense of Government Whip Kerry O’Brien.
Oh and additionally Australian Manufacturing Workers Union secretary Anne Urquhart for the third spot, Helen Polley expected to keep the second spot on ticket.
Rumors are flying that Alby Shultz has just tried to go the biff with Chris Pearce in the Coalition party room meeting!
Possum @ 21
What a shame it was only ‘tried to go the biff’.
What do you say to a coalition member with two black eyes?
Nothing, he’s already been told twice.
My money’s on Alby
ps i loved his adventure movies back in the 80’s
The Punch now has some info about the Alby Balboa thing.
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/punchmania-in-canberra-as-lib-mp-tries-to-belt-colleague/
No 14
Like any other promise from the NSW Government, don’t expect delivery until 2098.
No 7
Mr Squiggle get a job and stop being a dole bludger.
No 10
Radio 2GB continues to smash its rivals in the ratings so I don’t think they care what you think evan.
No 16
Sound decisions from Anna Bligh. Of course, if the Liberals had done this, it would be the end of the world as we know it on Poll Bludger.
Stop using tax payer subsidised libraries and lecture theatres.
Shows
Young candles has a day off from scrubbing dishes and clearing tables
give the curmudgeon some slack
GP at least Squiggle is on PB while off work not while working.
Fortunately the LNP is the natural party of opposition in QLD. Think about it G.P., the conservatives have won ONE election in the last 22 years.
No 31
Gary, there are such things as lunch breaks. Since you are a champion of unionism, you should know this by now.
I’m not surprised this has happened. Pearce sounds like Huckleberry Hound. There’s only so much of his voice that one can put up with.
No 32
It was the same for Labor when Bjelke-Peterson was in power ShowsOn. Don’t get too carried away.
WOW! G.P. discovers that unionists eat lunch.
They give you such a well rounded education at your tax payer subsidised university.
The only difference being that Sir Joh was a criminal.
No 36
ShowsOn, I pay my way at university. Unfortunately, had I entered uni this year, that would not have been an option. Shame on Rudd for encouraging dependency on the state.
No 37
Don’t worry, Labor has had its fair share of criminals over the years. In NSW, Mr Orkopolous springs to mind.
And without them you’d be lucky to have a lunch break.
No 40
Not that I particularly care.
Well at least we’ve established both sides have had criminal elements. Love all.
# 37 ShowsOn (the graceless one), you’re safe in the knowledge you can’t defame a deceased person.
You didn’t pay for the library or the lecture theatres so you, like Mr Squiggle, are using a public resources.
All you have to do is admit it. Unlike you I don’t think it is bad that Government’s subsidise some things.
Just give me the phone number of your boss and I’ll let him/her know you’re happy to go without a lunch break. I’m sure you and he/she can arrange something.
#43 David Charles (the idiotic one) Oh, how unfortunate! Hopefully scientists can figure out how to bring Joh back so I can defame him properly.
No 44
Of course I didn’t pay for the Library and Lecture theatre, but that is not the point. My tuition fees contribute to their upkeep and maintenance.
No 45
Gary, hard working people are valued by bosses.
Thank you for admitting it, now please, STOP sucking off taxpayers!
No 49
Stop selectively quoting you moron.
Sky Business says we might avoid going into a “technical recession” because of the better than expected building approvals and trade deficit
Oh poor Malcolm and his doom and gloom would be blown out of the water.
Wouldn’t QT be fun tomorrow if this is true
Absolutely and you would be even more valued if you were to give up the lunctime you don’t care about.
LOL! G.P. admits he receives a subsidy for his education, so now he gets all shirty.
It’s OK G.P., I think it is OK that you don’t have to build your own library or lecture theatres. They are a PUBLIC GOOD, even though you have trouble with that concept.
Even with profits falling off a cliff? Even if it is ZERO, that would be hilarious.
# 46 There was, by any objective measure, nothing ‘idiotic’ in my observation @ 43.
No 55
David, ShowsOn is incapable of objectivity.
For the information of members and their guests:
I’ve posted a long term polling comparison of the first eighteen months of the Rudd Government 2007/09 and the first Howard Government 1996/7.
http://www.ozforums.com.au/viewtopic.php?id=5639
No 53
What subsidy is that? The buildings existed before I came to university. If you meant that every paying student should build their own library and lecture theatre, there wouldn’t be a square metre of land area left in Australia.
Do you have any objective evidence for this subjective assertion?
No 59
Your litany of pro-Labor posts.
This doesn’t objectively prove anything.
Finally the stupid petrol subsidy is going. It was a silly idea in the first place. But the privatisations are stupid. It is case of low interest debt being paid off by selling higher yield assets.
No 61
It does prove your imbecility, however.
WOW! Feel better now G.P.!? You should go back to your tax payer subsidised library and read some tax payer subsidised books on epistemology.
MD of Holden says the govt can claim credit for Holden being the shining light of GMH worldwide and an example to the rest of the world of how things should be done.
He dosen’t agree with Sol that we are backward either
But they didn’t sprout from the earth like mushrooms, whether it was before you came to the university or not. They were paid for, whether they were paid for before you came to the university or not, and that payment functions as a subsidy for your education.
IMPOSSIBLE! G.P. opposed tax payer subsidies, there is NO WAY he would accept his education being subsidised by tax payers in any way shape or form.
I know we need a right winger or two for “balance”, but the token right winger we’ve got working the blog today is just degrading Poll Bludger with his miserable Liberal gnarlishness. The previous page should have heavy deletions and time out for the protagonist.
Where’s Glen, he’s one intelligent right winger(at least some of the time)?
No 68
Cuppa, your posts have always been unmitigated obscenities but I don’t advocate for their deletion.
I posted yesterday:
Surprise No: 1, Labor numbers held very firm in the latest Newspoll, despite full frontal assault by the Oppos. on the issues of debts, PM and Fitzy.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25574645-643,00.html
Surprise No: 2 – The consensus of the pundits was a -0.2% contraction. So now the pundits are not so sure. ABC News was reporting that the pundits are busily re-crunching the numbers.
If the number comes in either 0% or +0.1%, then Turnbull and the Oppos. are dead meat many times over. Game, set and match.
Bring in on, why wait until tomorrow.
GP, they need you more than ever.
Glen said he was a schoolteacher so he might be in class.
I thought his school had been shut down due to swine flu?
The Government needs to more direct in stating and selling the deficit. To not do so gives the impression they are doing something wrong. It is time to stop acting like they are still in election mode.
———————————
We need more GPs I would say not less.
Seeing as we are talking about morons, I’ll add Sharon Burrow to the list. Just imagine a CEO laying off workers during a GFC and not committing suicide. What is the world coming to. They should at least amputate a few fingers for every hundred workers sacked.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25573107-601,00.html
Wilson Tuckey proposing that penalty rates increase the cost of food at McDonalds.
Thanks Aristotle.
What a classic response! Love it!
Thomas old son take a look at the polls. Better still, take a look at the OO’s headline on the latest Newspoll – “Labor weathering economic attacks”.
Possum, it’s not as if they were privatising a utility like water or power…
Finns, more good news was the MD of Holden (an American who doesn’t agree with what Sol said about Aust)) held a press conference with Carr praising the govt and stressing the point that they had not received any money from govt yet as the agreement was they had to pass all the test insisted upon by the govt which they have and when they start making their new greener car they will then get $1 for every $3 they spend on it themselves. None of their workers here or in NZ will lose their jobs
Lib’s Shultz and Pierce had a shoving match and shultz had to apologise, losers
GP, it’s called the Bjelkemander.
Look at the bottom line graph on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_of_Queensland
When you take out Bjelke and Nicklin, it looks pretty sad and sorry for the Nationals. Pretty much all Labor since 1915. Poor QLD tories.
I hope there is no suggestion that Bligh was anything other than completely honest about her economic platform during the election campaign. I’m sure all these measures were fully discussed with the public who voted for her based on what she intended to do if she won government.
bob1234 went:
It wont make much of a difference to many folk.
It’s funny, the fuel subsidy really stopped making sense about a decade ago and what is being flogged off wont make a rats of difference to anything much other than a better fiscal position for the State budget.
But Bligh will get hammered anyway.
Possum has a pretty graph somewhere comparing every poll starting from commencement of Rudd and Howard’s terms. It look wonderful.
Amigo Vera, i have more good news for U:
North Korea’s next leader:
http://www.therazor.org/images/kim_jong-greetings.jpg
The Great Leader followed by the Dear Leader followed by Mouseketeer Leader. Smart move by the North Korean regime. The West will just love him.
Not mention unleashing its TV News Readers.
If the Liberals had their way, nobody anywhere would get additional pay for working nights, weekends, or public holidays. It’s all about the company dollar.
And GP supports this. FOR SHAME!!
I know little about queensland but i would think Queensland Motorways would be the one that would upset people. Doubt people would care much about somethign like Forestry Plantations Queensland. Well maybe the CFMEU?
Hehe what is a toll road? Ive never seen one
Well it’s hit News Ltd now…
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25574870-5006301,00.html
Poss, cant have it both ways.
During the 1998 Asian FC, the Asian countries were hammered by the West and IMF for their fuel subsidies and that were for the POOR people. They were forced to cut back or stop the subsidies.
This middle class subsidy has got to stop. Good on you Anna.
Or a more intelligent GP. It would be nice if we could have the real Flint, Captain of the Walrus, instead of Captain Flint (Long John Silver’s parrot).
It will be funny to see the coalition faces tomorrow if we come in at positive growth. They will be trying to saythat is a good thing but really peeved that they have to leave the champagne corks in the bottle.
And who is that witch that sits behind turnbull one row back. I think she annoys me more than anyone in parliament (maybe not Fielding)
It’s on The Australian website too. They obviously just wanted to be able to link to their new blog.
Finns, I like the look of that Jong Un, he might make fun not war
I didn’t realise I was having it any way.
The problem with the fuel subsidy is the tortuous way it is paid. Queensland just used to have a lower petrol excise, or petrol licence fee as it used to be dressed up. But when the High Court ruled that the licence fees were levied as excise and therefore unconstitutional for the State’s to levy, the Federal government had to take over the taxes. But as a Federal tax had to treat all states equally, the rate had to be common and the level was set as for the highest taxing state. Queensland had to come up with a complex method of handing the 8c per litre back to the retailer. There have always been doubts that some of this money was being syphoned off as profits on the way back to the bowser.
I say hold a referendum on taking the word ‘excise’ out of Section 90 of the Constitution, then the states can have all the petrol and cigarette taxes back
For a sec there I though you meant the other other Flint !
Phew
Is he a young un or a wrong un ??
and is his naming as a result of IL gotten gains
tehehe
Herr Doktor, you finally said something sensible:
http://business.smh.com.au/business/recession-fears-recede-20090602-btn3.html?page=-1
Keep it up.
centaur009, me too, that woman looks like she’s a few slices short of a loaf. She sit’s there with her mouth open and a moronic grin not matter what the topic is.
That would be Ms Nola Marino, Member for Forrest.
Yes Labor is 10 miles ahead, instead of 20 miles. But the opposition has been a bit below standard.
Still think Rudd and Co can do better with delivering their message.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/longserving-liberal-member-for-wannon-to-quit-20090531-brq2.html
Has this been mentioned yet?
Yes Vera who is she? I can’t be bothyered looking on Adam’s websie of a thousand faces
Gus, Too much latte?
Centaur009
I agree Thomas. The public unfortunately glosses over the positives and focuses on the few negaives- retirement age and debt level. The gov has to better showcasing the positives
Just for interest sake. A senior Republican refused to refute Limbaugh’s claim that Sotomayor is a racist. Apparantely she is a reverse racist. Limbaugh went on to claim that Obama is a racist, reverse racist. His logic goes that since they are a minority they are racists and thus reverse racists. Being out of power seems to have unplugged their brains. Maybe they were part of the Matrix and now are not.
Limbaugh must have photos of all these guys in revealing positions (maybe at Gitmo) the way they are scared of him.
Yes got that after I posted thanks Itep and Vera- just getting the voodoo kit out now. Ths dodgy keyboard is eating my letters
QT has started!
Was Turnbull’s first question about interest rates going up? i tuned in halfway through Rudd’s answer.
I expect Pyne to get up and make a point of order and say to Jenkins that Rudd has spoken for 7 minutes yet said nothing, to which Jenkins will tell him it’s not a point of order and to resume his seat, to which Pyne will ignore him and continue his rant, and get either an informal or formal warning, to the confected outrage of coalition MPs.
QT feels like groundhog day sometimes…
Oooh, we got a bit of confected outrage from Jules!
‘Original intervention’ LOL
Did Pyne say nasty nerd and bitch???
What happened to the Sky News feed?! It blacked out on Jenkins response to Albo! Damn Sky!!!
Yes bob – Pyne withdrew on behalf of the Opposition the use of the terms “nasty”, “nerd” and “bitch”. Although I’m not sure who called Rudd a ‘bitch’!
Joe didn’t like Rudd calling him sloppy and has now been warned
If they’re going to use polls to base their attacks in QT, that in itself shows they are a long long way from being fit for government.
Julie Bishop looks like she has been sucking lemons. Rudd’s comment on her “original interjection” has certainly pressed her buttons.
Rudd mentions the Biff
You got a feeling that Rudd might have a good smell about the GDP number tomorrow. He is very chirpy and animated today in QT. It could be a + or 0%
I never recalled the member for Canning intervening when Howard took digs at Labor infighting. Member for O’Connor too. “Alban-easy”? lol!
Oh dear, Wilson Tuckey is sticking up for…. who? Lemon-sucking Julie? Cry-baby Canning? Pyne?
I think Tuckey was talking about either Shultz or Pierce
Was he implying that one of them is currently under going personal issues that caused them to act violently towards a work colleague?
It sounded something like that Showson, and he said Rudd was aware of it
Official interest rate in hold at 3% – sky news.
*on hold
LOL @ Albo’s pinch and punch joke… he’s great
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25574798-11949,00.html
Pyne officially warned
That’s Chrissy Pyne’s 24th warning or naming in this parliament.
I bet the Lib stoush doesn’t get a mention on tonight’s news, if it had been Labor it would be the main story
I still dont understand why Abbott isnt manager of opposition business he is much more of an attack dog than that wet lettuce Pyne.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Sex_Party
So who’s voting for the ASP next election? They’ll have my #1 vote!
Who are they preferencing?
lol
Ooooh, Kate Ellis gets a question!
Socially progressive parties i’d expect!
So the Greens i suppose.
Abbott needs time to write his book, other than the occasional interjection, he hasn’t got enough free time for participating in Question Time.
Votes taken mainly from the majors (well I think so at least) and probably preferenced to the Greens in the Senate. This is good.
He doesnt do any work any more. He’s not motivated.
I dont rate him as leadership material but he does rate as a parliamentary performer.
Remember how as a youngling he used to taunt Gillard…now the shoe is on the other foot.
It has better policies than the Australian Business Party:
http://www.australianbusinessparty.com.au/
So he should go to the backbench.
Abbott can’t handle going up against women in the same portfolio. That’s why Labor have put Gillard, Roxon, and now Macklin against him. Turnbull should give him a portfolio where he is up against a male minister.
On the subject of Roxon versus Abbott, there isn`t any footage, of Roxon doing any impersonations of Abbott that her office says are quite good, on the internet are there?
Roxon and Macklin really aren’t the stars of Labor’s backbench i suspect they’ll be booted in good time.
sorry frontbench
I was getting too far ahead of myself 
Roxon is excellent, far better than any health minister for the last decade. The Federal government is finally paying its fair share on health, instead of taking $1 billoin out of it like what the Liberals did in 1997.
Amanda Rishworth = best voice ever
bob
I’m probably voting for them. GG thinks I’m oversexed so I don’t have much choice. I agree with more of their policies than any other party anyway.
Same. The Green vote might go down next election. But i’ll be voting below the line again and put Green straight after ASP. There’s far too few socially progressive parties these days.
The ASP will bomb just like most other Senate parties, What Women Want etc.
The only media coverage they receive is when they have a gimmicky launch.
The fact that they’re a front for the porn industry probably doesn’t help.
Boom. Boom.
There’s nothing wrong with that, after all their ideological opponents Family First are a front for the Assembly of God churches.
Have you seen the statistics on the porn industry? There might be a few votes there.
Any party could be dismissed as being “a front for..X.” and list a big contributor. Labor could be a front for the unions, the Libs a front for big business, the Greens a front for environmental groups.
I guess if you’re going to be screwed by the government we should at least make sure they do a professional job.
Tom
The line on Senate ballot papers is at 40 degrees South.
Imagine if they got in the Senate at a DD.
Which would be their best state?
With an industry behind them they might be able to afford TV and radio advertising. That might put then up a percent of two.
The Greens reckon that they loose 2% in elections because of the big party media barrage.
I wonder what thay would look like. Can’t wait to see their ads.
If any of their members got elected we could have a hung parliament.
(boom tish)
Oh I must have hit a raw nerve from the TOFU brigade when I was pointing out a simple political FACT.
and of course Bob1234 woujld agree – the Labor turncoat that he is.
If a senate elecion looks tight say for place 2 for the ALP, will it help to vote 2, 1 and get the message out to afew thousand to do the same, or will it make little difference?
Are surplus votes discounted in the normal senate (I know they are in council)
The ACT Liberal Party ads – when Kate Carnell was CM were made by The Mature Media Group. Fyshwick.
– its true.
Personally I think one black rod on display in the Senate is more than enough…
If the GDP figures show we are not in a technical recession – I bet Malcolm attacks Rudd for over-reacting.
Turnbull already thinks the Government has over reacted. It is just a big bait and switch routine, Turnbull points at the treasury figures that say the recession will be relatively mild compared to other countries, and says that demonstrates the Government has spent too much. Of course Turnbull conveniently ignores that the fact the Government has been willing to spend so much is WHY the recession will be quite mild.
viz. those who said the Y2K Bug was a crock because, after billions spent averting it, nothing too bad happened.
If the sex party are successful, will we hear of a little titter running through the Senate?
This is what leadership means:
Mrs BRONWYN BISHOP (3.05 pm)—My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to media reports that Kevin Harkins, the Tasmanian unionist who stood down as the Labor candidate in 2007 following community concern about illegal activity, has kept his political dream alive since then and is set to gain a safe seat on the Labor Senate ticket. Given that, as opposition leader, your office negotiated Mr Harkins’s resignation, is your office now acting to guarantee Mr Harkins a career return?
Mr RUDD—Given Mr Harkins’s career as a well-known pugilist, I thought his career would lie in the party opposite rather than in our party, given what has happened in the joint party room today. Can I just say to those opposite—
Mr Dutton—He’s a union crook, he’s better off on your side!
Mr RUDD—Can I just say to those opposite that, as far as Mr Harkins is concerned, from my point of view there are two chances of him entering the Senate on our part: Buckley’s and none.
Psephos, just think of the questions that the Greens would ask if they had seats in the House of Representatives.
The same crap they harp on about in the Senate…
Only thankfully there are no supplimentary questions
Actually a quite impressive answer. Interesting times ahead for the Tasmanian ALP then.
What’s going to happen with the larger than life Dick Adams?
No 102
David Hawker, Australia’s best ever speaker, will be missed.
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25576193-31037,00.html
Is that the share market’s way of saying they think the economy actually grew last quarter? Or is it just a response to China growing faster than expected (which will shorten the recession here?).
No 111
Bob, surely you agree that the current question time rules are silly. The PM and Ministers should not be allowed to ramble on for seven minutes. It should be short and sharp like the UK PMQ.
