# Labor Party and the economy



## mista200 (1 August 2005)

If Labor can pull itself together next time round (i hope not) how do you think the economy will handle?. I could not be happier with the economic climate at the moment and i just think that the thought of a Labor government will scare away investors, lift interest rates and also increase unemployment. What do you guys think. I mean im no Liberal fan either, I just think Howard is good for business and Costello even better! I don't know how anyone can think that australia sending a handful of troops to Iraq to protect Japanese engineers is going to make us any better off thought.


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## mime (1 August 2005)

Yeah Labor suck. Their goal is to make everybody dependent on them. They do this by making everyone poor with taxes and uncontroled spending.


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## mista200 (1 August 2005)

As i am rather new to Investing and didnt follow the charts it would be interesting how much an election result alters the markets?


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## Milk Man (1 August 2005)

I'm a national supporter myself. I don't like labor whatsoever. Totally agree that they always stuff up the economy.

I think the liberals are a little too capitalist though.


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## Bloveld (1 August 2005)

The average worker will be a lot worse off under Liberal when things settle down. Then Labor will be back.


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## It's Snake Pliskin (1 August 2005)

Bloveld said:
			
		

> The average worker will be a lot worse off under Liberal when things settle down. Then Labor will be back.




Yes I think the transition to Chinese style slave working conditions is already underway, though it will take some time to get to that level. Labor won't be back until they totally change their party system. 



> I think the liberals are a little too capitalist though.




Certainly this is good for the market isn't it?


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## bvbfan (1 August 2005)

Funny how a lot of the unpopular Labor reforms in of the 90's has led the Australian economy into the position the Libs have taken full credit for

The trade barriers and reforms of tariffs were started put into place the foundations for healthy growth

Whoever was in power the last 5-6years have had an easy job economically and to say the Libs have done something special is absurb. They were fortunate to have strong growth in Asia, US and also have low interest rates WHICH they didn't bring down, market forces drove them down in reaction to world events


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## wayneL (2 August 2005)

bvbfan said:
			
		

> Whoever was in power the last 5-6years have had an easy job economically and to say the Libs have done something special is absurb. They were fortunate to have strong growth in Asia, US and also have low interest rates WHICH they didn't bring down, market forces drove them down in reaction to world events




Agreed.

When it all boils down, they all suck.


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## Knobby22 (2 August 2005)

Labor need someone like Hawke or Blair.
I think they will do OK if they can stop their factional problems.

The Republicans under Bush have been bad for the stockmarket in the US, but they are extremists.

I have voted Liberal in the past but would vote for a credible alternative. I was not impressed with their trade deal with the US and agree with Beazley that we shouldn't have signed for the peanuts offered.


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## Milk Man (2 August 2005)

Snake Pliskin said:
			
		

> Certainly this is good for the market isn't it?




The liberals look after their mega rich constituents a little too much IMO. Which is good for the market but not if youre a battler trying to get ahead.
That said; Labor look after their main constituents- unions, a little too much.
Average Joe gets all the benefits of Labor blowing all its revenue plus more on stuff of benefit to them. When all the money has gone and the country is in financial ruin everyone curses Labor for wrecking the economy. You can't keep everyone happy so its best just to look after the ones picking up the tab first and then try to please everyone else.


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## It's Snake Pliskin (2 August 2005)

loakglen said:
			
		

> The liberals look after their mega rich constituents a little too much IMO. Which is good for the market but not if youre a battler trying to get ahead.
> That said; Labor look after their main constituents- unions, a little too much.
> Average Joe gets all the benefits of Labor blowing all its revenue plus more on stuff of benefit to them. When all the money has gone and the country is in financial ruin everyone curses Labor for wrecking the economy. You can't keep everyone happy so its best just to look after the ones picking up the tab first and then try to please everyone else.




Most Australians now concede that the government does more for the average person than Labor. This is not to say they intend to do a lot for the average person in the future though.


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## moXJO (19 February 2010)

Milk Man said:


> The liberals look after their mega rich constituents a little too much IMO. Which is good for the market but not if youre a battler trying to get ahead.
> That said; Labor look after their main constituents- unions, a little too much.
> Average Joe gets all the benefits of Labor blowing all its revenue plus more on stuff of benefit to them. When all the money has gone and the country is in financial ruin everyone curses Labor for wrecking the economy. You can't keep everyone happy so its best just to look after the ones picking up the tab first and then try to please everyone else.




Funny how things don't change.

My current concern is the new IR laws being tested and failing the employer. Stories such as this:

http://www.news.com.au/business/business-smarts/bosses-rapped-for-valid-sacking/story-e6frfm9r-1225832031738



> THE nation's industrial umpire has ruled that a long-term employee who was legitimately sacked for repeated safety breaches must be reinstated and paid compensation because of his poor education and poor job prospects.
> 
> In the latest ruling to concern business, Fair Work Australia found the worker had engaged in "relatively serious misconduct", but ruled the sacking harsh due to his length of service and the fact he was a poorly educated middle-aged family man, The Australian reported.




