The worst government in Australia's history?

A serious question for those interested in the political process in Australia - is this Gillard government the worst government we have ever witnessed?

A quick synopsis of just some of the current issues coming back to haunt Gillard and Swan:

1. The on-going Obeid scandal in the NSW Right, the engine room of the 'faceless men' that forced KRudd from office.
2. The farcical MRRT take of only $126m, with the cross benches in revolt at the porky pies told to them by Swanny.
3. Two sitting, Labor endorsed MPs before the courts.
4. Roxon and co leaving en mass.
5. The Nova Perris debacle, with Gillard stitching up one of KRuddy's NT senators in the process.
6. The back-flip on the budget surplus.
7. The carbon tax job losses now being felt in the teeth of an East Coast recession.
8. Swan's attack on Twiggy Forrest at the time of the poorly conceived mining resources tax now playing out with him having egg on his face.
9. KRudd appearing on Youtube and social media every day with a evangelical, revenge-filled glint in his eyes.

.... and these are just some of the current issues facing this government.

So the question for the historians amongst us must be are we bearing witness to the most incompetent, ill disciplined and polarising Federal government in Australia's history? There is not a doubt in my mind that this is the worst government in the modern era. All Gillard's chickens are coming home to roost it seems.

BER, Pink Batts, houses going on fire, drownings at sea...

Beyond question.

For state governments, NSW was a train wreck pre 2012.

This is surely a rhetorical question !

No other government comes even close (including Gough's).


Started with the election of Rudd and will finally end with the defeat of Gillard.


Well may we say "God save Australia", because nothing will save the Labor Party!

dutchie said:

This is surely a rhetorical question !

No other government comes even close (including Gough's).


Started with the election of Rudd and will finally end with the defeat of Gillard.


Well may we say "God save Australia", because nothing will save the Labor Party!

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+1 and I will drink to that.

Talk of tomorrow will see the end of Gillard and an election well before 14th September well on the cards..

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has so many examples of poor Governance.

Don't forget

Kerosene baths in aged care facilities...oh no that was Bronwyn Bishop under the Howard Govt

Locking up the innocent like Vivien Solon, Cornelia Rau and Mohammed haneef...oh that was under the Previous Howard Govt. Damn

What about the private health insurance rebate and when it was originally set up it allowed people to make double claims costing millions of dollars...dang that was under Howard too.

Selling Telstra on the cheap ($12B in in 1997 dollars) was Howard.

The sale of DASFLEET was so badly managed that Macquarie bank took legal action against, you guessed it, the HOWARD Govt.

OASITO is the gift that kept on taking form the Australina tax payers. This Govt department set up under Howard bungled IT contracts so badly that some Govt departments were spending days off line, tens of million of dollars in lost productivity because staff couldn't do their jobs.

Private sector providers were so bad, the story went among bureaucrats, that John Fahey had demanded and got the insourcing of IT for his personal office so it could actually continue to function.

In 2001, the ANAO looked at the sale of Commonwealth property and its leaseback to the Public Service and found that some departments like Foreign Affairs and Trade were paying so much rent for properties they had previously owned that it was a net cost to the Commonwealth - one agency was predicted to lose nearly $100m over the course of its 20-year lease. The sales did let Howard brag about paying off the debt (1/3 of which was from his previous time as Treasurer), but left the budget in structural deficit by the time he lost office.

ANAO found some agencies’ handling of foreign exchange hedging lost millions of dollars on currency movements.

A 2000 review of the reliance of the Howard Government on consultants - worth $370m a year - was scathing, identifying systemic problems in the way agencies hired and used consultants.

A review of the greenhouse programs established by the Howard Government found that what carbon abatement the programs had obtained had been secured at prices ranging up to $150 a tonne - no wonder so many people are against programs to reduce emissions when the previous Govt made them so expensive!

There was a direct link between the failure of the Howard Government to remedy the military justice system despite repeated warnings, and the deaths of ADF personnel. These deaths are far greater in number than those attributed to problems in the insulation program.

Tony wants to take us back to THAT. Doesn't seem much better than what we've got now, could be worse if Tony wants to emulate Howard's last term in office and SPEND SPEND SPEND.

sydboy007 said:

Selling Telstra on the cheap ($12B in in 1997 dollars) was Howard..

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what beautiful prices did Labor get when selling off the alleged kitchen sink?

and I don't think identifying inefficient agencies that operate the same under both govt's as anything particularly scathing

glass houses throwing pebbles

white_goodman said:

what beautiful prices did Labor get when selling off the alleged kitchen sink?

and I don't think identifying inefficient agencies that operate the same under both govt's as anything particularly scathing

glass houses throwing pebbles

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My point is that neither side seems to be particularly adept at ensuring tax payer money isn't wasted.