I found out he was retiring yesterday. As a tribute to him, I stopped for 2.67 seconds to consider the achievements he has made so far in his 26 year parliamentary career.
Time limits haven’t made ministers in the Senate ramble less. It just means they ramble for every question for the same amount of time.
So why didn’t the previous government change them?
Personally I think we should have an executive government removed from the legislature, which means we could get rid of question time, and just have ministers deliver evidence to House and Senate committees.
No 167
Turnbull has criticised the estimates as a tad ambitious, which is what most economists have said since the budget was released.
175
Generic Person
Yeah, sure. A toad in a pond full of toads.
Jenkins has class – your speaker was nothing but a lackey for a PM who was but a legend in his own lunchtime.
No 180
Of course they should have been changed under the previous Government.
I also hate the stupid dorothy dixers which allow the Government to waste time.
No 182
Jenkins whines and moans, Hawker just expels.
Hawker lost it with “that that snivelling grub be no longer heard”. I wish him a long and fruitful retirement.
I only hope we get a quality candidate in Wannon a future leader or minister not some party hack GP….
We cant keep letting these safe seats go to Hacks!
No 180
I thoroughly disagree that Question Time should be removed. The rules should be modified, but that is not to say it should be removed altogether.
I suppose that’s Kevin’s fault as well? Funny that you have these problems with rules when in opposition. Take a deep breath – you there for at least 10 more years.
Jenkins is the best Speaker since, Jenkins.
Then who would be the opposition to the goverment? I think the system we have provides for far more accountability than the US system.
No 185
Of course snivelling grubs should no longer be heard.
No 190
I agree. The US allows the president to remain in some ivory tower without sufficient accountability to the congress.
No 189
Jenkins is certainly not the worst speaker, but not up to the lofty standards of Hawker.
Not having the executive in the legislative was the biggest mistake made by the drafter of the US Constitution because of ministerial responsibility (sadly lacking in the modern spin age) and the reduced ability/necessity to divide up the leadership and portfolios among coalition partners.
And Hockey dismissed them completely by saying “they are just projections”.
So why didn’t they change them? Why did we have to listen to Costello act like a gutless clown while being defended by the speaker?
Of course, Gillard perfectly demonstrated how biased he was. At least Jenkins is able to apply the dumb standing orders evenly.
Vexnews has a list of possible candidates for Wannon here:
http://www.vexnews.com/news/4510/mals-legacy-women-front-runners-ready-to-fight-over-wannon/
Senate committees would be a much better way to get answers from ministers. As soon as you do it in the chamber it just turns into show business.
Hawker was the worst speaker in my memory, which goes back to Sir Phillip Aston. Being worse than Leo McLeay is quite an achievement. He was not only partisan, but weak and inconsistent.
Neil Andrews was also a quality speaker GP.
If that’s the case then bye bye GP.
The hilarious thing is that Josh Frydenberg, the so called star candidate for Koyoong is too scared to turn up to local debates against other candidates:
http://www.vexnews.com/news/4514/kooyong-frydenberg-ducks-candidate-debate/
How the hell will he go in the House of Representatives?
So that means Hawker should’ve kicked Abbott, but of course he didn’t because he was biased.
Senate committees are no better at extracting answers from Ministers, it just means that the Minister is no longer required to suffer embarrassment or ridicule in the parliament.
Sorry, but no. Question Time is a great institution of Westminster parliaments and it should not be removed.
No 199
There are no snivelling grubs in the Liberal Party.
QT should have relevance being ruthlessly enforced and if Ministers cant answer they should say so like they do in NZ.
In addition if we make it so Ministers and PMs cannot speak for longer than 5mins we’ll save so much tiime that we could have twice a week an hour of PMQT as they have in the UK.
No 196
Hawker did his job by expelling as many ALP members as possible.
Senate committees hardly ever call ministers as witnesses. You are thinking of senate estimates, which are different.
199
That is very funny. I hope on he gets the gig.
Landeryou thinks that Denis Napthine will get the leadership back in time for the next election.
I disagree.
No 202
Yep, good idea Glen.
The current situation is just stupid. Even I got bored with Coalition dorothy dixers – they are pointless.
Abbott called Gillard a snivelling grub, and wasn’t asked to withdraw, and wasn’t kicked from the House of Reps.
Gillard called Abbott a snivelling grub, was asked to withdraw, and was then kicked from the House of reps.
Therefore, Hawker was a biased speaker who failed to give consistent rullings. Therefore, he can’t be considered a good speaker.
Why do you hate democracy so much?
202
Glen
Why not suggest a sunset clause on such a proposal so that the current rules are again applied when Labor is (a long long way down the track) no longer in power? That’s what you’d prefer.
Your position is stupid. On the one hand you want the standing orders to be fairer for the opposition, on the other hand you think MPs should be kicked just because they aren’t in a party you support.
Rank hypocrisy of the highest order.
Stupid remarks like that are why no-one here takes you seriously. Why can’t we get some serious intelligent liberals or conseravtives here? I enjoy a good argument, but all the good arguments here are between various shades of left. All we get from conservatives is childish slogans and abuse.
The reason that NZ has such a well run question time is that before the election the current speaker was a shadow minister until he was sacked for a very silly comment and then was made Speaker after the and so the theory is he being impartial as revenge.
No 211
Adam, I never take you seriously. Your insufferable pomposity is a waste of time to engage with.
In fact last night I bothered to actually talk sensibly on climate change but that was typically ignored. You guys aren’t interested in argument that doesn’t conform to your world view.
GP when i watched QT under the Howard years i would virtually leave the room whenever Mark Vaile got a Dorothy Dixer….god that guy was boring…i even hated dorothy dixers to our front bench that went on for 10min plus. It gets very boring and defeats the purpose of QT.
There shouldnt be anything that requires an answer of more than 5mins IMHO.
The whole reason QT is useless is because the relevance clause in standing orders is never enforced.
Ministers don’t have to answer questions at all and can’t be directed how to answer them.
No 210
The rank hypocrisy is actually coming from you. When I raised this issue of kicking people from the opposite party out in respect of a certain council meeting in Fairfield last week, I was ridiculed. Frank Calabrese actually stood by the moron for Cabramatta, Nick Lalich, in his expulsion of local residents on the basis of their political affiliation.
Forget to take your tranquillisers?
You didn’t talk sensibly about climate change at all. You made up out of thin air the proposition that developing countries want developed countries to make ALL the cuts.
You argued that developing countries should spend an infinite amount to make their economies clean, when you have repeatedly complained about Australia’s debt.
You argued that total pollution is all that matters, which required you to ignore the political reality that total pollution can only be cut by the actions of different countries.
In sum, I proposed lots of reasons why your position is unsound, but all you did is ignored these points, and continued to pretend that Australia should do nothing, while we expect developing countries to spend an unlimited amount of money, which will cut the living standards of those generally poor populaces.
No 215
I agree. It was semi-interesting, even hysterically funny at times, when Costello or Abbott got up and ridiculed Labor, but it just got so bloody pointless when some useless backbencher asked Downer or Vaile or Nairn to get up and speak for 10 minutes or more.
If they aren’t going to enforce the the relevance clause, or abolish dorothy dixers, at the very least strict time limits should be imposed.
So Question Time should be 1 hour, but ONLY feature questions from non Government M.P.s With answers no longer than 5 minutes. They should have to be relevant, but that is determined EXCLUSIVELY by the speaker, they shouldn’t be allowed to be frivolously interrupted by the opposition, which happens constantly these days.
Why am I responsible for other people ridiculing you? I think you bring it onto yourself with your stupid comments, #204 being an excellent example.
Total pollution IS all that matters. Per capita emissions don’t matter at all.
None of which were sound or appropriate.
Never said this at all.
#217, you better start praying tonight that the GDP will be -ive tomorrow. As you have previously hoped and prayed that the Stimpacs will fail.
Else you and your side will be beyond ridiculed.
Generic Person: the Coalition shadow ministers get thrown out of parliament for a good reason……they behave like a bunch of 4 year olds.
Pyne is an offensive toff, all those useless points of order.
Hypocrisy! Why is question time OK when Liberal ministers ridicule Labor, but not OK when Labor MPs ridicule Liberals!?
You’re not interested in improving Question Time at all.
I didn’t say you were responsible, but your silence on the matter was defeaning.
This just demonstrates how completely ignorant you are about POLITICAL REALITY.
WOW! Your famous “you are wrong because I say you are wrong” debating style reappears.
No 224
ShowsOn, do keep up. The point I was making is that occasionally the answers to dorothy dixers could be funny if Costello or Abbott got up to speak, but in general they were boring. That doesn’t mean that they are pointless in general.
LOL! The amount of rubbish and abuse (such as #214) that you post here doesn’t really make me motivated to leap to your defence.
You use the political reality argument here, but are unwilling to accept the argument when idiotic Greens are pushing for so-called “leadership” (i.e. economy killing cuts).
You are a professional at that style ShowsOn.
I didn’t think it was the job of question time to be “funny” I thought it was so the legislature can interrogate the executive.
Where are the intelligent conservatives?
No 228
ShowsOn you abuse people all the time, including me. Get with the program. I’m not really complaining – it’s part and parcel of politics.
However, I wasn’t asking you to defend me. I was simply querying your silence on the issue of Labor councillors kicking their opponents out of public meetings.
No, Generic Heffalump I was pointing out that the Mayor was well within his rights within the standing orders of the council to disallow statements from party political reperesentitives and lobby groups from using the public forum part of the meeting – the people concerned well well withing their rights to apply to the council for their grievences to be heard, they ignore that, so they removed. Oh and I quoted chapter and verse from the Council’s officla policy on the matter. THey were quite entitled to speak on the subject in GENERAL non partisan terms. Unfortunatly for the Generic Heffalump, THAT is an affront on democracy.
Talk about Pots and Kettles.
No 231
Where are the intelligent left wingers? Nowhere to be seen.
In fact, the only person of intelligence on your side is Socrates.
It is obvious that ANY carbon trading scheme will ultimately kill off some jobs and promote investment in other industries that create other jobs.
So you managed to write a sentence that says absolutely nothing.
That is an oxymoron
No 233
Frank, the point was that the Mayor’s power to expel people according to their political affiliation is ridiculous. I’m not saying that he had no power to do so, but that his power to do so SHOULD NOT exist.
The AMA has a new President, a Dr Pesche. He looks like being very different to Capolingua, who was detested by Labor with good reason. The fact that Bruce Shepherd supported the other two candidates against him is a good sign that Pesche will be less adversarial than Capolingua, who set the medical profession back about a decade during her pointless presidency.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25571117-28737,00.html
So cop that, you dumb baskets!!
So why don’t you run for the council on that platform?
No 235
No, if you read my statements last night you would recall that I said that the so called “green jobs” could not be identified in any of the modelling or by any of the politicians. It is just an implicit assumption that all these green jobs will materialise from thin air.
Questions from MPs are not as useful as they once were because of party discipline. The should be two question times. One for backbench MPs to ask questions related only to their electorate and the other question time for front bench debate with questions across the floor both ways but not from the same side (MPs from small minor parties would be able to participate in both).
This would be pointless, the opposition doesn’t have any policies.
I wish Dr Capolingua well, she can go back to running her indemnity insurance business.
No 240
I participated in the campaigns to have Liberal members elected to that council.
No 238
Capolingua’s not saying anything controversial and I’m not sure why the AMA has to be the lapdog of the Government.
Why do you constantly refer to conservatives as being stupid or not intelligent????
You merely think that way because you dislike our views not because you know how intelligent we are and I think it reflects poorly on you for saying such things to people on PB.
Anybody who uses the term where are the intelligent… has given up trying to debate the other side and it shows that all you have are personal attacks against those you disagree with.
I’m sick to death of Adam and others saying when we criticise our own Party that we are good or sane conservatives but at every other stage we are referred to as stupid.
No 247
Absolutely correct Glen. Hear hear.
The lack of policy from the opposition would be exposed. Also bad policy from the opposition would be exposed.
Forrest Gump said something about stupidity. What was it now?
So why the hell do you support an ETS as well? You are pretending to be Malcolm Turnbull, but you’re actually Barnaby Joyce.
The ETS puts a price on carbon that increases over time. Eventually it becomes cheaper for companies to invest in Green technologies rather than continuing to buy expensive permits.
If you don’t accept this, then you may as well support a flat carbon tax instead.
BTW, there already are a lot of Green jobs, having an ETS will only create more:
http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=433:clean-energy-jobs-map&catid=128:jobs
Sounds like you didn’t campaign hard enough.
It’s the most militant union there is.
You’re my favourite conservative Glen, cos you don’t see everything as black and white the way G.P. does.
Hiya Frank Calabrese!!
Plse see my comment re you @ 5.
Take care,
Two new members were elected, so that’s not a bad result in a dyed-in-the-wool Labor area; also the lowest-socio-economic area in NSW.
No 251
I accept what the object of an ETS is and I know the consequences of an increasing carbon price, but what is not clear is how workers in old industries will transition and where new jobs will arise and so forth.
ShowsOn i have tempered since my German shouting days during Howard’s downfall, ill give you that. Maybe that was a reality check for me and other Tories that we wouldnt rule forever.
Still I think we can get a more enriched debate on PB between Tory, Laborite and Greeny alike if we try to act civil and not call each other stupid. Call their ideas stupid if you want but dont call people stupid.
According to Ten News, ComSec is predicting that the economy grew in the previous quarter.
Green jobs are hard to define – is the guy who digs the hole to put in an underground rainwater tank in doing a Green Job?
My view is he is – he thinks he digs holes.
Showy, this must have sent shiver down the spine of Turnbull and GP.
If it is true, then I told you so
No 256
They’ll still be calling us stupid whenever we don’t agree with their views, don’t you worry.
No 259
Nothing sends a shiver down my spine more than an egregious $300 billion debt.
[Hiya Frank Calabrese!!
Plse see my comment re you @ 5.
Take care
Another Tofu Hypocrite invoking the name of Saint Maxine of Bennelong in Vain.
My point still stands - you cannot argue the issue, so you go on the personal attack.
Says it all all really.
[217
Generic Person\
What are you talking about?
But there is a contradiction here, the Government is subsidising the automotive industry, which you think is bad. But that is our biggest manufacturing industry, if that folds a lot of blue collar workers will struggle to get other jobs.
I don’t understand why you don’t support that subsidisation, but you are effectively saying there should be MORE subsidies for coal miners (even though the only proven way to sequester carbon is to leave coal in the ground). I think you are being inconsistent.
Far enough Glen, and I am sure we all say things at the spare of the moment that we don’t actually mean. I’m no way near as confrontational in person than I am on the internet.
No 263
http://fairfield-advance.whereilive.com.au/news/story/police-called-to-remove-three-speakers-from-fairfield-council-meeting/
http://www.smh.com.au/national/free-speech-but-dont-mention-politics-mayor-20090527-bnpo.html
Which I should add did something that Andrew Wilkie couldn’t do – defeated John Howard in his own seat
Ha! That’s the funniest thing you’ve said in ages.
You dish it out as well, you’ve already called me an idiot and a moron today just because I dared challenge your views.
WOW, that means you have just written of the Fraser, McMahon, Gorton, Holt, and Menzies governments who all had debt to GDP ratios higher than what we will have in 3 years.
Apparently I’m meant to be G.P.’s hitman.
Yes, I do think it is bad because the car industry has had far too many bail outs, irrespective of how big it is.
The money would be much better spent on re-education and other initiatives that promote manufacturing in other industries.
No, there shouldn’t be more subsidies for coal miners. They should be protected from having to participate until our competitors are on the same page as us. That is fair and reasonable.
“Not all conservatives are stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.” (John Stuart Mill, a great liberal)
So why can’t the Government do the same with the money it receives from selling carbon permits, say to train coal miners to build wind turbines, or solar power stations?
But coal extraction releases a lot of CH4, which is a worse green house gas than C02!
I’ve HAD it with your QUOTES and your sense of HISTORY and your broad GENERAL KNOWLEDGE!
You are tearing this country apart by KNOWING THINGS!
No 272
That would be nice if they actually elucidated their position on re-education. We’ve heard nothing of the sort, except indignation about the prospect of further delay.
Resources are a signficant part of our exports, and thus our economy. If we are going to make cuts, it is only fair that our competitors make the same or similar cuts.
The statement in the last line of 273 is a typical anti-knowledge conservative (including much of the ALP) statement.
Australia in one of only 14 countries that can design and build a car. Yet GP wants to scrap this.
So if we don’t build cars where do we get them from ?
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery.”
Winston Churchill (a Tory hero)
Too many cars are made and used in the world. The number must come down. Even if fuel is solved there are still issues with traffic, land use, obesity and particles from tyres.
Do you really think Labor would irritate their base of union workers by not having a plan in mind?
And why is it that the CFMEU, the union that represents coal workers wants Turnbull to stop blocking the bill? I suggest it is because the CPRS provides the coal industry with ground rules and certainty that Turnbull is refusing to provide.
The fact resources are a significant part of our economy means they should pay a fair share in the scheme. If they don’t, then that just means forcing bigger cuts onto other developing parts of the economy.
Why of course, I was making fun of G.P.’s attacks on Adam on the previous page.
#261, thank God the punters are more sophisticated and discerning than you.
GP, you have a level of pomposity and arrogance that makes Psephos look positively humble.
You repeat simple statements as if they were real arguments, then insult everyone else by telling them to ‘get a grip’.
Please tell me you are still in first year. It breaks my heart when I see students get further than that without learning anything about the real subtlety of argument. Partly I worry it is a symptom of the dumbing down of our universities, but mostly it is because I know students like you will crash all the harder the further they get.
This is why Glen is the best Liberal representative on this blog. He at least appreciates that a good policy needs to be grey, not black or white.
Glen has doesn’t think taxes are stealing for example. He appreciates that there are some things markets can’t or won’t do, so there is a role for Government.
He also seems to appreciate that it government debt isn’t always bad, when the alternative is thousands of more people unemployed.
All this is fine providing our competitors do the same thing. Sorry, unilateral action is pointless for a country that is produces negligible emissions.
No 281
Polyquats, utter rubbish.
The problem is, as Glen articulated, that you are unwilling to accept alternative argument. You can’t bothered. When we so much as make an effort we are ridiculed for being stupid.
No 283
delete the “is” preceding “produces”.
The more Australia does, the more other countries – including China and India – will be willing to do. You may not think that is FAIR, but that is the political reality that we have to deal with, because we are in the REAL world, where we have to make actual decisions, rather than just getting everything our own way.
I like the other one.
Looks like a few have been on the red cordial today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJTBPdVpdMc&feature=related
No 286
I disagree that Australia will be influential in affecting the degree of cuts by agreed to by India and China.
The US and Europe will be far more influential in driving these negotiations. You may discount that as “talking down” Australia, but that is the simple REALITY.
GP, I don’t know why we bother, I really don’t. You have made no effort whatsoever. You entertain no alternative to your own arguments. You state a simple opinion, it gets shot down, you stamp your feet and accuse us of being stupid. Then we start again.
I am so glad I don’t have you in any tutorial classes. I’ve seen plenty like you, but few as bad.
ShowsOn, your attempt to divide and conquer is amusing, especially to those who can see the smirk hidden behind your hand.
Sounds like the Lib MP who had to amend her QUESTION after QT today.
You don’t accept when your arguments are weak. Such as your “the treasury is wrong because I think the treasury is wrong” Joe Hockey style argument from a few weeks ago.
