ELECTIONS - Labor or Liberal

I'd like this thread to be concerned with the up coming election. Out of Labor or Liberial who will win the election? Why? Who would you vote for? How would the party you voted for benefit you in the sharemarket?

can we have a "none of the above " please

I think many folks have had enough of Johnny Rotten.

I'm traditionally a liberal voter, but can't wait to see the back end of this lot.

The political landscape is fairly homogenous amongst the big parties anyway.

2020hindsight said:

can we have a "none of the above " please

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If the poll said "who do you want to win?" I'd agree wholeheartedly.

Alas, the the poll is "who do we think will win?" And not enough people have the nads to vote outside of the main cabal... errrr, I mean parties.

Vote 1 Mickey Mouse

Vote 1 for the new dream-team, Shane Warne for President, Brad Hogg for PM.
lets get some spin coming outta Canberra that we can't pick from a mile off.

2020hindsight said:

can we have a "none of the above " please

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I don't think the other parties are significant at this stage in Australias politcal history... Labor and liberal always battle it out

Vote for pedro

Well, as a 100% investor in Uranium who should I expect to benefit me as far as Uranium mining and the nuclear industry goes?

Actually it doesn't matter. Leadership of Aus resides in the White House

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/
good discussion on ABC Insiders program this morning
click on "this week on insiders"
or if you want a laugh " talking pictures".
Too close to call on who will win.

Its a landslide victory according to the votes...wooo hooo. Kick howard out!

How can you keep Howard in when he has slashed education funding, put up HECS fees, Dumped workers needs/rights/working conditions/Pay.

Pumped millions into a useless war.

Lied to the public and allowed 8 interest rate rises to occur

Introduced the GST, a tax on a tax!

Kick the bastard out!

wayneL said:

not enough people have the nads to vote outside of the main cabal... errrr, I mean parties.

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I do; hell, I even ran as a candidate in 2004 for a non-"main cabal" party.

m.

PS. Ten points to whomever guesses correctly which party.
PPS. The points mean absolutely nothing!!!

Stop_the_clock said:

How can you keep Howard in when he has slashed education funding, put up HECS fees, Dumped workers needs/rights/working conditions/Pay.

Pumped millions into a useless war.

Lied to the public and allowed 8 interest rate rises to occur

Introduced the GST, a tax on a tax!

Kick the bastard out!

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I think hecs is great I just graduated and I'm doing more uni... Hecs is the best loan because it only goes up according to inflation which is easily out performed by share investing... I hope that public transportation isn't free for students though... I always drove to school to get away from the freaks that catch it... I spent $5500 a year just to drive and park my car in the city...

insider said:

I don't think the other parties are significant at this stage in Australias politcal history... Labor and liberal always battle it out

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True in the national and mainland state context. But the Greens have in recent times rivalled the Liberals in Tasmania so it's not impossible for a "new" party to seriously challenge Liberal / Labor given the right circumstances.

Admittedly, being a serious threat to the "borrow, borrow and borrow some more - doom and gloom are just around the corner" Tas Liberals isn't exactly difficult. But that's really not that different to the two major parties in Canberra in that neither of them offer anything truly progressive (at least not without a major downside they prefer not to mention).

I'd seriously like to see someone from any party address the serious issues facing this country rather than bury their head in the sand and waffle on about whatever the current popular issue happens to be.

Issues?

1. Energy and water. We're headed full throttle off the cliff on this one and few are even aware of it let alone doing anything about it. Inadequate water storage, oil and then gas depletion, the actions of Russia etc over fuel exports, the potential of the US and China outbidding us for available oil on world markets, the maximum possible depletion rate of our own resources, climate change... And this is an issue that could easily (WILL if nothing changes) derail our entire economy, national security and way of life.

2. Education. The lack of even basic knowledge on things that matter (for example finance, major events in history with ongoing relevance and engineering / physics fundamentals) for the future of individuals and the country is an outright disaster IMO. That even well educated people apparently fail to understand such concepts as compound interest and kinetic energy, neither of which are exactly difficult in a basic form, says it all about education in this country.

3. Trade. Argue all you like as to how long it will continue but at some point all that massive debt has to be repaid somehow. Future generations won't thank us for that one. And it's ridiculous from both an economic and national security perspective to rely so much on exporting raw materials in the hope that this will pay for imports of finished goods. One war that may not even directly involve Australia and that flow of goods grinds to an abrupt halt.

4. Climate change. With Chinese emissions growing at an annual rate that exceeds Australia's total emissions, Russia wanting to shift to coal for power generation etc it's pie in the sky to expect a real global solution before serious effects are obvious to all. So we need to start serious preparation for what seems inevitable - stopping building things in areas that will be under water well before the strucutre wears out would be a simple place to start. Major infrastructure to cope with floods etc is another (more politically and economically difficult) one.

5. Population. THE issue that nobody wants to go anywhere near. What is Australia's sustainable population level having regard to the situation with oil, climate change etc? We ought to be VERY careful to not exceed that population level (have we already?).

But it's so much easier to just waffle on about whatever happened recently in the financial markets (usually interest rates), short term weather patterns, some statistic the ABS has released and so on. Just don't go near any of those hard issues that actually need strong leadership.

marklar said:

I do; hell, I even ran as a candidate in 2004 for a non-"main cabal" party.

m.

PS. Ten points to whomever guesses correctly which party.
PPS. The points mean absolutely nothing!!!

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The Greens?

I got offered to run as a green candidate in the 2005 WA state election. Seriously thought about it and declined.

I hope Howard gets pounded. Our universities, hospitals and conventions have never looked sicker. Not to mention a grim outlook for the youth in Australia.

What will Howard be remembered for in another 30 years? Apart from appeasing the cashed up bogans, what has been done in this country? Hawke and Keating are responsible for the strong economy we are seeing now, and that is increasingly viewed as the case. Absolutely no vision, and it will cost us in the long run.

Your right but you have to admit that the greens strategies are pretty bad... No exporting coal overseas... c'mon... a few years ago they had a plan to ban cars from CBD's and make everyone ride bikes instead... No fooling

Stop_the_clock said:

Lied to the public and allowed 8 interest rate rises to occur

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I'm somewhat perplexed as to why someone who is concerned about the high price of houses would seemingly be opposed to interest rate rises?

insider said:

Your right but you have to admit that the greens strategies are pretty bad... No exporting coal overseas... c'mon... a few years ago they had a plan to ban cars from CBD's and make everyone ride bikes instead... No fooling

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Yes, the idea is taken from some northern european cities where they have this policy. I think even Portland in the US is the same. And Fremantle at various times has seriously considered it. Instead they have buses timed so that certain streets are free from cars for about 5mins every 30.

Although I agree that we shouldn't be exporting coal, saying we should ban it immediately is just dumb and is not thought out. A much more sensible approach would be to suggest the end to exportation of coal in 10 years or so, whilst capping exports in the meantime. But you can't argue with big business... The health problems in Chinese cities will soon level off demand for coal there anyway.