Will begin to shake small business confidence. There was a time when this was the norm and I hope this is an isolated incident, but slowly the bad old days are being brought back again.
http://www.seaaoc.com/news-old/offshore-workers-get-pay-rise-industry-concerned


> AMMA chief executive Steve Knott said the three-month dispute highlighted acts of virtual piracy were allowed to occur under the Fair Work regime, with the agreement coming down to employers being forced to either “comply or die”.
> “The nature of the dispute clearly demonstrates the ease unions can use the new Fair Work Act laws to initiate damaging strike activity in pursuit of outrageous claims, all while the government sits idly by and watches such reckless action unfold from the sidelines,” he said.
> “When people hear members of the government cheering on an agreement which in effect results in a $50,000 pay rise to already world's best-paid seafarers earning $130,000, they would rightly be asking themselves how such increases could be economically justified.”




Fair work act is a joke atm. My main concern is how much business can bear this time round. The amount of BS on construction sites under Hawk and Keating were appalling. Basically unions blackmailing money out of developers, or shutting down sites on a whim. 
Unfair dismissal  people were caught stealing from the till and then reinstated with compo under unfair dismissal laws in the past. I knew a lot of small business as well that wore unfair dismissal claims. It's like being shot back into the 80's. Everyone keeps saying that liberals did little over 12 years. But they cleared up a lot of crap and streamlined the process of doing business to a more bearable level. And disputes were cleared without illegal action being allowed to carry on by unions. This was one of my fears at the last election.
Early days yet so hopefully nothing to worry about.


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## Calliope (19 February 2010)

http://www.news.com.au/business/bus...or-valid-sacking/story-e6frfm9r-1225832031738

This is obviously a message to employers;

"Don't employ anyone with 'a poor education and poor job prospects' because now matter how dangerous he is on the job he is unsackable".


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## Mr J (19 February 2010)

That one was posted above. Ridiculous stuff.


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## Wysiwyg (19 February 2010)

And we wonder why business sources goods, production and labour overseas. I remember a story about  fish that are caught in Australia and flown overseas to be processed and then flown back to Australia packaged ready for sale. It is less expensive. 
Some people don't know how good they got it.


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## nulla nulla (19 February 2010)

Wysiwyg said:


> And we wonder why business sources goods, production and labour overseas. I remember a story about  fish that are caught in Australia and flown overseas to be processed and then flown back to Australia packaged ready for sale. It is less expensive.
> Some people don't know how good they got it.




Tuna, just about all tuna sold in a Australia now is processed and canned in Thailand. Doesn't matter where it is caught, it is processed in Thailand. Global economics, catch it, freeze it, ship it to Thailand, process it, can it, label it and ship it all over the world.


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## noco (6 March 2014)

Another Labor Party debacle.......Another unionized industry subsidized by the tax payers......Incompetence at the highest level in ordering inferior Chinese piping.........we make piping in Australia.....why did Labor send jobs off shore.....Labor just do not know how to manage our money and further more they are so hypocritical.....They have been harping on in Parliament all this week about Qantas jobs going off shore....OMG 

Is it any wonder we now have such high debt and deficit.



http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/...for-cost-blowout/story-fnihslxi-1226847274212


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## Smurf1976 (6 March 2014)

To be fair and politically neutral, I'd take a guess that there's a bean counter involved with those pipes somewhere.

Someone who insisted that everything be tendered with all the I's dotted and T's crossed, awarding the supply contract to whoever quoted the lowest price and said they could supply what was needed. Such processes generally exclude any practical experience and other knowledge, relying solely on what's written in the tender documents, and are pretty common in government no matter who is in power. Sometimes it works, sometimes you end up being forced to buy a heap of junk which the bean counters will then insist be installed until such time as it's proven defective.

A lot of taxpayer money gets wasted in this way, pipes on submarines being just one example. As another example that I won't be too specific about, an Australian state government (a government department, not a state owned company and for the record it wasn't in the power industry) bought 15 identical items and they were clearly not up to the job upon delivery. The usual suspects nonetheless insisted that they be installed. Not long afterward they replaced the whole lot, with the added expense of removal and re-installation of the entire system. Any decent engineer would have put a halt to it, indeed that's what they wanted to do, but those damn purchasing rules must be followed it would seem. 

Solution? Leave the purchasing to those who know what they're doing and keep the bean counters well away from technical / engineering decisions. Labor, Liberal or anyone else makes very little difference to the outcome as long as the process remains essentially the same.


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