You didn’t provide any evidence whatsoever for why treasury was wrong, you just said it is and expected everyone to believe you.
Also try inserting a ‘be’ before ‘bothered’.
Well, India and China have said they will be. Also, the bigger Australia cuts, then the HARDER it is for India to just point to our per capita emissions! If we only cut by 5%, India will just say “Well that’s nothing, so we won’t bother making any cuts for the next decade”. but if Australia cuts to 15% per cent, then India has to actually start doing its fair share EARLIER!
I was being honest. G.P. irritates so many people because he adheres to Liberal orthodoxy like a religious cult, you know all debt is bad, the government hasn’t saved any jobs, the ETS won’t promote investment in green jobs. They are just standard issue talking points.
No 293
I made no such argument. I simply stated that the volatility of the global economy in the last eight months means that future estimates are unlikely to be reliable. I even quoted the IMF, who incidentally, have revised their forecasts several times in recent months.
ShowsOn, that’s another one of your flaws, you argue with strawmen instead of what I actually said.
No 294
Yes, quite true. My typing is atrocious today. Apologies to all.
This assumes the Treasury doesn’t take into account volatility!
You didn’t say anything that isn’t completely obvious, and accounted for by treasury when making projections.
No 295
Yes, but just like you keep saying my arguments are weak, you can equally acknowledge how unbelievably weak the Indian “per-capita” argument is because the environmental consequences will be as a result of total emissions, not per-capita emissions. But even we accept their stupid argument, they are going to be much more influenced by the US and Europe because they are the movers and shakers in the world.
I have spoken out against my party many times but you conveniently ignore that fact to suit your own silly talking points. You must enjoy arguing with strawmen.
No 299
And the IMF didn’t take into account volatility? I mean seriously ShowsOn. As I said at the time, you think Treasury is above criticism, which it plainly is not.
Even the economists on budget night did not agree with the Government’s ambitious post-recession above-trend growth estimates for half a decade.
Your typing is much better than your argument, as usual.
I agree with Showson, that was the basis of your argument (using argument loosely here).
Not on anything substantial.
301
Who the hell are ‘the economists’? Your side, Labors side, independent or simply commentators masquerading as economists??
Poly what about nuclear power???
GP and my own stance differs very much from Hunt and Co.
Well, like ShowsOn, you are reading what you want to read and have ignored the fact that I quoted the IMF and several economists who did not agree with the Treasury forecasts.
At least Swan does not hide Treasury projections from the PM, like Costello did.
And yet the more Australia cuts up front, the weaker India’s “per capita” argument becomes.
You still think taxation is theft, which many have demonstrated to you doesn’t even constitute an argument.
206
Do you have any evidence for that?
I’ve never said the treasury is above criticism. Good straw work.
The Liberals support nuclear power, they just won’t admit it. But just read the debate on the Northern Territory uranium royalties bill from earlier this year. Nearly every Liberal backbencher said they support nuclear power.
This doesn’t constitute evidence that the Treasury’s modelling is flawed.
I should’ve explained that the major difference between the IMF and Treasury projections is that that IMF thinks China is going to take longer to recover. The Treasury thinks it will recover more quickly, which will aid Australian commodity exports. There has been recent news to suggest the Treasury position is right, such as a faster than expected recovery of manufacturing.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAbIvoI3sHMo&refer=home
Rubbish.
- I acknowledged that Workchoices added more regulation than it removed and was bad policy in general, but not for the reasons the unions were using.
- I support nuclear power
- I support increased defence spending
- I believe in AGW (unlike several Libs/Nats)
- I support massive investment in solar technology (solar on every roof)
- I support budget cuts to keep the budget deficit manageable
- I opposed the increase in the pension.
And more. These are quite significant differences.
Sorry, skipped the nuclear power debate.
Selectively, as usual.
GP, I am sure their are very good arguments to support the conservative world view. There are probably some to support the policies of the LNP (if you can find them). But so far, you have failed to produce any.
Parroting talking points is not the same thing as making convincing (or even passable) arguments.
But you would improve your position considerably if you dropped the ‘get a grip’ type throwaway.
Hey Frank,
Be nice, see link below, you may need the Greens sooner than you think.
http://westernpatriot.com.au/2009/06/barnetts-majority-not-so-major-1672
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/rudd-will-soon-fall-out-of-favour-20090602-btjh.html
Abetz is sadly mistaken in his wishful thinking. They’ve been saying this since December 2006.
Tom
I assume you meant 306.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/fiscal-feud-20090424-ai6z.html?page=-1
I wouldn’t take as gospel two ALP pepole, one who was subject to a CCC inquiry as Gospel
Oh and one was my Booth Captain at the booth I worked on at the last State Election.
It’s being going for over 2.5 years!
These two things completely contradict each other. Installing solar power on every rough would cost tens of billions of dollars.
Chris Richardson and Alan Kohler, among others, both said on the 7.30 report that the Treasury growth forecasts were optimistic at best.
The IMF said, also on the 7.30 report, that long term infrastructure spending was better than cash splashes, even taking into account long lead times. Why? They believe the recession is going to be long and deep.
No 315
I find that very hard to believe that the PM would not be able to access Treasury figures until that late in the budget cycle.
Obviously it would be done over 10 years, not immediately. And by budget cuts I mean cuts to welfare, cancelling the auto bail out, cancelling the tax bonus, etc etc.
And I have explained to you that the Treasury disputes the IMF projections, because they assert that the IMF has under estimated the resilience of the Chinese economy, and the benefit that has on the Australian economy.
It also means you are ignoring Ken Henry’s speech where he demonstrated that Australia had achieved 4% or above growth for most of the recovery years after the last three recessions.
So two economists say ‘optimistic, and that is your evidence for ‘wrong’?
Better for what? The government is using both, as they both have a role to play in a balanced strategy.
You haven’t given an argument at all, just some poorly supported wishful thinking. I hope you approach your assignments with a bit more thought.
This is believable considering that Costello found it extremely difficult to stop Howard from spending.
There are nearly 8 million houses in Australia, a solar cells on every roof would cost $80 billion for BASIC installations.
Govt. Depts. are answerable to the relevant Minister not the PM. If the PM asked the Dept. they could not answer, they would advise him to ask the Minister.
Well the IMF disagrees and I am entitled to make the argument rather than being told I’m stupid for daring to criticise Treasury.
The economy.
Here we go again. I’m trying to be civil, but you can’t resist calling me stupid.
If you’re serious about climate change then it is necessary expenditure.
Are you?
I found this opinion piece on the ETS in the West Australian refreshing, not at all like the columns I’ve become accustomed to reading from that outlet (in particular Paul Murray, who must have had more than one gall bladder/liver transplant to sustain the level of bile he expels):
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=9&ContentID=145294
Perhaps WA residents can tell me if this is an indication of a more reasoned approach from the West since its takeover by Kerry Stokes?
I’m not questioning your civility. I didn’t call you stupid.
Well it looks like you are wrong anyway:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAbIvoI3sHMo&refer=home
Great, so that means you can’t complain about how much debt the government has because you are proposing increasing debt by at least $8 billion a year for the next decade.
If you’re serious about CC, get your party to get off its **** and pass the CPRS bill. Once we have a price on carbon, all else can flow from that. The defeat of this bill would make Australia a laughing-stock.
Adam what if we amended the bill so that 20% of Australia’s energy needed to come from Nuclear Power if we supported putting a price on carbon, after all that will increase your ETS targets
Polyquats said, @332,
The last sentence is of course the vital point that you appear to be missing, Generic Person.
Labor has made serious commitments to infrastructure spending, consistent with the nation’s capacity to deliver such projects. It would be entirely pointless to commit to projects that simply could not be delivered due to capacity constraints. Of course it is true that infrastructure spending is essential for long term viability for Australia’s economy. That’s why Labor is engaging in such an intensive infrastructure program.
However it is also appropriate to consider shorter term measures which ameliorate the immediate effects of the recessionary phase. Recent indications appear to suggest that these measures have protected Australia from more dire immediate outcomes.
Mixing it up with the nuclear power debate would kill it.
G.P.’s position doesn’t make sense. He wants the Government to cut welfare payments including the aged pension increase so it can fund solar cells, so that coal miners can keep their jobs.
That’s the best summary I can come up with.
- Senator Barnaby Joyce, National Party, Queensland
Wrong Shows – Liberal National Party, Qld. able to sit in the Liberal Party room after the next election.
But he is the leader of the nationals. Or are you saying since he is leader of the nationals he will be allowed to sit in BOTH the Liberal and National party rooms?
ShowsOn,
As always, you love to stifle debate. You’ve verballed GP pure and simple as he has not advocated reducing pensions or anything. He has simply put forward an idea for discussion.
If every idea has to be put through your tortuous approval process then nothing would ever occur. Probably why you are a boring academic with nothing to show for it.
Go for it GP. Send Showson the Ben Cousins salute.
That West Australian article is pretty good and gets to the crux of the whole debate.
Wrong. G.P.s post 311:
In my boring academic world, this constitutes opposition to the pension increase.
Actually, Greensborough Growler, Generic Person himself mentioned
as the means by which to afford rolling out solar cells. It’s not entirely unreasonable to suggest that the pension, increases to which Generic Person is opposed,
might be included in the ‘etc etc’.
One has to wonder, that with the lack of any substance in GP’s posts, whether he does it purely to stir Labor supporters up to feel better about how in the shit his own party is in basically every Australian parliament at the moment
Shows,
Barnaby is a member of the LNP – the official state approved arm of the Liberal Party in Qld.
If he is a member of the Liberal Party in Qld why can’t he sit in the Libs Federal Party Room?
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25576862-5005962,00.html
Yeah, Oz, that’s what I thought.
What I’d be interested in seeing is what kind of numbers result from the more rigourous analysis Wright seems to be advocating. It’s pretty easy for him to say ‘both sides are exaggerating’ without providing any numbers of his own.
What are the actual number of job losses/gains likely to be? I’m sure it’s very difficult to say, but surely it’s not a lot more difficult than saying ‘the numbers these guys provide are wrong’.
I thought they had to choose. Since he is the National’s Senate leader, it would be very strange if he didn’t attend the National party room meetings.
Not according to Joyce.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/01/2585896.htm
Line of the year. I’d hate to know what constitutes long term? Perhaps Abetz is thinking like Keynes, and that in the long term we are all dead. (or at least the Liberal Party at this rate).
Didn’t Joyce complain that he wasn’t allowed to vote at the Nelson / Turnbull leadership ballot, even though he is technically a Liberal?
Well according to WA State Political Reporter Peter Kennedy, the Independent Member for Kalgoorlie John Bowler has been seen attending National Party Room meetings.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/audio/2009/06/01/2585973.htm
The Qld LNP fiasco will have to be sorted before the next election – it won’t be pretty.
Not increasing is not the same as cutting. He’s advocating an alternative distribution of the nation’s expenditure. He or his parents are taxpayers. So fair enough.
Whether I agree or not. He has a right to mount his arguments without the PB thought police cherry picking his posts, the only intention being malice.
I’m waiting for GP to flesh out his normal talking point style.
The problem is that it’s hard enough to model the economic situations 10 years ahead, let alone when you have enormous variables like an ETS.
There’s more on the different modelling techniques and assumptions used in each respective report in this article at New Matilda:
http://newmatilda.com/2009/05/27/will-there-be-brown-jobs-green-future
The comments are also particularly insightful – especially Mark Diesendorf (From the Institute of Environmental Studies at UNSW).
Yep, Greensborough Growler, I understand your point, but still think it’s reasonable when someone talks about wholesale budget cuts, including to welfare, and has previously set out their opposition to pension increases, to conclude that cuts to the pension (which, after all, falls within the very general category of ‘cuts to welfare’, if not the absurdly vague ‘etc etc’) might be within the ambit.
If Generic Person and others want to avoid such issues, perhaps some greater specificity might be in order.
A warmer gentler Wilson Tuckey, a man who has always demonstrated his consideration for the feelings of others.
“West Australian Liberal Wilson Tuckey implored Mr Rudd to ease off, especially towards one of the participants “for reasons he would understand”.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/liberals-bring-back-the-biff-20090602-bu0q.html
Not increasing is a cut, because it would imply a change from current Government and opposition policy. Also the CPRS itself includes a one off increase, that G.P. may or may not support.
I have no malice at all. I was pointing out that G.P.’s ideas aren’t exactly fair, and one feature of that is cancelling a pension increase that every member of the federal parliament thinks is deserved.
Great, but I’ve already summarised it in #334.
And to Barnaby there are two kinds of music, Country and Western.
That was a bizarre Point of Order from Tuckey. He seemed to be implying he had dirt on fights between ALP members.
DId anyone see if Bishop followed up her mysterious question to Rudd yesterday about Fitzgibbon’s declarations of interst?
Well the figure repeatedly mentioned in the Senate economics committee is that it is expected to reduce GDP by 0.1% per year after the first year of operation. Exactly how many job loses that results in, I don’t know.
But over time it increases investment in other sectors, so the net effect will be beneficial.
ShowsOn,
“Great, but I’ve already summarised it in #334″.
Thanks, but can make up my own mind without your undergraduate analysis.
I thought he was implying that there may be reasons for Alby Shultz’s behaviour, such as personal issues.
I didn’t hear anything. Probably just Julie spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
Great
Excellent
Brilliant
Thanks for the link, Oz, but I couldn’t help that a great deal more energy was expended in criticizing the Mineral Council’s effort than that of the Climate Institute.
Perhaps it was a misguided defence of the ‘lightweight’, who may be sensitive about his weight?
well…
that’s how I understood it.
Has Shultz said if he is going to retire at the next election? He turned 70 last Friday.
Comment of the week goes to Bingley Hall over the Libs fight @ http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/comments/0,22638,25574870-5006301,00.html
GG, Maybe it’s time for Showy to join his namesake Showy on the G island. They deserve each other.
There is an old story that is often repeated in Business rah rah sessions, it refers to the maker of wooden buckets complaining about going broke because of the company making metal buckets, then the metal bucket company complaining about going broke because of the company making plastic buckets.
The “moral” of the story is these companies thought they were in the bucket business, when really they were in the water transportation business.
Our energy production companies know they are in the energy business, not in the coal business, when it is time for them to move from wooden buckets to plastic ones they will do it. But they will not if they have no reason to.
http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/simpsons-may-prompt-smoking-20090531-brpp.html
Sigh. Nobody started smoking because of the Simpsons. Stupid…
ShowsOn he should.
Unless you are a front bencher or have a senior Party role like Whip you should be thinking abour retiring by 70….
22 MPs who are over 65 that means we could potentially have 22 new talented MPs brought into Parliament this really gets me dissilusioned with politics on my side of the House we could be doing sooo much more to get younger people into Parliament because we’re going to need this 2010 crop of MPs when we return to Government down the track so we need to get them in now.
I suspect the Libs are too afraid of losing some of the more marginal seats if they do this…
In her own mind??
Ah that makes sense.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25573720-601,00.html
Bob Im willing to bet more than half of these are held by more than 5%…
Definitely. If they do run and Labor wins, then surely another heap of them will retire at by-elections during the next term.
Surely it would be better getting new talent elected at a general election, rather than trying to get them elected at by-elections when the Government will probably be on a 2nd honeymoon after being re-elected.
It’s still not very common for the incumbent government to get a swing to them at a by-election…
Also that would mean if by-elections took place and we won them chances are their margins would be reduced heavily and would take more to defend them in 2013.
If I were Liberal Party President or Opp Leader id be tapping shoulders right now.
I dunno Bob, when I hear about that “sweet Carolina smoke” I just want to head down to the local servo for a pack of Laramies.
True. Though the Greens gave Briggs a run for his money in Mayo, what should be a very safe Liberal seat, and Oakshott knocked off the Nationals in Lyne.
Pffft; “research”. I’m betting they went here:
http://snpp.com/guides/smoking.simpsons.html
It would take too much political capital that Turnbull doesn’t have. You know, like how Crean used up all that energy getting Labor’s 60/40 rule reduced to 50/50, which was a better party reform than that ever achieved by Beazley, but it didn’t help his leadership one jot.
For that “smooth tobacco flavour”.
Well yeah, New Matilda does have a fairly clear bias.
But I don’t think you can write off the arguments re equilibrium modelling off very quickly.
Crean was not going to be PM from the day he became Opp Leader just like Nelson wasnt.
Turnbull isnt interested in rehabilitating the party as much as he is interesting in Prime Minister well in a years time his dillusions will have come crashing down
then we can move onto the next gen of Liberals…
Cossie is going to announce soon whether he will stand for Parliament and I’d say he will stay on, what else is he going to do?
Nothing esle. He can’t achieve his ambition of being the most pointless member of the Liberal Party backbench if he leaves now.
Yeah, but there will need to be some Liberal party reform before they have another P.M.
So someone has to be brave enough to do it. They need to give the national executive more control of pre-selections so they can intervene and get rid of duds.
Yeah, with the economy the way it is there won’t be many jobs for hammock testers.
Hurray another safe Liberal seat being wasted
Surely Costello’s plan is to become leader in the next parliament. He is probably hoping that the economic recovery is slow, so that Labor’s vote declines, giving him a shot to win the 2013 election.
Costello should have led us after 2007…
2013 will probably be like 2001 and hopefully 2016 wont be like 2004
2016 will be a Labor victory like 2004 if the Liberal leader is Dutton or Abbott.
I don’t think Rudd will be Prime Minister in 2016, I think he will retire in 2014.
That would have involved work.
The Liberals will most likely have another soush over Wentworth. Turnbull will probably leave if he loses the election, or is disposed from the opposition leadership.
No 334
No. That is not my position.
1. The Government could not afford the pension increase, hence my opposition to it, especially after low income earners received a big stimulus payment.
2. Funding solar cells is a prudent investment for the following reasons: (a) it decentralises the production of electricity and makes households less reliant upon dirty energy; (b) it is excellent for reducing carbon emissions which we constantly he poll bludgers screaming about.
3. Mining jobs should not be put at risk from an ETS unless our competitors in the resources industries overseas commit to similar cuts. What India thinks is immaterial.
Precisely. And the Minerals Council is unrepresentative of modern thinking in the industry.
I think the term ‘reduce’ gives the wrong impression – it is important to understand the GDP continues to grow under the ETS models. That 0.1% figure is correct and reflects the Treasury modelling, but it is about a slowing in anticipated growth of GNP from 1.2% pa down to 1.1% pa. As the modelling document puts it, under the ETS scenarios:
“By 2050, real GNP per capita is 55-57 per cent above current levels, compared to 66 per cent in the reference scenario.” (reference scenario = business as usual).
This won’t cause job losses; it will cause job vacancies. Those talking about ‘job losses’ from the ETS seem to be swallowing uncritically the Minerals Council/ ‘Not Yet’ line. The proposal for the modernisation of our ancient and unsophisticated energy sources mean some job categories will disappear while others emerge as the new clean means of production replace the old dirty ones. This sort of transition has occurred continuously since the industrial revolution, as Ruawake illustrated with the buckets.
Demanding to know just which jobs and when and how many, and know right now, is just another attempted distraction to ward off the decision to take the necessary action on emisisons.
As usual when faced with inevitable change there are many who refuse to accept the future, but prefer to cling blindly to the familiar past, however outmoded, dirty, or inefficient. Such people fit neatly into that ‘conservative’ voting cohort noted by JS Mill discussed earlier.
No 393
he = hear in point 2.
Which part of my summary is wrong?
No 396
All of it. You constantly misrepresent my arguments, so I have restated them for the benefit of others who are not so careless.
Yes but they weren’t traditional 2pp races.
Ok, but other countries need to make similar cuts otherwise you will putting innocent people out of work for no economic or environmental gain.
This makes no sense! My summary just states in fewer words everything you wrote in the post below.
1) You think there should be less government spending on pensions
2) You think there should be a lot more (at least $80 billion) spent on solar cells
3) You think the coal industry should be completely protected from all effects of the ETS.
No 399
you will putting = you will be putting
The CPRS has an independent board that will advise the government on the level of assistance other Governments are providing to their industries. This is all considered in the CPRS.
I must say, I do find Glen’s avatar very amusing. Joseph Lyons, a Labor Premier, who took the leadership of the United Australia Party, a slapdash party with no proper strucutre for prolonged success, and practised keynesian economics after Labor ended up splitting due to trying to balance the budget against the forces of Lang.
Very amusing indeed
Wrong, your post says that not increasing the pension is for the purposes of protecting coal jobs, which is not what I have argued. Stop verballing me and READ what I said.
No again. The resources industry should only be protected IF other countries, particularly our trade competitors, refuse to take similar action on climate change.
You honestly are hopeless ShowsOn. Then when I revert to one line arguments you complain that nobody can take me seriously. I wonder why – everytime I bother with you people you misrepresent and distort what I say.
READ what I SAID! I summarised your three points in my previous post!
Sure, this is the standard Liberal position that trade exposed industries should receive 100% free permits, thus forcing all the change onto other sectors of the economy. This isn’t anything new.
Grab a seat and pass the popcorn…..
Mr Schultz later apologised, but in a statement released this afternoon he has attacked the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party.
“As a NSW Rural Liberal MP I addressed the Liberal Party today strenuously defending the democratic right of rural based rank and file members of the Liberal Party to put forward a Liberal Party candidate to contest a seat held by the Labor Party,” he said in the statement.
“I also expressed my disgust at the NSW Division of the Liberal Party’s indifference to its Liberal Rural/Regional support base which has made a significant contribution to the Liberal Party over many decades.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/02/2587501.htm?section=justin
But industrial evolution should be encouraged to happen faster anyway. And the modelling is that there will be plenty of new jobs in the energy sector. Energy won’t stop being needed in greater quantities than now. In short, no reason NOT to modernise the energy sector.
Sir Nicholas Stern (I thought you’d lap up the thoughts of a Knight of the Realm GP – you have read the lecture I presume?) thinks that the strategy for emissions reduction will become a powerful economic driver itself once it gets going. So regardless of what they do elsewhere, why wouldn’t we go with it?
Bob unlike yourself he ’saw the light’, we are very happy for people to change their ways and join the Right
!
Lyons is a Tory hero, he beat Labor 3 times in elections and was the first to win 3 times in a row
No, you misrepresented my arguments. I’ve already stated why, you’re intelligent enough to know exactly what I’m talking about.
Once again, you misrepresent what I’ve said. I said the resources industry should not be affected by the ETS unless our trading competitors make similar cuts. If our trade competitors do make those cuts, there is no need to protect them and they would have to participate like everybody else.
Schultz, Tuckey, Bishop, Boswell, Heffernan…
The Coalition is the party of angry old fogies, climate denialists, crackpots and cranks, and don’t think we won’t be reminding all voters under 40 of this fact.
Hey, where did you come from? Get back in your box.
LOL @ Adam/Psephos… split personalities fighting for dominance
But you conveniently ignored the rest of my points
And what did he convert from? Labor who was trying to balance the budget, to the UAP who practised keynesian economics? Well done!!! He only makes 2009 Labor look even better 
And wasn’t Hughes the first non-Labor PM to win 3 in a row?
As I said last night, the modelling is silent on where and when these new jobs are going to arise. So it is flawed in that respect.
I could not access the lecture unfortunately – it kept saying there was an error with my browser cookies.
Nevertheless, Stern is just one person. We are allowed to have different opinions. He may well be correct that, over time, cleaning up our economy will be a source of economic growth but I’m more concerned with the immediate aftermath of the scheme’s introduction and the data and commentary is much less clear. In my view, the ETS will act as a tax on business for some years until new technology is developed and so forth. Jobs will be lost, confusion will be great and adjustments will be costly. Of course and ETS is ultimately necessary but I want to see the vagaries cleared away on what will be done in the transition and nascent years of the scheme.
If you propose cutting / repealing / stopping / reversing the $32 pension increase, then by definition some of that money will be spent on whatever you want to increase spending on, which in your case would mean solar cells! Just admit it.
That is Andrew Robb’s argument! He is a member of the Liberal party! He says that industries in Australia shouldn’t have to compete against the same industries in other countries that aren’t part of trading schemes. As the industries in other countries are included in trading schemes, then they can have their free permits revoked.
With respect, you are simply restating the Liberal Party’s position at the last election, and the same thing Robb repeated on 4 Corners this year.
http://www.andrewrobb.com.au/news/default.asp?action=article&ID=473
Of course this makes me wonder why the hell Turnbull wants Australia’s system to be more like the U.S. system which DOESN’T provide 100% free permits, and provides less permits than the Government’s CPRS.
But I guess the explanation is that the Liberals have absolutely no idea what their actual position is.
No 415
Of course and ETS = Of course an ETS
Bob technically but Hughes had to resign and not be PM after the 22′ election.
We know you have huge problems with modelling, but the money comes from the fact businesses and the Government will invest money in clean technologies so they can avoid having to buy emissions permits!
The immediate aftermath is very slow. In the first year there is unlimited permits at a fixed price. In the year after that there will be the most permits which will keep the price low. It is the cost 6 – 12 years that will be harsher. Do we really need to hold energy intensive industry all the way for the next decade? They have known this is coming for at least the last half a dozen years (Costello took it to cabinet in 2002).
I get the feeling that within the conservative ranks there are a number of old bitter numbers who are looking forward to the next election so that they can see their closest enemies pass gently into the political night. How many fat dirt-files are sitting under desks, waiting for the word from the GG?
No 416
It is not exactly the same and has subtle differences. Robb wants 100% free permits given to trade exposed industries from the outset.
I’m saying that if we wait until after Copenhagen, that may not be necessary. If it emerges that all of our trade competitors, or most of them, commit to cuts, then we do not need to give free permits away to all of our industries. They can start paying from the beginning.
So therefore Lyons wasn’t the first…
Well he was the first to have 3 terms as PM
How does this differ from the Government’s position? The Government will be advised on whether or not to continue providing free permits by an independent analysis of the carbon trading or taxing regimes in other countries.
Hughes can hardly be said to have won the 1922 election, even though Labor didn’t win either. His party lost its majority, and the Country Party’s price for entering a coalition was Hughes’s removal as PM.
No 424
The Government doesn’t want to delay the legislation. I do.
No 419
Yes, I do have huge problems with the modelling, especially since is one of the biggest reforms of our economy for some years. We need more facts and definitely more investment from the government into renewable and nuclear technology.
No 427
Ugh. I keep missing words when I’m typing.
especially since is = especially since this is.
What for?
Wouldn’t our position be MORE persuasive if we rock up to Copenhagen and can say to the other delegates that Australian already HAS a carbon trading scheme legislated?
Wouldn’t that demonstrate how serious we are, and put pressure back onto other countries (such as China and India)? That seems to be what the U.S. is trying to do – get a system in place so they can strengthen their negotiating position.
Never get between a Liberal Premier and a bucket of money. In times past the Libs were believers in human rights and personal freedom. Sad, sad, sad.
http://www.vexnews.com/news/4544/lino-wa-liberal-premier-repeats-chinese-propaganda/
Depends. If you really wanted to white-ant any international agreement as much as possible so that you can continue to delay actually doing anything, then it is a perfectly consistent position.
I just saw the anti-Chinese investment advert paid for by Ian Melrose. It talks about how Hawke allowed Chinese students to receive asylum.
Question. If another Tianamen Square Massacre happened now, would the Federal Liberal party support granting asylum to Chinese students that don’t want to return to China?
No because I don’t think that Australia will be that persuasive in the overall negotiations. The US and Europe will be and they will drive the negotiations forward.
Even if there is no global agreement, Rudd has still said he will commit to 5% so the CPRS is a go any which way you look at it. The key issue is whether the rest of the world wants to tag along.
Incorrect. He died during his 3rd. Hughes had to resign during his 3rd.
Even though Indian and China constantly point to our standing of living and per capita emissions?
None of this explains why the bills can’t be passed before Copenhagen.
No 432
I’m sure the Liberal Party would support granting asylum providing that the students brought with them appropriate documentation etc.
GP’s posts about the UN show a fundamental misunderstanding of how treaty negotiations, and particularly climate change negotiations, actually work.
I’ve posted several times about the particular groupings in the UN and Australia’s role in chairing the most powerful and the influence Australia has had on previous negotiations, particularly Kyoto, but he ignores them and says “I don’t think blah blah”. This is why I won’t go into detail all over again, you can think whatever you want, but it’s wrong.
And this is still without mentioning the point ShowsOn makes frequently – Australia, as a high-emitting and very wealthy country is going to going to watched by the rest of the world, particularly the developing world. They can quite rightly say if a rich country like Australia can’t do it, why should we. We know this because they’re already saying it.
Bob, Hughes never became PM for his 3rd term as the Nationalists lost their majority and the next government was formed with Stanley Bruce as PM as Adam points out
nice try.
Anyone else watch the “Pakistan’s Taliban Generation” documentary on SBS? Completely scary stuff.
Yes. If we really want to play a game of environmental comparison, China and India lose out every time. Institutional corruption and environmental barbarism is pervasive throughout those two nations and is simply not comparable to anything in Australia. Really, their arguments are so weak as to be hilarious.
Even you admit Hughes won a third term despite having to step down. Stop backpeddling
Like liberal party membership application forms and donation cheques?
G.P. seems to think that complex international negotiations are made by waiting a really long time until everyone agrees with Australia.
The only people who give a toss about human rights in China are Labor right-wingers like Michael Danby, who might well be a minister by now if he hadn’t consistently spoken up for Taiwan, Tibet, Chinese dissidents etc. The left suck up to China because they think they’re socialists, and the right suck up to them because they’re rich.
That makes no sense at all. His party lost its majority and he had to resign. In what sense did he “win a third term”?
I saw the bit where the Taliban had destroyed 200 public schools, were forcing females to war the burqa and decided females shouldn’t be educated.
They should have smashed them in 02/03 when they had the resources.
But back to the issue which Glen so cleverly managed to avoid, the point about the type of economics practised
To reiterate:
Waiting until a few months after Copenhagen when parliament resumes in ot a “really long time”. The scheme won’t even start until 2011 anyway so the rubbish about delay is illusory and misleading.
The Nationalists contested the 1922 election with Hughes as leader, and the Nationalists retained power after the election. Hughes won the party a third term, even if he had to step down after the election.
But that’s not the issue, stop drawing attention away from Glen’s false idol
No 448
resumes in ot = resumes is not
Did you get a new keyboard or something?
After Copenhagen the denialists in the Coalition will demand a further inquiry, this time into any Government amendments that might arise from the meetings.
Further delay. All the while the Coalition will be let off the hook of having a solid position.
After Copenhagen the denialists in the Coalition will demand a further inquiry, this time into any Government amendments that might arise from the meetings.
Further delay. All the while the Coalition will be let off the hook of having a solid position.
The Nationalists had to *share* power after the election, and they had to ditch Hughes in order to do so. You can say that the Nationalists won a third term, in a sense, but you can’t say Hughes did. Going from PM to backbencher is a strange way of “winning”.
We would just have a better bargaining position to get other countries to do more if we had the legislation in the bag.
If other countries then went further, it would be a simple regulation to make our targets higher.
No 451
I actually injured my hand over the weekend and my touch typing ability has been affected, as you can see by the several errors I’ve had to correct. My apologies.
Psephos,
Yeah, yeah.
However, Australia’s record on human rights and accepting refugees is, on balance, something of credit to us as a nation.
The major blot to me is Howard and the boat people. It has spawned an acceptance of wilful indifference to people in desperate situations.
We’re a nation built on immigration. I really don’t accept the antipathy to the next family off the boat.
People aren’t wilfully indifferent to people in desperate situations. They’re wilfully indifferent to illegal immigrants. In any event, most of the people who were processed from the Tampa were granted asylum anyway. The point is that there must be formal processes in place and people smugglers cannot be allowed to think Australia has an open slather immigration policy.
GG, yeah yeah. It’s too late at night to have the “Tampa argument” again. You know what I think and I know what you think.
If Australia had an “open slather” immigration policy there would be no need for people smugglers.
Psephos,
OK B2.
Cheers.
Thank you for admitting that the Pacific solution was a big waste of half a billion dollars.
On the topic of China and human rights, I think The Greens and the Nats voted for a motion to block the sale in the Senate. The Greens because of human rights and the Nationals because whatever populist crap excuse they had.
Not 100% sure if there was a vote but they definitely vocalised that issue.
No, it wasn’t a waste.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8078562.stm
I imagine Xenophon supported it too.
But in the Xenophon / Barnaby advert, do they mention human rights? I don’t think they do, don’t they basically say that the Government of another country shouldn’t own a natural resource in Australia? So isn’t that an economic / national security argument, NOT a human rights argument?
I think the human rights argument is more persuasive.
Oz, yes I should have said that the Greens have also been consistent on China. It’s about the only subject Brown and Danby agree on!
No 466
I think the economic argument is more persuasive to most average people. I can’t see a logical reason for allowing the Chinese Government to own Australia’s mines.
Yeah, Xenophon and Nats on economic arguments. Greens on human rights.
Well the fact that successive governments have been ignoring China’s human rights abuses and focussing entirely on the economic boon they bring is probably part of the reason most people don’t think about it.
Unless you are a protectionist or an economic nationalist (like Joyce), you have to show a logical reason why a Chinese company should *not* be allowed to own an Australian mine. You don’t have to give a reason why you should be allowed to buy a doughnut.
This probably summarises our differences perfectly. I think in this situation that human rights are more important than economics.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2587463.htm
I think it is an opportunity for the Government to be creative.
Yes they can buy the stake, but every year there will need to be a meeting between the Chinese and Australian foreign ministers to discuss human rights.
And we all know whose fault that is.
/me points at the Tofu collective
Even with that organisation, the Government still needed 2 votes, and we now know that Fielding is a climate change denier.
So that brings it back to the Liberals again.
If the Chinese company wasn’t just an investment body of the Chinese Government, I wouldn’t be mounting an opposing argument.
The fact of the matter is that a communist dictatorship should have no pecuniary interest in our resources.
What are they going to do, build a tunnel from the mine to Beijing and use it to invade Australia? China has been a capitalist country for 30 years. It’s a commercial enterprise making a commercial investment.
and all it needs is a couple of Pro-ETS Lbs to cross the floor
Pffft…
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/fitzgibbon-didnt-declare-hotel-stay-20090602-budg.html
So Julie Bishop did know something today in QT.
Good timing Dario, JF on in the House on Lateline tonight explaining.
Dario,
It’s called ‘flogging a dead horse”. The only thing of interest that can come out of this story is if the reporters named their source.
Now that would be entertaining.
Someone is clearly out to get him, but it’s just so small fry
Andrew Robb is terrible.
He’s been given a huge free kick and the best he can come up with is “He’s not a… parliamentary secretary for…. paper… shuffling. He’s the minister for defence”.
No 480
Whilst the oversight is so tiny, Fitzgibbon is an absolute dunce and should be replaced with someone with more competence, like Combet.
GP,
Why?
How high do you set the mark for participation in the electoral process?
If you want perfection, there is only William.
Won’t happen.
No 478
China is still run by a communist dictatorship, irrespective of the capitalist facade.
Why is Joel a dunce Glen?
G.P. wrote that.
Sorry… replace Glen with GP
GP,
This may or not be true.
What do you recommend anyone do about it?
Cut off all commercial ties?
Give us something other than rhetoric.
China is a dictatorship run by people who call themselves communists, and who may even believe they are communists, for all I know. They preside over the most unrestrained capitalist economy in the world, almost completely unfettered by either the state or social forces such as trade unions or a free press. Chinese companies invest abroad to make money and for no other reason.
GP, what about the PAP dictatorship in Singapore. Its Govt owned investment houses, eg: Temasek, or Corporation, eg: Singtel, are making and buying plenty of investments in Australia.
What do you say to that or maybe your are still your nappy to understand what PAP dictatorship is.
Dateline had a very sad story about unemployed people in China:
http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/600051/n/The-China-Syndrome
Basically some people have made a business out of job applications. Job seekers must pay a fee just to apply for a job, so some people list bogus jobs at agencies just to make money.
Psephos,
AS opposed to the United States which:
“is a democracy run by people who call themselves democrats, and who may even believe they are democrats for all I know. They preside over the most unrestrained capitalist economy in the world, almost completely unfettered by either the state or social forces such as trade unions or a free press. US companies invest abroad to make money and for no other reason”.
Here’s some good reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_reform_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_Chinese_characteristics
Tonight on Lateline, Tony Jones hosts a special episode of Air Crash Investigators!
Herr Doktor, we have agreement again.
communists = money-makers = most of them dont even know what communism means anymore
Saying that the U.S. doesn’t have a free press is just bizarre.
Saying it doesn’t have unions makes no sense 1 day after the United Auto Workers union took ownership of 15% of General Motors.
What about the Cuban variety? They seem to know what Communism means, hence Cuba is such a derelict country.
they still make the best cigar variety.
GP, how did you injure your hand on the weekend?
Please be honest HA HA
The government will start selling up to 20,000 tonnes of uranium per year to China starting next year and dont Howard and Downer look pleased as they seal the deal.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/03/content_558558.htm
Come what may tomorrow with the Nat Acct Num, Australia will emerge with the best economy of the developed world.
The economy will always be the best under Labor.
No 495
I was similarly opposed to the idea that the Singapore Government having control over the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure via a FTTN network. Now that is disbanded, I no longer have such concerns.
Still Finns we’ll have a $300b in debt with no plan to pay it off…
No 506
It was better under the Coalition and $300 billion less in debt.
Glen,
Boring trolling.
#507, Singapore Government still controls Optus via Singtel and Optus still handles a fair bit of top security communication traffics.
No 510
GG, PB is a trollathon.
No 511
Yes but Telstra is overwhelmingly the national carrier with lines into nearly every premises in the country. The Optus proposal threatened to essentially confiscate Telstra’s copper network which was thankfully rejected by the NBN panel.
But you support Singtel, through its wholly owned subsiduary Optus, being the 2nd largest telco company in Australia?
Correction. There was already $58.5 billion worth of debt. Saying there was $300 billion less is wrong.
We do have a plan to pay it off, we will use the surpluses when the economy is growing again to pay it of, other than selling off Telstra, that’s the same way the coalition paid off last recession induced debt.
Yeah, copper, which will be useless when we have a NBN!
The High Court has ruled repeatedly that Telstra must make its copper available to other companies.
It is the second largest, but miles behind Telstra in terms of asset base and revenue share.
GP,
I know you are fixated with debt. Can you call up the the proportions from Menzies’ time. Apparently, some bloggards are saying that Our Bob, (Who art in heaven) ran a higher debt.
Can you tell whether that’s true?
If it’s confirmed tomorrow that Australia isn’t officially in recession, will Generic Person and Glen eat humble pie?
I said before that the punters are more sophisticated and discerning than your tory dills. they understand what debt is.
Average mortgage in OZ: $300,000.00
Average OZ income per capita: $40,000.00
Average years to pay off the debt: 30 years
OZ Govt debt: $300B, 13.7% of GDP.
Payoff time, estimated: 12 years.
So are you saying that you will cap Optus so it can’t exceed a certain level of investment?
If the previous government let Air New Zealand invest in Australian Airlines it wouldn’t of folded.
Yes, but the Optus proposal wasn’t just about access, which is the principal issue decided in the High Court case, it was about compulsorily acquiring Telstra’s property. Telstra would have lost all control of its last mile network under the Optus FTTN proposal.
No 518
No.
The first time Menzies was P.M. debt to GDP was around 80%! And yet G.P. complains about 13.4%.
This is completely absurd and just wrong. Telstra constantly loses High Court cases concerning access to its exchanges and copper network. Unlike you, the High Court understands that the phone network is a PUBLIC GOOD that Telstra can not legally monopolise.
No, they will eat their own vomit.
No 523
What happened 50 years ago is irrelevant. The comparison that is relevant is the numbers under the previous Government, which were surpluses of 1 to 1.5% of GDP for several years, debt-free and sound finances for the foreseeable future.
The first sentence is true. The second sentence is quite untrue – the US isn’t a social democracy (although I think it may be about to become one), but it has free trade unions, a free press, free NGOs and a great deal of state interference in the free market, not all of it desirable. The third sentence is true.
As Tim Colebatch patiently explained today, there’s no “official” definition of recession. And in fact the “two consecutive quarters of negative growth” definition can be quite pointless.
GP,
A thing callled the GFC. It’s been in the papers.
If the Howard government was still in power, would they have a run surplus?
What services would they have cut to plug the revenue shortfall?
No 524
ShowsOn, have you read the most recent High Court case on the matter? I think not.
The issue in the case was whether the statutory access regime amounted to a compulsory acquisition of Telstra’s property. The High Court unanimously ruled that it was not.
However, Optus’ FTTN proposal was not seeking access under the regime, it was proposing a full-cutover of all of Telstra’s copper wires to the new network, effectively compromising the integrity of Telstra’s network whilst also seizing all control from Telstra, all for a nominal fee of $5-$15 a month per line. It’s a fundamentally different scenario to the one countenanced by the High Court when it last considered the issue.
You just asserted this with no reasoning whatsoever, so I can safely ignore this.
In 1996 when the previous government was elected the economy was growing, because Australia was coming out of a world recession. A fair comparison should compare the levels of debt now with the 1991 recession, or the 1982 recession. Our level of debt will be comparable to what it was during those recessions. It is likely to be a bit less than the last recession, but a bit more than the one before that.
I note again you pretended that the last government was “debt free”, but this is wrong, the Government issued nearly $60 billion worth of bonds.
No 530
According to the most recent Howard interview, the Coalition would have run a modest deficit and not accrued as much debt.
And a mining boom with revenue flooding the coffers. But you fail to mention this because your Liberal MPs dont. I think you just say it to troll, because it’s quite frankly scary if you actually believe otherwise.
No 532
By debt-free, I mean zero net debt.
I still can’t see us avoiding one, but never say never I guess
Yeah, only $25b less, so a projected $275b, most of which is due to a loss of revenue anyway.
Irrelevant. The Government’s NBN plan completely bypasses Telstra’s network. Telstra can go hang.
No 534
What’s “quite frankly scary” is your support for a party whose economic policy is non-existent and job-killing.
GP,
He’s lying, again.
Agree. as indicated by the CURRENT Shadow Treasurer – $25B less.
How?
Here’s an Oz interview:
Tony Jones: Oz, would you run a surplus even though there’s been a GFC?
Oz: Yes Tony, I would.
Tony Jones: How? Surely only people like GP would be stupid enough to believe you just because you say it.
What happened 50 years ago is irrelevant……….so why do the libs bring up Gough all the time?
I don’t think there’s much doubt that we will get a negative growth figure tomorrow. If we get a positive figure, Rudd will have to deny officially that he can walk across Lake Burley Griffin and turn water into wine. We will be able to package and sell the Rudd Formula to foreign governments for large sums of money. Even a negative figure less than 1.0% will be quite an achievement in the circs.
“Negative growth will always be less negative under a Labor government.”
Nurse says I must go to bed now…
No 538
Well of course the issue irrelevant now, but the primary reason for the Government choosing FTTH is precisely due to the compulsory acquisition issue I raised.
And for the record, it would have been cheaper to renationalise Telstra for the idiotic amount of money they are spending on national fibre.
Thank you for finally making that distinction, which completely invalidates your comment at 509.
Well it would be hilarious for the opposition if we never have 2 CONSECUTIVE negative quarters. They’ll have to start using a new definition of recession.
Which means more people would end up unemployed.
The Government doesn’t run the economy thus it’s stupid to assert that it would have a material impact on employment figures.
Who wants to nationalise a telco company that doesn’t have a fibre to the home network?
But I appreciate that you have implicitly stated that privatising telstra, without the government owning the copper network, was wrong.
I’ve read some budget documents that says you are wrong. The whole point of government expenditure during a recession is because the private economy isn’t investing! Howard conceded this by saying that the Government should run a deficit.
So the government isn’t to blame for job losses then? Thanks GP… I will be referring you back to this post frequently I feel
Ah, Showson @549,
making 1 + 1 equal whatever he wants.
Should have been an Accountant.
Like a good thriller, tomorrow GDP will be + (-) 0%
And even cheaper to get Telstra offering itself so it can remain relevant
316
I was not asking for proof that My local MP had hid those figures from Howard but that Swan is not hiding the same figures from Rudd.
I made no such statement, implicitly or otherwise.
What? So you think the budget documents are wrong where they predict 200,000 people will remain employed thanks to Government spending?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25465488-5017014,00.html
So far I have heard estimates of -0.2, 0, and +0.2.
A few days ago all the estimates were negative, one was -0.6.
Yes you did, you said it would be cheaper just to renationalise Telstra, I presume to create an NBN. If you didn’t mean to create an NBN, then that comment was just irrelevant.
I said that, but I did not say that the Government should have privatised Telstra whilst retaining ownership over the copper network.
Great, so it was just an irrelevant comment that bares no relation to building a state of the art fibre to the home network. Buying back Telstra would be completely pointless, and wouldn’t achieve a truly national network.
GP,
I always disagree with your views and politics but I cannot stand Showson’s persistent verballing of you.
Stand your ground.
The coalition line on debt is rediculus. If they were in power then i would go as far as to say we would be in more debt if not in the short then the medium term.
Governments make their money through TAXES and if people LOSE their JOBS they STOP paying TAXES and whats more collect WELFARE. The government has prevented the loss of jobs in the construction and retail sector.
It is harder and takes much longer to help people regain jobs than to prevent them lose them in the first place and the economy will grow faster as George megalogenis pointed out on insiders a few weeks ago.
OK
I always disagree with your views and politics but I cannot stand Showson’s persistent verballing of you.]
Delicate
Petal
Second try:
OK
Delicate
Petal
I agree with you. They would’ve used smaller stimulus packages initially, which would’ve meant a smaller deficit in the budget just made. But then the smaller stimulus would’ve resulted in higher unemployment in the longer term, which as you pointed out, means more unemployment payments and lower income tax revenue. Therefore, a bigger deficit and debt in the longer term. The fact the Government put forward two stimulus packages, one in December, and another in April, with infrastructure projects for the next three years was a very good strategy. They got in early, whereas in Megalogenis points out that the stimulus spending during the last recession was far too late by 6 – 12 months.
No 559
The comment wasn’t irrelevant at all. The Government is currently asking industry players to sell their assets to the Government for an equity interest in the NBN and thus, hoping to reduce the cost of the fibre network.
ShowsOn you are clearly out of your league on telecommunications.
No 560
If you want to know why I use throwaway one-liners more than substantive argument – it’s the verballing and misrepresentation. Simple as that.
You neatly failed to point out that the government wants FIBRE OPTIC assets which will form part of the FIBRE network!
Earlier tonight you were lecturing people here about not making debates personal!? What changed in the last few hours?
I’ll just point out that you are out of your league on EVER issue!
When you do finally explain your position there often isn’t a lot of substance behind it, such as your ‘explanation’ of why you think treasury projections are wrong.
Showson,
Always the derivative. How do you live with yourself being so, so …….can’t be bothered finishing the sentence.
What? I didn’t realise it is my job to motivate you. But here goes…
FIRE UP G.G.! Tomorrow is the FIRST day of the REST of your LIFE!
No 568
I explained it to you but as usual you dismiss by saying that the Treasury is right and the IMF is wrong as if there is no absolutely no doubt in the matter.
And then you have the gall to accuse me of black and white arguments. You are insufferable exponent of such arguments more than anybody else that I’ve had the displeasure of engaging with.
No, I pointed out that the difference is in the estimation of economic recovery in China. I have provided some evidence in the form of China’s manufacturing data to show that the Treasury’s more optimistic projection is likely to be more accurate than the IMF’s more pessimistic projection.
But of course, you just conveniently ignored that, because it doesn’t suit your argument.
No 572
ShowsOn, all you’re arguing is that the Treasury’s projection may be more accurate, in the same way that I’m entitled to rely on contradicting evidence from the IMF.
You say you don’t think the Treasury is above criticism, but you certainly won’t entertain any criticism of it. Which is it.
WE’RE DOOMED..
http://www.theage.com.au/national/surge-in-exports-boosts-economy-20090602-bubu.html
ok maybe not then..
AWESOME!
EVERYONE, KEEP THIS TO REMIND GP!!!
Well you have been an active lot today – 500 posts in a day! Some of us have to work…
Economically I think there were two critical bullets the government dodged today, and its chances of going to the next election in good shape are rapidly improving.
First the foreign trade and housing figures show we may (just) avoid recession (technically). Whether that is true or not is beside the point – the mere fact that its even close shows we are miles ahead of all other OECD nations, and shows the government’s economic strategy is doing very well. Second, the details of the GM bankruptcy have been announced and it looks like GM Holden will survive. That is a relief – I thought it was at high risk. This is a major benefit for Adelaide and Melbourne.
Overall I am not suggesting the economy is in the clear, but it is clearly starting to get better – the economy is at least stable, and some sectors (mining and housing) are growing again. China is recovering, and that is great news for us. The next few months will see the worst over and after that things should improve further, and fairly rapidly. Tax cuts will kick in, housing continue, and the larger infrastructure projects will start getting going. Unemployment may go over 6% but if it stops rising below 7% that is still nowhere near as bad as previous recessions in the 80s and 90s. It is also far better than almost every country in Europe and North America.
If Turnbull still thinks Rudd and Swan have handled things badly, tell him to move to Iceland. He has squandered any political cedibility attacking measures that were needed in the national interest and that have, as it is turning out, worked well and fairly quickly.
This period (first half of 2009) should have been Turnbull’s best chance to attack the government, who were vulnerable due to external factors and the necessity of introducing some unpopular measures. But he has blown it. From here on it will get harder for Turnbull, because the very measures he opposed will be seen to begin to work and generate jobs. Meanwhile Rudd and Swan will be shown to have done their jobs correctly, without any bipartisan support at all. I think the next election will be a massacre.
oh and Aussie dollar is going gangbusters.
http://business.theage.com.au/business/recovery-hopes-drive-surge-in-aussie-20090602-budk.html
#575
permalinked and bookmarked
remember back in November when $AUS was reaching parity with the $US. Really good for ebay bargain hunting.
For our daddy of PB, a special song for Showson,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8KQ6TLsQDA
No 579
I think you mean August, not November.
Just weighing for the China debate. While I by no means regard China as the best country in this world, or the communist government as the best one can have, I do hope people realise that hardly anything related to China is as clear/black and white as some here tend to believe/think. I do sometimes detect a MASSIVE gap between how an ordinary Aussie and an ordinary Chinese look at the same event. I feel that people too readily equate dictatorship with evilness (and China isn’t governed by a dictatorial regime. Authoritarian is probably a more appropriate description). Tibet with Shangri la and dissedents with saints. Let me just say, it is not that simple at all.
I came across an interesting article today by an academic familiar with Chinese affairs. She described the shock and disbelief of a experienced reporter when she told him that most chinese students in Australia were offended by the negative report about Tibet riot and Olympic torch rally incidence in Paris last year. The reporter asked if the academic included “moderate” student, not knowing compared to the response in China, what was seen in Australia can only be described as mild. 20 years ago the students demonstrated against corruption and social inequality. 20 years later the same demographic group was nearly in riot against what they preceived as a different type of inequality and bias-that displayed by the “western media”, which sadly reflects how ordinary people in the “western world” regards China.
Finally, some comment about the advertisment. A, China is not a military dictatorship, no one in the top echelon of the party or the government (except defence) has a military background. B, The Chinese translation was not done by some one who is fluent in Chinese, as some of the translation was off (an outdated phrase restricted to royal approval was used to translate “Hawke granted visa”) C, the reference about Kevin Rudd sucking to Chinese government is amusing. Surely he ordered a complete revamp of RAN, just to fight asylum seekers?
Camden Islamic School rejected:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/sydney-islamic-school-rejected-20090602-btfo.html
Too slow. Catch up.
*weighing in AND sucking up.
GP I’m going to repost what I wrote yesterday coz you might have missed it and I want your view and you do seem to respond often enough.
Earlier today you wrote:
Sure, of course, but I must remind you that these debates are raging the world over; You don’t want to do anything until foreigners act and those foreigners feel the same way, if you follow your logic and they follow it too then nothing will happen.
Coal mining is for dinosaurs. This is the 21st C – get with the times. In the old days there was the iceman, the night-man and the milkman. They are gone and with any luck in 50 years time so too will the coal miner and the coal-corporation-fat-cat. Why blow against the winds of progress? No need to suck up to a terminally ill industry, they may be powerful now but they are obsolete and will whither away and die. I dare say the iceman industry disliked fridges (unless they had a stake $$$) but we now see any iceman lobby as pathetic. It is in the long-term economic, social and ecological best interest of Australia to get the heck away from coal ASAP! The longer we wait, the more it will cost. You think renewable energy looks expensive: Just try forking over the bill for a flooded out NY, Beijing, etc, all the Agricultural production permanently shattered. Renewable energy is a bargain by comparison. The system is so blatantly flawed so why drag our heels?
I read in a link that QLD had the world’s first ever parliamentary elected socialist government. Impressive! Were there any non-parliamentary socialist governments before then? That is, governments that used the word “socialist”?
I read in a link that QLD had the world’s first ever parliamentary elected socialist government. Impressive! Were there any non-parliamentary socialist governments before then? That is, governments that used the word “socialist”?
The Australian Sex Party has some interesting policies. Sex is a broad topic. I saw an ASP bumper-sticker on the back of a car once. They’ll go okay. With a name like that they’ll get 0.5% of the vote and if they preference the Greens and by running only lower the Greens vote by 0.2% then I’m happy. What Women Want were great in that respect, I hope they run again. Its good to have a loyal preferencing machine.
So the DLP never really existed during any federal ALP government but did they ever hold the BOP at the state level during any state ALP governments?
PS – If so, how were the DLP’s relations with the ALP government?
Psephos
The US trade unions are pretty weak aren’t they? Even weaker than the Aussie ones.
Chomsky (”sigh – Molotov is posting about Chomsky! What an Anarcho-Fruitloop”) often writes about institutionalized self-cencership. For example, when during election campaigns the media discuss unimportant rubbish about candidate personality instead of policy, then this means that the media is not doing its job. During the last election some tv stations would have whole segments on the campaign and not mention ideology, policy or platforms once! The US government isn’t censoring because they dont have to: The Iraq corespondends are imbeded and indoctrinated and the media is constantly raming pro-business propoganda and mixing journalism with advertizing. Maybe if Hugo Chavez became a majority share-holder in NBC, FOX, etc this would change and censorship would come in.
No 586
Heyson, part of the reason why they have “far far less” per capita emissions is because India and China have a cumulative population of more than 2 billion people.
The per capita argument is pointless and nonsensical.
Generic Person
I would argue that each person should be allowed to emit equally, therefore larger countries can emit more and smaller countries less. Are you argueing that each COUNTRY should be allowed to emit the same amount? In which case the US should spit up. You have previously said that the environment doesn’t care about national borders. That is true, but bearing that in mind, shouldn’t that lead to the conclusion that nationalism should be side-lined. In which case we must look at the people.
Ug, its late and I’m not being too articulate anymore, do you understand what point I’m trying to make?
They weren’t elected. They were formed because the ministerialist government collapsed. They were so shocked at a socialist government forming that they patched up their differences and were back in government in a week.
And it was in 1899. Federal is where it’s at. Chris Watson was the first head of a national Labour government anywhere in the world in 1904. Andrew Fisher and Labor in 1910 saw Australia’s first federal majority government, Australia’s first Senate majority, and the world’s first Labour Party majority government at a national level.
I think it’s a factual certainty that larger countries will emit more than small ones, which means they have much more work to do.
Oops I missed the obvious retort. Total population has no significant effect on per capita anything, thats exactly why we use this measure!
The population of China is roughly 62X larger than the population of Australia yet China’s emissions are less than 62X larger than the emissions of Australia. Therefore the average Joe-blow Aussy/Corporate Executive is comparitevly more responsible for the problem than the average Chinese peasant/Urban Fat-Cat.
To put it another way, if we compaire Australia to a province in China of roughly the same population size then the emissions here will be higher than it would be there. The Governor could complain on your logic that its all Australia’s fault coz their emissions are higher and our province is just a small player on the international stage anyway (if we forget for a second that its not soveriegn), theirfore we can blame it all on Australia and do very little constructive in our province.
(NOTE: for the example to work it has to be like the Eden-Monaro of China – not too urban or country, demographically diverse as an example of the country as a whole)
So what was the first elected government to call itself “socialist” at both Federal or State/Provincial level anywhere in the world? And what was the first unelected government to call itself socialist (which lasted six months or more)- the USSR?
No 599
Heyson, but per capita emissions don’t reveal the whole story on China’s disastrous environmental record. It is frankly terrible.
Here i’d guess.
http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080529b.htm
We are all Socialists now and indeed the only qualification you hear from anybody is probably that he is “not an extreme socialist”. I do not think that the ideas of the originators have altered one jot.
- Andrew Fisher, 1908.
Generic Person
This is a bit of a non-answer but it does add weight to my theory that you think each country should be allowed to emit the same amount. I don’t really understand what you mean by larger countries having more work to do. I guess they’ll always have more TOTAL work to do because they’re larger but I’m talking proportionality again (which we need in the HofR too!).
So apart from that 1 week in QLD did the ALP first come to power at the federal level? That seams a bit hard to believe – baby steps.
Generic Person
I’m not talking about the 3 gorges damn or Mao’s sparrow kull – they are different issues. Please try to defend yourself rather than distract me.
The first Labor head of government was federal, Chris Watson. State-wise, Labor was part of coalitions with liberal MPs as opposed to conservative MPs (yes, LIBERAL MPs, not these faux Liberal MPs of today which are really conservatives), but was the junior party in the coalition. The head of these coalition governments were Liberals.
http://www.eurekacouncil.com.au/Australia-History/History-Pages/1889-Labor-Party_history.htm
And then you have the non-Labor side of politics that prior to Howard believed in keynesianism and deficit economics, and now blast Labor for practicing it during the worst recession in 75 years. No wonder the Liberals only ever look to Howard as a good Liberal PM. Rudd would make Menzies blush.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/moore-urges-action-on-child-sex-crimes-20090603-bukn.html
Take note GG
GP, it’s because you don’t have any substantive arguments, or if you do, are unable to present them in a logical and consistent manner. You use your thowaway one liners like a rope, and often trip yourself on them.
While Showson does seem overbearing at times, I think this stems from frustration. It is really hard to discuss anything with someone who just throws the lib phrase book at you without substantiating anything.
GP is standing on very shaky ground. The reason he can’t stand his ground is because he is constantly struggling to stay on his feet.
The wailing and gnashing of teeth among “economists” today on the subject of whether we might dodge a recession is palpable. The possibility that they might be deprived of their second quarter of negative growth has them claiming “We’re in a recession anyway. It’s obvious. Only the figures dispute that, or they’re wrong. Take your pick.” Well, I always thought it was “the figures” that defined a recession, but I’m just an ignorant member of the public.
Like punters allowed to place bets after the race starts, the gang of over-paid tossers who call themselves “economists’” confident assertions – up until just yesterday – that today’s figures would prove we are economically doomed to recession are now being hurridley revised from a “certainty” into “maybe”.
These turkeys who arrogate to themselves the right to criticise the government’s every little step in fighting the onset of a recession, yet who also demand they be allowed to change their predictions so late in the game, have made fools of themselves in the process. Whether today’s figures are negative or positive, the rush to place each-way bets, even today, at this late stage, exposes them to ridicule, equal in proportion to the ridicule they dish out to anyone who dares to disagree with their ever-reversing prognostications. In short, we have seen repeated examples of the incontrovertible fact that no bastard knows anything about the economy, but it is only one set of bastards who have to actually do something to fend off the worst, get off the fence and try to find a way out: and that is Kevin Rudd’s government. As for the rest, they just change the rules, even the very definition of “recession” to suit the wrong-headed prophecies of their previous columns.
We had the same phenomenon with the poll results. Month after month, as far back as 2006 we were told that Labor was tanking in the polls, when in fact they were ahead twice as often as they were behind. After August 2006 Labor has never been behind in any poll, yet we’re still hearing about “the narrowing”. We’re still watching the spectacle of chicken entrail mashing as they try to find something, anything good for Turnbull. Forget the primary vote. Forget the 2pp vote. Forget PPM figure. Now it seems the only thing we need to take note of is the “Job Approval” number, which tells us that after being in negative territory for so long Malcolm Turnbull, Mr. 24% PPM, has finally managed to claw his way to the triumphant position of having precisely ZERO nett approval, and that extends only as far as him being Leader of the Opposition. To me that says the nation’s divided on whether he even makes a good Opposition front man, and it is certain that he’d make a lousy Prime Minister. But what do I know? I’m just a poster on a lefty blog (sorry William).
So, I have a question for the economic savants out there among you PB-ers. Your guess is as good as anyone else’s, as today’s pathetic scramble to get on the “maybe” boat plainly reveals.
If things don’t go as badly as predicted for our economy, is there a chance that the “$300 b…b…billion” borrowing figure might not be needed after all? If things start to go on the uptick quicker than has been predicted by the government, might they get out of having to borrow the full amount? And if so, where does this leave Turnbull and his merchants of gloom?
This morning ABC Radio AM program managed to go through the whole program without mentioning the GDP National Acct story. Surely, this is THE only story of the day. What is the matter with ABC these days? I want my 8c back.
Even Skynews AM Agenda is carrying it as its main story.
BB, good post. i bet you if the GDP No. is looking really bad, like -1% to -2%. ABC and the rest would be screaming their head off to say that the Rudd Govt has really farq it up big time.
Nothings changed Finns, it does not highlight news that would be seen to be praising labor. It was cowered into submission and has yet to rediscover independent reporting.
Polyquats,
You have a kinder interpretation of Showsons incessant bullying than me.
I dont mind overbearing if he has substantial to post everytime. he seems to have opinion and knowledge about everything and anything.
Confucius once said: “Those who expressed opinion on everything are just passing the wind”. Btw, this line inspired Bob Dylan to pen his immortal line:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ced8o50G9kg
BB 611
I don’t think it is genuine economists who are criticising. The government is handling the economy very well at present IMO and others are saying the same. Most of the critics are politicians or business figures speaking from an self interest viewpoint, or financial commentators who don’t have any qualifications in economics anyway. There was a good article by Ross Gittins again in the SMH today criticising Turnbull’s debt scare campaign. The only genuine criticism is that Rudd is going to have to do more with tax rises after the GFC blows over but that can wait till after the next election.
Excellent piece BB. They other thing annoying me is the oppossition claiming that government debt = personal debt ie. every single person will owe $9000 each. I would be saying how much tax do you pay Turnbull or Hockey? $100, 000 a year? more? well you can pay for ten people each. It is all boloney
castle @ 610,
?
BB, the rolled-gold obfuscation from the opposition on this point is staggering. The need for the 300 billion is off the back of 10-15 years of government policy which has instituted a raft of policies which cost $. You can’t just dump them when government revenues tank.
The Treasury have already factored in an ambitious recovery but if the economy bounced back even more quickly, of course the debt would be less. But I doubt that the opposition would feel humbled.
Everyone has very short memories in politics, it seems. I remember when not so long ago we heard both from opposition benches and the MSM that ‘there will be no global agreement on climate change’ and ‘the White House will never implement a cap-and-trade’ and that ‘the US Senate would never pass any carbon reduction legislation’. Now these things are almost certain but I do not hear any journalist taking the opposition to task or even issuing any note of surprise.
So the answer is, yes it’s possible that our debt will not reach $300 billion, but don’t expect that it will have any real impact on the opposition’s credibility.
Sorry just have to share this quote from Australian Coal Association chief executive Ralph Hillman in the Oz today;
Mr Hillman said the only way the scheme would pass was “if we get a bipartisan agreement between the Government and the Coalition, otherwise the whole thing gets pulled apart again after an election when Labor loses and no one in industry wants that”.
Seems the Coal lobby are not convinced by the polls – or maybe, buried deep underground, they can see the ‘narrowing’ emerging.
BB
Regarding your question, if the economy recovers faster than predicted then tax (i.e. govenrment revenue) will also recover faster than rojected. So yes, of course the final debt would then be less than $300 billion and the net debt will be less than the $200 billion forecast.
Another point too on debt – the foreign (private) debt as opposed to Australian government debt massively increased under Howard, to over $600 billion, compared with the $95 billion inherited from Keating. The latest trade figures suggest our deficit is reducing. It was this foreign debt figure ($95B) that the Liberals sent around the nation on their debt truck before the 1996 election, not the national debt. So Rudd and Swan should point out that they are already starting to pay back the real debt average Australians owe – the foreign debt of $600 billion, over $500B of which was created under Howard and Costello. Private debt, mainly from banks, is dangerous if too large – that was the kind of debt that sank the Iceland economy.
oh dear ….. British expenses scandal on both sides of the aisle has claimed the Home Secretary as she’s claimed expenses for his husbands “adult movie” rentals
…..
Brown is reshuffling his cabinet within days ….
When do the GDP figures get released?
11:30AM.
Time to promote the next generation I think.
ltep, between Brown in England and Rees in NSW, whom do you think is more likely to go down at their next elections?
and AIC, you are the election expert, if Rudd goes on schedule and not a DD, who is due first? Brown or Rudd?
I think both Brown and Rees are goners next election. Rees has a bit more of a chance at winning.
As for your second question. I believe Brown is due earlier. I think he has to have his before or around June. Rudd can’t have his (I think) until July at the earliest without throwing the 2 houses out of synch.
Good comment from BB earlier – neighbour said almost the same thing yesterday which surprised me.
Hockey was on radio this a.m. with Albanese. Steve Price introduced Hockey as “The Showman” and Joe lived up to it. For the first time I could hear Price becoming exasperated with Hockey’s mantra about how good the Libs were without once mentioning the Mining Boom or the GFC. Hockey was tonguetied for once.
So, BB and my neighbour may be right – the next budget may show the deficit will be smaller. Wouldn’t that hurr the Libs.
Juliem – I kinda like Nathan Rees but nothing Labor does in NSW (even if it is good) is written up in the media without it being vitriolic. They won’t win the next election at this rate.
BH, I feel sorry for every one who does vote ALP, straight up or preferenced, if Barry gets in
…… that having been said, how much influence will the nutcakes in the Libs NSW right wing have in a Lib admin there?
OMG! Bob Katter just said “I’m not a skeptic, I’m anti-climate change!”
Now he has turned his speech into a rant against free trade.
My GDP prediction: -0.2%
Too funny to not post:
[.... Nationals senator Ron Boswell complained [in yesterday's joint party meeting] that he had never consented during any party room meeting to support a trading scheme.
Mr Turnbull shot back by asking Senator Boswell rhetorically where he was before the last election when the Coalition, then in government, promised to introduce an emissions trading scheme as policy.
Senator Boswell protested that he “probably was” present at the time but “I just didn’t understand it”, sources said.]
What a perfect summary of Senator Boswell’s career!
Why does Bob Katter always say “thousand million” instead of “billion”?
Juliem – I’ll be very sorry to see the Libs in power here. They were awful in so many area the last couple of times but it is hidden much more by the media than when Labor are in.
The Christian right will have a lot of say – they have already manipulated their preselections (including Federal – e.g. Scott Morrison).
Expect to see the injection rooms gone, anti-abortion will be heading the list and O’Farrell will be rolled often. It will be great fun – NOT.
Poor Bob Katter – like Barnaby – straight outa the “Joe BjelkeP” gene school.
Add Boswell to the JBP gene school.
Anyone who watched the recent Senate climate policy hearings will already know that Boswell just doesn’t understand the whole issue. He is a man of limited ability and very limited knowledge, and what ability he once had has been dimmed by age and ill-health. Someone should have insisted he retire in 2007.
Apparently he gave an undertaking to the party that he would retire part-way through his term. He said that he needed to stay on the ticket for his ‘personal vote’, which surely was an idiotic argument.
I don’t see him voluntarily leaving.
I strongly doubt that abortion will ever become an issue in Australia like it is in the U.S. We had that debate in the early 1970s, and since then it has been over.
I do think we should have Federal laws though so that everyone is treated equally irrespective of where they live.
Well yesterday he was talking like a Labor MP to the Award modernisation bill. As Psephos says, his views are basically QLD Labor circa 1950.
I despise NSW Labor and NSW Liberals but Labor is going to have to come up with something better besides “Beware the evil Christians!”. Especially with Barry, remarkably, coming up with the odd bit of decent policy.
Well I say “coming up with”, everything he’s announced lately has been a blatant rip-off of Greens policy, but I don’t care who does it as long as it gets done.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/03/2587669.htm?section=justin
But not Labor politicians, apparently, whose outbursts are never excusable.
Kelvin Thompson just said that Australia’s CO2-e emissions in 2008 were 1.1% higher than in 2007.
You been following the Queensland stories at all?
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25578293-3102,00.html
Probably won’t be as divisive as it is the US but we still have some pretty backwards laws in some states and whenever you try and change them the religious right (of both parties) shoots you down.
Wong announced that a few days ago.
Mine is 0.5+
I think katter is his own man ( a rarity in politics these days) and has spoken out on issues in the past that he believes in
BTW
Shows,
why are some people so unkind to you. ( I hope I havent been)
Well, he does have a personal vote, or at least he did in 2001 when he beat off the challenge from Hanson.
Anything less than negative 1.0% will be a good result in the circs. A positive result would be a miracle.
Frank Kelly’s spin this morning was that a good result would prove that Rudd had been over-dramatising the downturn to justify his deficit spending. You can’t win.
Sure, that’s why I think we should have federal laws. Any federal debate on the issue will pass by a 2:1 margin if it is conducted via a conscience vote. It’s just not a divisive issue here like it is in the U.S. I can’t even think of one case of an abortion doctor being murdered, but it seems to happen every few years in the U.S.
ShowsOn – every now and then the Lib Christian Right throw up a bit about abortion – betcha it comes back in to the conversation after the next NSW election.
I quite like Katter himself – he really sticks up for his electorate but every now and then he throws up a comment that is so ridiculous that he sounds like Joe.
It may, as Joe was, very clever for his electorate but it is hilarious to the rest of us.
ShowsOn:
Not that I can speak for him, but I’d say that he was bought up in the age when a “billion” meant a “million million” here in Australia.
Bring back the milliard, I say!
Who gives a crap what the GDP figures are. They won’t mean anything.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/06/03/gdp-figures-get-a-grip/
+0.2 is my bet
Oh yeah I know they run some lines to appeal to the wackaloon part of their base. But in terms of laws, they have had no effect whatsoever. Changes to abortion laws in NSW and Victoria over the last decade have simply clarified the fact that it isn’t a crime. There haven’t been any laws that say it is a crime, or that it can’t be funded by Medicare etc. It seems to me that QLD just needs to go through the same process of reforming their laws.
I didn’t think of that!
Sure, the Lib Christian Right is anti-abortion but why hasn’t Labor sought to fully decriminalise it or support Lee Rhiannon’s efforts to do so?
Is this the definition of naivety or what? I take it Oz one of the reasons you “despise” the majors is because they say one thing to get elected and don’t follow through? Yet you seem convinced the party that least believes in the causes of the Greens will follow through with Green policies. If I hadn’t read it myself I wouldn’t have believed any committed Green could be so gullible.
And don’t come out with Labor not following through with its promises because the moment you do that you validate my point.
LNP loses electorate challenge due to clerical error
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/03/2587874.htm
[In a judgment delivered this morning, Justice Roslyn Atkinson dismissed the challenge {to Labor’s Queensland election win in the Brisbane seat of Chatsworth as} the LNP did not comply with the Electoral Act when it failed to pay a $400 deposit when the challenge was lodged.
William can save that hat for another occasion.
Again a sign that some members of the green movement have no concept of the need for financial confidence and stability.
Are they that strapped for cash???
I thought some Billionaire owned ‘em now???
My bet is -0.5%.
I think Oz’s point was that the over all trend was more important than a single quarter of data. The trend says we are still in a recession, and the rest of the world is in a worse recession.
I despise NSW Labor because:
They severely under invested in transport, education and health.
They privatised critical assets for absolutely no public benefit.
They implemented draconian planning laws.
They regularly stomp over civil liberties – anti terrorism and bikie laws.
They put the interests of their developer friends above what’s good for the state and the environment.
Their management of the state has destroyed the economy and NSW is now projected to have unemployment close to 10% while the national average is set to peak at 8%.
etc.
I despise NSW Liberals because:
They supported Labor in most of these things.
They want to privatise even more.
As a pathetic opposition they’ve allowed Labor to get away with destroying the state.
IIRC you don’t even live in NSW so you probably aren’t aware of the Libs latest policy announcements and why I might think they’re good.
The policies I was talking about were:
Overhauling planning laws to reduce the discretionary power the minister has and devolve power back to local councils.
Increase transparency in political financing.
Scrap the metro plan and support light-rail and heavy rail links to the NW and SW of Sydney.
These are all good policies. But the Libs didn’t come up with them, they were either against them or didn’t care until very recently. The Greens have been saying them for years. But like I said, they’re good policies, so who cares who implements them.
It would be interesting for someone to ask Barry O’Farrell whether he supports an Emissions Trading Scheme?
The Libs will be in government in NSW before they well federally and the ALP should now create a very large wedge between NSW Libs (vying for Green-ish votes) and Federal Coalition (dealing with the Nationals).
Diogenes, what do you make of this article that says Medicare is doomed?
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25580013-421,00.html
No gusface it would be some slack jawed yockel from the the LNP that did not realise they had to put them here money in the envelope. it was hard enough to figure out where the stamp went on the email.
re 658,
funniest thing I’ve seen this morning
The Libs always say those things in opposition but they never follow through. Kennett made similar promises but turned out to be the most autocratic premier in Victorian history.
No fool, did you read Possum’s post?
The point is that one quarter of growth be it -0.4 or +0.2 doesn’t mean anything in the economic context we’re in. In previous recessions we’ve swung from negative growth to big spurts of positive growth but the economy was still contracting over the medium term and unemployment was steadily rising.
And as Possum pointed out, the figures will be revised in a few months anyway. So please, take your pathetic moralising to a topic you have a shred of knowledge about.
Wouldn’t he just repeat the Turnbull “wait and see” position?
HERE IT IS!!!
Official seasonally adjusted GDP for March Quarter: 0.4%
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5206.0/
NO RECESSION!
National Acct: +0.4%. Sensational. Game, set and match. World Class.
I think I have earned the bragging right. A little birdie told me.
Twit, twit, twit, rockin’ robbin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCy63R2KKFU
WELL DONE KEV & WAYNE!!!!!
ECONOMY GROWS BY 0.4%!
GDP Seasonally adjusted 0.4
And you still naively believe they will follow through with them? Amazing.
Duh, but at least they’re making the effort to come up with ideas. The poor die hard Labor supports in NSW delude themselves into thinking the government will do all these things even though they won’t say they will and had a decade to do it.
Champagne corks popping wooohooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5206.0?OpenDocument
Charts:
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/a866861f12e106e0ca256a38002791fa/35f488b5f9f7d242ca256df000814610/Body/0.1368!OpenElement&FieldElemFormat=gif
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/a866861f12e106e0ca256a38002791fa/35f488b5f9f7d242ca256df000814610/Body/0.1F74!OpenElement&FieldElemFormat=gif
It’s more likely someone who’s saying they’ll do it will actually do it then someone who’s saying the opposite.
Take of your sad Labor blinkers.
#635 ShowsOn
Maybe he objects to the use of the U.S. definition of ‘billion’ (1000 million) rather than the British definition (a million million). Katter doesn’t strike me as a pedant, but as one myself I sympathese with him if that’s his reason. A million million came first and is etymologically correct (’bi’ = 2).
BTW, on the ABC TV show “Can We Help?” a week or two ago, one of the questions was about ‘billion’. I’m sure I heard one of the hosts say that in Australia it means one million million, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard it used with that meaning here.
Look for Turnbull to run the bait and switch “Well this just means that the Government didn’t need to spend as much money because we weren’t going to go into a technical recession.”
He will conveniently ignore that it was the Government spending that helped keep us out of a proper technical recession.
Can’t wait to see malcopops and Chunkey’s faces
The economy will always be more resilient under Labor
Herr doktor, you should stick to history
Glad that my prediction of -0.2% was WAAAY out
QT will be fun.
“Will the Prime Minister update the House on the latest national accounts figures”
Flaneur at the top of this page suggested that he may use billion for million million too.
Is that something that changed when we switched to decimal currency? If someone had a billion pounds, would that mean a million million. But when we switched to dollars, did that mean thousand million?
Gus, more cafe latte for you
Pina Colada’s are definitely my choice (ahhh the memories)
The second best news in the last 13 years!!!
RUDD FORCED TO DENY HE IS MESSIAH
Labor will always be a better and more superior economic manager under the Coalition.
No wonder the Liberals spread the word that they have more dirt on Fitzgibbon. They obviously felt the figures would be bad for them (i.e. good for the economy).
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25580579-601,00.html
Now watch the stock market break through the 4000 figure
Fran Kelly has finally turned me off listening to RN breakfast – she always has to get the dig in re Rudd so why spoil my morning cuppa any longer.
May be we’ll hear that comment on the news tonight, Psephos – the Libs will surely start to use it if the figure is good. What is it BTW.
Dario,
Woooo ……… watch them go to town with that at QT
You should stick to jumping through hoops for fish.
Wonder where the “better economic manager” % will go?
At least i am better at economic matters than you are. You are effing hopeless, stick to history.
Re 684
You won’t see too many of them as Jenkins will immediately entertain stupid points of order and they’ll all be booted
One thing I hope the Government does today in question time is heap praise on the resilience of Australian workers and businesses. Of course the Government should take some credit for following good economic policies, but they should say that this demonstrates how Australia is a dynamic, hard working and entrepreneurial country.
#689 Re: ‘billion’
I think it’s more likely just the pervasiveness of American usage. The horse has bolted and the original meaning is a lost cause.
“Will the Prime Minister express, as a sum of money, …”
So the Libs are more likely than Labor to do what they say?
Oh, how disappointed are you going to be.
I’m making good points aren’t I Oz? Name calling is never a good replacement for fact.
It’s a pretty massive turn around to go from -0.5% to 0.4% in the space of 2 quarters.
I congratulate all those people that bought plasma TVs and Blu-ray players.
It makes me wonder why on earth the U.S. usage was different in the first place? Is it just one of those quirks like how they put the month first for dates?
glad my prediction of 0.5% was WAAAY close
BTW
This will affect the long term deficit picture
maybe we will get the long term spend down by 25 billion
Wont smokin sloopy snarling Joe be happy
The one ‘expert’ on Sky Business out of 20something that said we would not go into recession just said ” It’s time to celebrate Australia, I wonder if the PM could call a public holliday”
He also says the deficit will be nowhere near as big and unemployment won’t be as bad as forecast
St Kev and sexy Swanny. What a team
Not sure you can make that kind of assessment just yet. Still very early days in all this.
The fact you can’t grasp the very simple nature of what I’m trying to says a fair bit about you.
Policy “A” is the goal to be achieved.
Liberals say they will do “A”.
Labor says “No, we will not do “A”".
Who do you think is more likely? Well you think Labor is the reincarnation of Jesus, so pointless question.
I’ve dealt with every “point” you’ve attempted to make and you’ve simply ignored all of mine, so no, you aren’t making “good points”.
The buggers have at least another ^ MONTHS of “But… but… we’re in a recession… we really are!” and “That two quarters of negative growth thingmy is just a simplification for noobs and economic illiterates” etc. etc.
The next possible time for a 2-negative-quarters recession is in December.
Bewdafull.
Certainly, because the budget estimates that our growth will be -0.5 in the 09/10 financial year! We may even produce a positive outcome in that year!
The Cetacean’s hostility to me is indeed puzzling. I’m reminded of the quote recently attributed to Penny Wong: “Why does Senator Abetz hate me so much? Is it because I’m a woman? Is it because I’m a lesbian? Is it because I’m Chinese? No, it’s because I’m *much smarter* than he is.”
Bugger it Vera,
Kev should call a snap election and consign the libs to the dustbin of history.
Won’t the media just claim the ABS figures are wrong due to the job cuts?
710 – I never thought I’d hear a so called lefty being so defensive of the Liberals. Hmm.
I wonder what the GDP figures are for the do-nothing Opposition alternate universe?
Psephos – get Showson’s message through to Kev for QT – it’s what we want to hear.
Gus 714,
I’m with you mate
So you have no “points” to make. Thanks. =)
NSW Government Stimulus Package – Under Belly SERIES 3:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25580897-12377,00.html
Oh, so now you’re in favour of more privatisation Oz?
ShowsOn:
More to do with the American War of Independence and the colonials preference for all things not British. Like the gallon, road side to drive on, tea, parliament, etc.
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales
Great result on the growth figure. Unambiguously good. The +0.4% growth would compare well with almost any country in the OECD.
This is only a guess, but to illustrate the effect on debt, +0.4% on a $1000 billion GDP means an extra $40 billion in economic activity. If the govt tax share of that was 25% (typical) that would equate to an extra $10 billion in govt revenue. So half the cost of the cash stimulus would be recovered already. This is why a stimulus in a recession is such good policy. If you don’t do it you lose income and have to pay more unemployment benefits anyway. If you do it successfully you get much of the money back in tax on the turnover from the extra activity. Doing nothing by comparison, is stupid.
ABC News Online has for a while had a section of their website titled
AUSTRALIA IN RECESSION
Perhaps it is time they rectified this. Even though the Liberals will be disappointed.
Gary i get the impression that the green in Greenies has nothing to do with vegies and everything to do with jealousy of Labor being in govt and not them LOL
they seem to hate any good news for labor and are quick to post here any negative articles about labor they get from the OO
Did she really say that?
Yeah, that’s why I said “I despise the Libs because of…” Got reading?
Just admit it – you have no clue what you’re talking about and your attempts to defend the most neo-liberal government in the country have failed.
Ha typical hubris being emitted by the Left based on this particular round of economic data….
Gus & Juliem – belt up. lol. My feet are still aching from the last election – pounding the pavement again is not something I want to do until late 2010 at the earliest.
Besides let the Libs think that Kev & Co are lousy in Govt. It gives us more time to prove them wrong in a big way.
Now if we can just organise Joel’s darn accounting system!!
The +0.4% figure is good, and will make QT absolute hell for the rabble on the opposition benches today. They certainly deserve it.
I’d say Labor will have a pound or two of flesh off the rabble today, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they also do a bit of the humility thing like: “while this is unreservedly good news, we appreciate the realities of working families out there who are doing it tough……….”.
If the opposition rabble try and run the line that all this means is that the downturn is not as bad as the ALP have been saying and it was all just a cover for their innate desire to deficit spending, then they will get crucified. Ill informed journo’s can get away with that crap, but i don’t think the Opposition will.
Certainly any quarters that show growth in Australia, during a a global downturn of this magnitude will knock something off projected deficits (bad news for Malcopops), and help keep more people in jobs than would otherwise be the case.
Will be interesting to see if GDP growth stays above 0, or bounces around that for a while? Anyone know when the next round of unemployment figures come out?? If they are good as well the Libs might just implode in despair.
Why?
The “two quarters of negative growth” is a joke definition not taken seriously by any respected economist.
ABC News online has the headline:
Right underneath a banner that screams:
Oz,
In your list of Greens policies the Libs MAY introduce if you’re lucky, there is only one that has anything to do with the environment. I assume you are prepared to throw the environment overboard to feel justified in helping to elect a Liberal government?
What other green, Green policies are the state Libs adopting?
Ooops, sorry Vera, you beat me!
Ah,
s/colonials/colonial/
or
s/colonial/colonials’/
Your choice. (Scurries away…)
Musrum they should start saying the Bizzaro prime minister instead of the the alternate prime minister. The Libs ar in bizzaro world and we all know that the justice league always wins
Superman- k.Rudd
Wonder woman- J . Gillard
The Flash- W. Swan
The green lantern- L. tanner
BTW – we were in Newcastle yesterday and there were 20 odd ships waiting offshore and the port was full – does this bode well for the next export figure?
OH Glen, you are a piece of work
if Malcolm rolls into QT spouting similar in 2 hours, he will get laughed out of the chamber 
…… rotfl 
BH
the idea alone would cause the libs to froth at the mouth and have fits.
It is nice to dream tho of 110+ seats
Just admit that you are abandoning your so called left beliefs to feel happy in supporting a right wing government. Good luck with that sham.
I was careful to say it is *attributed* to her. I don’t know if she actually said it.
Imacca went:
Next Thursday
Rudd lets the inflation genie out of the bottle-Turnbull
Rudd forced to explain unsustainable growth-OO
Wong excuse that GFC recession is much worse than thought 6 months ago proven BS- Diogenes
Because if the economy is growing, then it cannot be in recession.
But at 0.4, the economy wouldn’t be growing fast enough to create jumps for new entrants to the workforce.
The economy is trending water, it isn’t really going forward. Which is a brilliant result given the state of other countries.
LOL! I meant to create JOBS!
Great news on Australia avoiding a technical recession. Credit to the fast action of the government. Here to back up the governments stimulus packages are 21 economists. http://economics.com.au/?p=3534
Imagine how roudy the Libs will be in Parliament today
this will be worth taping I think.
Anaemic economic figures released today. Shows what a waste of money Rudd’s stimulus was.
Gus – 740. I have been dreaming of that since 24/11/07.
Dio is right – Turnbull & Hockey will be playing up the inflation, high interest rate stuff now but right at this moment we are entitled to say thanks to Kev & Wayne for giving them a bit of heartburn.
I’m not sure why I’m bothering to respond to you since your modus operandi seems to be to ignore everything I say and desperately seek to get an affirmation of what you want to be true.
There are a number of problems in your premise. First of all, you wrongly assume I want a Liberal government. Secondly, you wrongly assume I will help elect one. This is funny, because you’ve actually voted Liberal and the past, whilst I haven’t and probably never will. Thirdly, you wrongly assume that if the Liberals get elected I would stop advocating on environmental issues. Fourth, you wrongly assume that the Labor government is currently some great environmental defender and the Libs will be opposite. On environmental issues there’s a couple of things to go on – Labor’s record and the stated policies of both parties. On Labor’s record, they have a history of overriding environmental protections in planning, spending more money on S&P’s and Moody’s to get a credit rating than in renewable energy investment and locking in outdated technologies. The Liberals are probably as pathetic as Labor on the environment. The only difference I can see is that the Liberals support The Greens policy to implement a gross feed-in tariff for solar. Labor supposedly supports a net (aka pointless) feed-in tariff but after more than a decade of power, is yet to implement it.
The hilarious thing about your posts is that you conflate my applauding of the Liberals accepting three genuinely positive policies to unrelenting acceptance of everything the Liberals stand for.
It’s a pathetic and weak strawman that’s just getting funnier and funnier, but I didn’t really expect anything else.
#706
Apparently, the French did it first and the Americans copied them (when they were pals in revolutionary times). Later the French saw the error of their ways and switched back, but the U.S. stuck with the error. ‘Trillion’ is just as absurd. It used to mean a million million million (tri = 3), but in the U.S. it is a million million. Silly duffers.
Nice baiting attempt.
Glen, how many libs will be sent to the sin bin today do you think?
I don’t support the current right-wing NSW Labor government and I won’t support a right-wing Liberal one.
You, on the other hand, do support a right-wing NSW Labor government. =)
Interestingly the Fitzgibbon beat-up is still being given a run
A conspiracist would say that a series of stories were planned to co-incide with the (expected) bad economic news.
the fact that there was a 0.4% increase has taken all the wind out of any ancillary damage that the fitzy thing could cause.
The MSM is a joke and this just shows their “narrowband’ view of reporting
I think they will be completely dejected. As soon as they rejected the second stimulus package outright, they had bet everything on the economy falling into a very bad recession. But it looks like the Government’s policies have helped save the economy from falling into a huge hole.
I predicted that is what you’d say. Typical bait and switch moronomics.
It’ll work.
Don’t cry GP
LOL – what a pathetic argument this is.
Stephen Long is at it again on The World Today: “Today’s figures show the economy is sick.”
1% growth in one quarter is sick?
“It wouldn’t have happened if the government hadn’t artificially boosted growth by the Cash splash.”
Well, d’oh! That’s the point, Stoopid.
A possible angle for Turnbull is that we’ve gone backwards over the past two “cash-splash” quarters (-0.5 + 0.4 = -0.1), so we’ve racked up a massive debt and still gone backwards.
It could be concerning that the GDP figure was created by exports growth, the best figures since 1961! The fact the AUD$ is so high is great for my DVD buying habit, but it could harm our export sales in future months:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25579457-5013404,00.html
What a joke.
Directly contradicting Frank’s rubbish. Not that I expect him to admit it.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/2009/06/03/1243708489312.html
Tut tut GP, have a glass of my Moet. Yours will have to stay corked for a while longer- by the time you get to oppen it it might well be corked!!
No 757
ShowsOn, as I said at the time the Stimulus packages were released, they will only delay the inevitable and will cost a bomb for the privilege. I was correct. The Government has spent an unbelievable amount of borrowed money for growth figures of 0.4% and consigned the country to 20 years of debt repayment.
Didn’t you say you are going to preference the Libs? How isn’t that supporting a Liberal government?
As you said earlier I’m not in NSW and won’t be voting for either.
He is disappointed with the hard work and resilience of the Australian people.
You may be right, he will try anything. This sort of “the devil is in the detail!” argument will probably appeal to his Barrister like ways.
some talking head is saying basically that now on ABC radio
I think most journos/commentators are still scuttling to rewrite their copy
Bunch of clowns
Oh, and Oz, a right wing Labor government is a far cry from a right wing Liberal government.
No 765
I much prefer Veuve Cliquot. Moet is rubbish.
David Speers believes the stimpac has worked.
No 770
LOL Gary. The Current NSW Government is seriously the worst government ever. Really. Even my rusted on Labor friends could not agree more.
The reason the Libs (with a little help from their media friends) are trying so hard to get rid of Fitz is to try and destabalise this 20bil overhaul of defence that he is doing such a good job of overseeing
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/03/2587966.htm?section=justin
GP
It seems 21 economists in Australia believe your wrong.
http://economics.com.au/?p=3534
The trouble is that this is a complicated message to get across. Labor now has a very easy message to convey.
In fairness to the MSM, every site is leading with “Recession bullet dodged” or the equivalent. And there are online polls “Do you think the Rudd Governmen’t policies are to thank for keeping us out of recession?”.
It’s going to be a very bad day in the office for Truffles. He bet his economic credibility on opposing the “handouts” and he’s lost big.
We should all thank Paul Krugman for this result as well as Swan and Rudd for listening to him.
The whole point is that the Government spends when the down turn is at its harshest. Last night you said you admire Socrates’ contributions, on the previous page he wrote this:
You haven’t constructed any coherent argument against what Socrates has written.
It hasn’t actually spent anything near all of it yet. So far it has spent about $50 billion. Most of the infrastructure spending will be made in the 09/10 financial year. Today’s figures are essentially the result of the $10 billion of payments to carers, pensioners, and families in December (which the Liberals voted for) and the $12 billion worth of tax bonuses (that the Liberals opposed). The effect of the building projects won’t be felt until the second half of this year.
In your opinion. For some people the decision between NSW Labor and NSW Liberals is a tough one. Perhaps removing Labor from power will set them back on the right course again.
The option is there of course to just vote 1 Greens and have your vote exhaust (to me, a cop out).
Here is one for the German linguists here. GP is experiencing the opposite of SchadenFreude. But what is the correct term? The best I could do with Google translator is: NutzenKummer. Can you suggest something better?
Vera,
my guess is 4
I like his contributions but that does not mean I always agree with them.
Please stop verballing.
Yeah, but you wait for the commercial TV news tonight, it will all be “Australia avoids recession”, because that is the easiest message to explain.
Triton 762, don’t give him any help
No.
Nutz-Ein -Vice
And perhaps it will set the state on a course you REALLY don’t want. Good luck.
Oz #751,
Just keep it simple (the Liberals will appreciate it) and repeat after me: “Never vote for the Liberal Party!”
Sorry, juliem.
I’d love you guys wanting Leah to date Stephen Long to forget it – he’d be such a downer on a date. And now, stoopid as well.
Juliem, let me guess, The Poodle, Sloppy Joe, Tuckey and The member for Dixon?
I didn’t SAY you agreed with Socrates’ comment! I pointed out that you haven’t provided an explanation for how or why he is wrong! How on earth can that count as verballing you, when I explicitly NOTED that you don’t agree with the comment?
Stop pretending that I am verballing you, it is simply a tactic you have reverted to so you can get away with not explaining your positions.
Re 770,
Uh, yeah
….. right wing Labor is workable and tolerable, right wing Liberal is ugly baaaaaadd news
No 779
Even blind freddy would accept that the NSW ALP has been in power for too long and is beset by institutional incompetence and corruption. By the time it next faces the polls, it will have been in power for 16 years which is long passed its expiry date.
dogma 775
Thanks; excellent letter linked to. It proves my point discussing BB’s post earlier today. The critics of the stimulus aren’t “real” economists who do research and analysis. Usually they are just paid mouthpieces or political opponents.
Most of the people who construct economic models and understand the maths are in favour of the stimulus, as your excellent linked article proves. And as these excellent GDP figures show, the stimulus is working. The Treasury and RBA has learnt from the mistakes of 1990/91 and acted earier this time. There will actually be a lot of economists around the wolrd interested in our results. If they are successful it gives good evidence that early (Keynsian) government action in a recession can greatly reduce the effects of the recession. Someone should email Paul Krugman.
You gotta love the ABC: it’s a “shock result”, “Australia will still go into recession” etc.
Methinks if a Liberal Govt was presiding over economic growth, the MSM would be falling all over themselves to praise them, whereas if it’s Rudd/Swan, we’ll either ignore the good news or claim it’s an aberration or whine some more about Fitzgibbon.
And how I enjoy Glen and GP making utter fools of themselves, which in GP’s case I expect, but Glen is usually better than that.
Sounds good to me, btw, is anyone on a 24 hour dismissal? (Meaning that they won’t be on deck for the opening bell today) I didn’t watch/listen yesterday at all …..
No 793
You actually think that dolt Nathan Rees is tolerable? LOL
No.
Meanwhile, back in the Real Word at the Daily Telegraph:
Plus the usual garbage re. Kyle Sandilands (”Kyle Sandilands is a fine swine”) and of course on State Of Origin day: “Sharks boss quits in shock move”
Quite depressing actually.
Gary Bruce couldn’t even refute my assertion that NSW Labor was the most neo-liberal government in Australia, even on Rudd’s definition.
They want (and are) letting the “free market rip” in everything from energy, transport, education to jails.
Looking forward to QT, Rudd should let Swan and Tanner off the leash, lay into Malcopops & Fat Joe.
“Chunky” is so much more refined, Evan.
Nice. I imagine MT will be feeling the pinch too…
798,
Remember you are talking to someone who always put Libs last on the ticket no matter what.
Big Bad Barry (not of the Swans variety) wouldn’t get a vote ahead of Rees in my book because he is of the wrong party. I know lots of folks in NSW who’ve voted ALP in the past and are peeved at govt. so won’t be doing so this time but if I were in NSW (was at the 07 election in March), I would be voting ALP/Greens in some combination of the #1 and #2 positions.
The Senate Economics Committee is an excellent forum to observe demonstrations of the economic credibility of the Senators involved, and, by extention, the credibility of the political parties they represent.
In current practice, the committee system looks as if it was designed to make the Senate accountable to the Executive.
malcolm is suffering even worse
Krakked-Nutz-Ein-Vice
No 775
It’s interesting that 21 economists fail to provide any analysis other than to serve as mouthpieces for the Government and Treasury. They said nothing new.
However, they did say that infrastructure projects should be put through “transparent benefit/cost” analyses. The Government has clearly failed to do that for its gargantuan broadband network to which it expects most of the telco industry to forego assets.
That’s funny. I didn’t know the Senate had access to tens of thousands of bureaucrats to do all the work for them.
Socrates
Already done!
Watching Ken Henry explaining economics 101 to Joyce and Abetz is indeed educational.
No 805
Juliem, explain to me why the ALP deserves a top spot on your ballot? Even if I accept you’ll never vote Liberal, the ALP do not deserve your vote.
“Chunky Joe” – OK, that sounds better LOL
The MSM are pissed off, they wanted to run their “Australia In Recession, It’s Rudd’s Fault” headlines.
Evan, honestly, give it up with the infantile fat jokes. They are inappropriate.
It’s a good article Socrates, I’m glad you like it. Your post this morning was right and showed logical thinking. This article shows that many economists can see the cost benefits of not letting people lose their jobs, by stimulating the economy in stages like the government has done.
Australia will be seen as an example, internationally on how to ride the next Global Recession
Glenn Milne is on “Playing Politics” trying to suggest the opposition can still come out smelling like roses given the latest GDP figures. Gee he looks dejected.
No 766
So of the last $57b budget deficit, how much was stimulus related, and how much was due to structural deficit left by Howard? Test of your honesty here buddy because I know the answer to both of them. And in advance I challenge your assertion of “unbelievable amount of borrowed money” because as honest people know, about 70% of the current deficit was predetermined by Howard/Costello. The only alternative was to cut spending or raise taxes, which would cause our economy to look more like the US or Japan. Seems like money well spent to me.
GP
So all these authors are wrong and little you a law student is right. LOL
No 814
Will you come out against the Liberal’s fat jokes about Beazley? e.g. flip flop. Or is that OK because we’re only not allowed to make fun of the Libs?
Oh OK, so your rigorous analysis is to say they are just a front group for the Government when they say something you disagree with!
But then they all of a sudden they are credible experts when they say something you agree with!
Please provide us with a cost / benefit analysis of the introduction of television to Australia, and the postal network in small country towns.
No 817
More senseless piffle. The Rudd Government’s deficit is completely of its own making thanks to its commitment to spend tens of billions of dollars it didn’t have.
Remember this is the same Government that promised to end the blame game but is looking to blame everyone but itself for the debt problems entirely of its own making.
Psephos:
Indeed. Putting any political point scoring aside, it really *is* educational, and I think the Coalition would do better to use the information provided to shape their policies, rather than do what they do now.
It’d be less entertaining than now, though.
Dogma 815
Yes that is the point. The infrastructure money hasn’t really started flowing yet, so this result relates to the cash stimulus and easing of interest rates. In the previous quarter we were negative -0.6% and trending down. Looks like that has been turned around by up to 1% in a quarter – a great result.
Politics aside this result shows that it is cheaper to act early and prevent a country going into a deep recession, than let it happen and bear the much larger cost of digging it out later. Last time (91) we acted too late in hindsight. Well done Ken Henry (the brains) and Wayne Swan (for listening to him). Turnbull and Hockey have dug their own graves.
G.P. refuses to accept that the economy was in structural deficit by early 2007.
Mrs Puff (from spongebob squarepants) always makes me think of Joe,
never forget that the Liberals used “brain leak beazley”
It is possible. MT just has to take inspiration from Elagabalus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roses_of_Heliogabalus
How that useless sot manages to still find employment is beyond me
But last night you were proposing the Government spend at least $80 billion on solar panels! Make up your mind!
I think the Government has admitted how much debt it is in. It even put a bill through parliament so that it could sell more Government bonds.
GP, how about Hockey is a pompous windbag?
No 819
Flip flop is a typical political criticism against oppositions who cannot maintain consisent positions. It is not a slight against Beazley’s weight. The Liberals were never quite that good at double entendre.
Swanny press conference on Sky
Rudd just praised the workers and business for their part in the GDP figures in a press conference. Maybe he was reading PB
Dio 810
Thanks! I read his stuff and think he will be genuinely interested. This result proves a case he has been arguing in the USA (pro-stimulus) for over six months. Their stimulus was (in Krugman’s opinion) too little, too late, hence they face a big job (and cost) restarting their economy. I think he is right.
Excellent.
About what? I said it was proper to invest in solar panels and of course, if I were in Government, I would not be trying to deflect blame for the resultant debt on my predecessors.
kev is there too
I bet David Spears and Kieren Gilbert aren’t happy HA HA
Stop verballing me! It is just a FACT that the budget was in structural deficit by early 2007. Your mate Howard couldn’t stop spending.
We all realise it is hard for you to recognise that the Howard / Costello Government wasn’t the pack of economic geniuses that they constantly told every they were.
Herr doktor, it’s OK. dont worry about. i love youse all
Stephen Long of ABC should stick to his night job of trying to ask Leigh out. His analysis on midday ABC was appalling.
The Treasury itself advocated for surpluses of 1% of GDP and supported the tax cutting measures. Are you saying they are wrong and Megalogenis is right?
Bloody Kev and Swanny are absolutely beaming. They deserve it!!!!
You’re always rubbishing Treasury.
In other news, I congratulate Ms Gillard for refusing to close down the building industry commission:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25581140-601,00.html
The Oz terns are worming?
“Is Australia the wonder from down under? It certainly looks that way”.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25580881-36418,00.html
#844, my amigo GG advised you to “stand your ground” last night. may i suggest that you stand on your head, so the GDP figure will look upside down and minus
Sadly most ABC radio current affairs is little more than pro-Liberal crap these days.
GP
As we both know Howard ignored the Treasuries advice severeal times in his past 18 months in office. They were explicitley opposed to the last round of tax cuts, which created the structural deficit. The 1% surplus point is moot since that related to an earlier period of higher national income. Before that he was not a bad economic manager, but he damaged his reputation in 2006 and 2007. He always underinvested in the future though.
The Australian economy will always perform better under Wayne Swan, the best treasurer after PJK.
Swanny says he can go to bed and sleep now , much laughter by kev and press
Someone at ABC must be reading Poll Bludger too! Headlines and banner have both been changed:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/03/2588048.htm?section=justin
It’s all in the budget papers in black and white GP. The Howard government put the budget in structural deficit by committing to too many long term spending commitments, while assuming that tax revenues would remain at all time highs:
Page 4-17
http://www.budget.gov.au/2009-10/content/bp1/downloads/bp1_bst4.pdf
I again appreciate that it is impossible for you to admit to these FACTS, because they tarnish the reputation of the previous government as sensible economic managers. So please, with sugar on top, stop verballing me.
I wonder how those Lib attack ads are going to fare now that Rudd and co have shown they have not lost control of the economy?
Probably they’ll replace it with a re run of Parliament’s Greatest Hits.
Agrees with fishface.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, GDP UP, AUSTRALIA AVOIDING RECESSION
Looks like economy has been saved by Labor’s excellent economic plans.
I bet the Turnbulls and GPs alike are crying in to their laps.
Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan are economic geniuses.
Herr Doktor, i love you too
Finns,Shows et al
thought you’ld like this article by leigh
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/well-red-head-three-cheers-for-the-internet/?referrer=email
No 854
Wayne Swan is Australia’s worst Treasurer since Jim Cairns.
Australia’s oldest man and last WWI digger dies:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25581081-601,00.html
Evidence?
Speers admits StimPacs have worked. That must hurt.
Thank you, but I’ve already read it.
Pretty much every other western country goes in to recession, and we avoid it. Well done to Kevin Rudd and his team of economic masters. They have saved Australia from entering a recession. Meanwhile, the Liberals are literally at fisticuffs with each other in the partyroom. If they can’t manage themselves, how can we expect them to manage Australia’s one trillion dollar economy? Labor to be in power for a generation, just like the Hawke/Keating years, and Liberals to wander in the electoral wilderness.
You know it’s a bad day for the conservatives and their media flunkies when Generic Person spams the board with meaningless twaddle.
Well Speers is wrong. Maybe the first one, but:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25580881-36418,00.html
Gus, according to Stephen Long. The reason we are in +ive is because the collapse of imports. He said:
1. Consumer goods – is he blind? the less people consume imprted goods the better
2. Business capital equipment – is he stupid? there is a GFC where demands have collapsed.
That is why the Govt has to stepped in with the Stimpacs.
Stevo, stick to chasing Leigh, she is looking very good.
http://www.swf.org.au/images/stories/writers_07/Sales_L.jpg
The Lib’s tried the Interest rates will always be lower under a coalition government scared campaign and now their trying another scare campaign. Why do they always have to scare the voters? People get pissed off when they find out it’s all shite.
Evan, please enlighten us as to when you last graced this board with meaning? Dare I say you’ve never had the displeasure?
Rudd and Swan should remember Ken Henry and Glen Stevens in future. They and the Treasury macro modelling team have done an outstanding job under very complex and difficult circumstances. Not many countries have gotten their response to the GFC right.
Showson, you know GP doesn’t DO evidence. But wait, there is bound to be something in the Lib’s phrase book.
Psephos,
Labor still refusing to follow the script proscribed by the media.
Stock Market up, Aus$ above $0.82
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25576830-25090,00.html
I would’ve though Liberal hacks would have something good to say when today’s All Ords looks like this:
http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/b?s=%5EAORD
Where’s the evidence that Swan is worst Treasurer ever?
Because the Libs say so?
There is none. It’s an opinion.
It is a moot point whether these figures include all the second stimulus payments. Some will have been spent then; some are still propping up activity now in Qtr 2. By the next quarter (Q3) there might still be a slight downward dip, but it is now less likley. The tax cuts will also be helping then, even if the stimulus payments are gone. By the last quarter the tax cuts and infrastructure jobs should start flowing, so 2010 should start to see some recovery.
Amigo Vera, the so called pundits should have known better, all they have to do is to watch the Ausssie battler. it’s been up up and away. Never trust those pundits again and again. And Rupe wants us to pay for their tripes?
But wouldn’t some people have brought forward some spending knowing they had $900 on its way?
G.P., stop verballing Evan!
Yes. I know lots of people who did so.
Oz, the second StimPac had an effect on the economy even before any of the money went out. People started spending the $900 well before they actually had it, and the psychological stimulation also had a positive effect.
Best Daily Telegraph headline ever! “Our Economy Leads the World”
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25581193-5001021,00.html
No, Speers was right. He actually credited the first stimpac for this result and said that the second one could also help with the next lot of GDP figures in the future.
I think today’s figures will have a positive psychological effect too. If tomorrow’s headlines were “we are in recession”, then that will just become a self fulfilling spiral, that will slow spending, and result in even more cancelled business investment.
So today’s figures are a double bonus.
Finns
I think that is the real reason Glen Stevens wanted to pour cold water on things the other day. Our dollar looks a pretty good bet now, and if it goes too high it will harm export income, thus forcing interest rates even lower. That would not help those on fixed incomes, and might lead to house price inflation which, despite the ravings of John Howard, is a bad thing that economists do complain about.
GB, you mean we have to wait until March 2010, at the earliest, before we will know if there will be a recession we have to had. That is too long to wait.
Can’t wait for QT today
Finns with the AUs$ going so strong now might be the time for another OS trip to the knowledge tree
More kudos for the RBA. Mortgage arrears are now falling, that is fewer people are in mortgage stress:
http://www.afr.com/home/viewer.aspx?ATL://1243989858004§ion=latest&title=Mortgage+arrears+fall+in+March+quarter
Other than cutting interest rates, what else can the RBA do to bring the value of the dollar down? Do they have a reserve of Australian currency that they can use to buy US$s so there are more AUD$ traded?
Will the AUD$ come down when the Government starts issuing more bonds. Or will this potentially increase the AUD$ as other countries buy our currency in order to buy Australian government bonds?
I agree with you that it may damage our exports having the AUD$ so high, and that seems to be the thing that kept us out of negative growth. Having said that, it is great for my DVD buying habit.
No, no, NO Finns – Leigh has got to give up Long. You’ve just agreed that he is stoopid.
We don’t want her to be as well.
re the Leigh Sales article at http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/well-red-head-three-cheers-for-the-internet/?referrer=email
Who owns The Punch that they can use stills from a Universal movie (Bring It On) without acknowledgment?
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm391878912/tt0204946
Anyone watching the QT live broadcast from aph.gov.au? I think the current speaker is GP’s doppelgänger.
The share market went up after the GDP numbers, now about 3980 points:
http://business.smh.com.au/business/markets/stocks-spike-on-growth-figures-20090603-bunl.html
A lot of significant economic news out today, and it varies from good to great for the government.
They are very jealous of us:
Guardian – Australia dodges recession, becomes rare breed
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8538371
WSJ – Australia’s Economy Returns to Growth
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124399458004780095.html
Bloomberg – Australia Defies Global Recession to Expand 0.4%
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=akwbzt03dmTw
TOKYO (MarketWatch) — Australia’s gross domestic product climbed 0.4% in the first quarter,
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/australias-gdp-expands-04-in-first-quarter
Amigo Vera, planning to visit the south of the Dear Leader
Look at this list! Other than us, only South Korea is positive!
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_OKdf8I_bxhI/SiXjMZgBo_I/AAAAAAAAE54/PjbEJmR7wsw/s400/compare.jpg
polyquats,
The Punch is Rupert’s latest adventure.
It’s Peter Slipper, the once “Joh for Canberra” Nat who morphed into a Liberal.
This is also the guy that put all of Costello’s bills to parliament, because Costello was too lazy to rock up to the House to do it himself. Fortunately we now have a Treasurer who moves his own bills.
OMH, the two stooges are looking very grumpy and umpy
The All Ords seems to be stuck in the 3980s. It can’t seem to get to the 4000 ‘psychological barrier’.
The Finnegans @864, that Long piece is a simple rehashing of the same article he wrote yesterday.
All he’s done is replace an introductory paragraph along the lines of ‘If the GDP numbers tomorrow…’
The rest of the article, including the ‘Footnote’ at the bottom, are word-for-word the same as yesterday.
Lazy.
Who are the 2 stooges. Is it Turnbull & Hockey on Sky. I turned it off until QT starts.
Couldn’t bear to see them raving on about Kev & Swannie.
Bule, he is both lazy and stupid. yes, lay off Leigh.
BH, yes, MT and JH are on sky now
Watch Sky, Turnbull is squirming over the GDP!
Turnbull just said that the stimpacs are a ‘technical recession avoidance program’!!!!
He said it cynically, but I hope Rudd runs with that!
Every economic writers, analysts and commentators have been wRONg.
Turnbull looks like he doesn’t want to be there, frowning & squirming
Hockey’s face says it all!
And hopefully is as successful as Pauline last time
http://www.theage.com.au/national/next-pauline-hanson-joins-one-nation-20090603-bv59.html
Turnbull is counter-spinning. Sigh.
My boss, who does not like the rising dollar, says that Australia’s debt (he must mean private debt) has increased 20% of GDP each year for five years (if I heard him right). His point was that this amounted to a huge stimulus in each of those years and that the government stimulus is chicken feed in comparison. Does this sound right to honorable PB members?
Turnbull here is quoting Saul Eslake’s testimony (the T.R.A.P. acronym) to the Senate committee on the second stimulus package. Eslake warned against crafting a stimulus package that simply keeps us out of a technical recession, but doesn’t reform the economy in beneficial ways.
Of course I can see why Turnbull wouldn’t want this, because it makes it hard to argue that Labor is damaging the economy.
Bob,
‘technical recession avoidance program’!!!!
You think that Swan would be trapped into usiing the acronym t.r.a.p. to trap the opposition?
I don’t know if those figures are right. But he is right in general saying that the public surpluses created by the previous government were essentially a substitution for more private debt, i.e. people taking out bigger mortgages and spending more on their credit cards.
It is an extraordinarily weak argument by Turnbull, because the average punter will hear it as Turnbull saying “the government stimulus packages have kept Australia out of recession”, and they will think, well that’s what the Government said they would do.
Showson.
Saul Eslake was one of the signitories to the 21 economists debt is good article.
So he must agree with the stimpacs now.
http://economics.com.au/?p=3534
GP 812,
Only 3 parties could/would ever get the #1 vote on my ticket. Dems, Greens, ALP. At the moment, Democrats are no longer an option. Whether I vote ALP or Greens #1 or #2 in future elections, state or federal and no matter which state I happen to be living in, that will be a game time choice at the moment I fill out my ballot paper.
North Korea is apparently assembling a long range missile capable of hitting anything within a 4000km radius:
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/06/03/north-korea-prepares-missiles-south-beefs-defenses.html
While this is relatively concerning, it should be remembered that North Korea does not yet have the capacity to miniaturize a nuclear warhead.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-05-14-voa45.cfm
GG
As long as he doesn’t go all Von trapp on us and starts singing ” the hills are alive with music”
I am going to zip, as Kev would say, to watch QT on the telly.
For those of you who can watch while at the computer I know I will enjoy your comments when I get back.
I intend to have a terrific time yelling at the Opposition.
From memory he said to the Senate committee that debt was fine, but it has to fund things that will be economically beneficial. He just warned the Government not to front end the spending too much, because he felt the downturn would be very prolonged.
830 Evan,
I appreciate the sentiment here but Malcolm has the market all locked up on the word “pompous”. That is his baby, we need another word for Joe
Anyone watching the live feed from the house?
Southcott really looks like a young Alexander Downer today…
Oops, he’s finished, QT has started!!
Gus, the way the two stooges was grimacing, it was more like:
Gus,
It’ll be more yodelaying me thinks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPelZL954IY
859,
Shows,
On the basis of today’s evidence, GP would get laughed out of court trying to substantiate that statement
Daily crikey:
It’s rare in politics or economics to get clarity on major issues or debates. One number can never provide that, but if any number could, it’s the one that emerged from the ABS today — 0.4%, in black, rather than red.
For the moment, red is the appropriate colour for the faces of the many economists and forecasters on Monday who were tipping a fall, even if they hastily revised their forecasts into positive territory yesterday.
For the Government and Treasury, this is as close to vindication of its stimulus approach as it will get. The retail sales numbers have supported it. The building numbers have supported it. Even the employment numbers last month supported it, even if no one including the Government believed them. But now the GDP numbers show unarguable growth. There’s not even a backward revision of previous quarters, except for a marginal decrease in December to -0.6%, which was offset by the same increase for the September quarter.
Most remarkably, non-farm GDP actually grew faster than GDP, at 0.5%. We can’t even thank the cockies for keeping us out of recession.
It’s only one number, and subject to future revision. But with more stimulus to roll out into the economy via the extension of the home owners’ grant, the infrastructure component of the second stimulus package, the big-ticket infrastructure projects announced in the budget and what’s left of the RBA’s rate cut drop, the chances of future negative growth appear slim, although another external shock could confound everyone’s hopes.
And the more important questions is exactly how the impact on unemployment will play out, given those numbers relate to actual human lives.
Nevertheless, this is what Treasury was aiming for when it told the Government how to craft its stimulus packages. This is why the Government went early and hard, why it tried to be “ahead of the curve”. Australia is now one of two developed economies with positive economic growth (S. Korea, who also went the stimulus route, is the other). And the proof is in the composition of the numbers. Imports are the biggest growth component (despite our suddenly-impressive trade performance). That means retail, which is one of the two sectors the Government bombed with cash in the December and March quarters.
For once the Government’s positive spin will be well earned. It took advice on how to avoid a recession and acted accordingly, and it worked. It’s just one number, and it’s only a technical definition of recession anyway, but the psychological impact will be significant. There’s even a possibility that the Government went a little too hard, and may have to think about when to pull back on stimulus, but this is not an exact science, and better to have over-stimulated than under-stimulated.
As for the Opposition, which wanted less or, depending on whom you ask, no stimulus, they’re up a particularly foul creek with not even a matchstick for a means of propulsion. The consequences of their opposition to the second stimulus package will continue to play out now that the Government can claim hard evidence that it has worked effectively. What can Malcolm Turnbull ask today? Whether 0.4% is evidence that the Government shouldn’t have spent so much propping up the economy?
In any event, officers in Treasury and the RBA should enjoy a celebratory cup of tea this afternoon. They’ve earned it.
I bet Turnbull will lead with this.
Member for Solomon warned before the first question was asked? What did he do?
What a hypocritical question from Turnbull!!!
The opposition so far isn’t barking up today like they have been in recent times. Are they that depressed and low on spirit with these GDP figures?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25579486-7582,00.html