The current LNP harp on about the waste and mismanagement of the current Govt.

I just want to highlight they didn't seem to do much better.

Now if they had repaid 96B without asset sales, I'd gladly call them amazing economic managers - they COULD have achieved that but spent the 100B in extra corporate tax revenue from RB-I. All that middle class welfare sent the budget into structural deficit. Would a good economic manager do that?

To crow about paying off the debt when you sold 76B in assets, not such a big achievement.

How much did going to Iraq the second time cost us? Over a million people marched against sending our troops in on FALSE intelligence data and we were IGNORED.

sydboy007 said:

How much did going to Iraq the second time cost us? Over a million people marched against sending our troops in on FALSE intelligence data and we were IGNORED.

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its only a false premise if you watch tin hat documentaries, at the time the intelligence was indicating that.. why?
The US had sold it to them, the Kurds had bared the brunt of it... tell a Kurdish-Iraqi that Saddam didnt have any WMD's.. An argument for the weighting of whether oil v WMD's is a different matter..

Draw up a list of privatizations prior to 96, it may shock you. And on that would a good economic manager have nationalised more firms/industries?

heres a mock Howard interview based on Lazarus rising that you may find good for your arguments

http://economics.org.au/2010/11/exclusive-john-howard-interview-on-lazarus-rising/

EEDDIITT :frown:

Yep. it's the worst government in Australia's history.

Mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton have built up a $1.7 billion arsenal of tax credits - and do not have to pay any mining tax until they are used up.

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http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/po...for-rio-bhp-20130212-2ebih.html#ixzz2KizVnKd5

If I correctly understand Joe Hockey's comments in parliament yesterday after question time, that indexes at CPI + 7%.

Mercy rule PPLLEEAASSEE.

Bushman said:

A serious question for those interested in the political process in Australia - is this Gillard government the worst government we have ever witnessed?

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Bushy short memory? or are you to young to know?

Compared to the Liberal National Coalition that ruled Queensland for 2 decades (1968 to 1987) ~ 4 ministers and the premier charged with corruption and 2 jailed along with the police commissioner....now thats the hands down the worst government in Australian history, with daylight second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh_Bjelke-Petersen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzgerald_Inquiry

Edit: seems all the ASF right has selective memory loss.

The esteemed Sir Robert Menzies was selling pig ion to the Japanese which was being used to manufacture weapons for their war efforts against us. My Grandmother referred to him as "Pig Ion Bob"

He was kicked out at the next election and Chifley (or was it Curtain first, memory only here) got us back on the right track and mobilised the troops away from Europe and back where they were needed around the northern and pacific areas.

When some of you dopes put up a heading to a thread you would think a bit of research and/or of course monitoring by ASF staff would be in order.

Taking the above as given, that makes it the worst federal government since WW2.

So_Cynical said:

Bushy short memory? or are you to young to know?

Compared to the Liberal National Coalition that ruled Queensland for 2 decades (1968 to 1987) ~ 4 ministers and the premier charged with corruption and 2 jailed along with the police commissioner....now thats the hands down the worst government in Australian history, with daylight second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh_Bjelke-Petersen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzgerald_Inquiry

Edit: seems all the ASF right has selective memory loss.

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Oh I wouldn't go as far as to say that So-Cynical, the Labor Government of Brian Burke in W.A., would take some stacking.lol
The Premier was jailed along with a senior minister of the cabinet. I think my Premier, beats your 4 ministers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Burke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Parker_(Australian_politician)

Of course we can all be topped if it became a Prime Minister and several ministers.

sptrawler said:

Of course we can all be topped if it became a Prime Minister and several ministers.

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Governed by a psychopath and then a criminal.

That would be hard to top, but Labor could do it.

Psychopath/criminal/return of the psychopath.

It's a government that's already check mated itself twice on the resources tax.

Still, it can claim to have had the worlds best treasurer.

So_Cynical said:

Edit: seems all the ASF right has selective memory loss.

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or simply we werent born

explod said:

The esteemed Sir Robert Menzies was selling pig ion to the Japanese which was being used to manufacture weapons for their war efforts against us. My Grandmother referred to him as "Pig Ion Bob"

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Plod thats wrong. He sold to the japs after the war. Back when labor was commie scum

Phone posting prob

They got us the the GFC with not much damage. They have generally been a competant if not visionary government.
We in Australia are blessed with good governments at the Federal level, so lucky when compared to many others. ...but hey Australia has taken the mantle as the biggest whingers in the world off the poms. Keep it up.

Knobby22 said:

They got us the the GFC with not much damage. They have generally been a competant if not visionary government.
We in Australia are blessed with good governments at the Federal level, so lucky when compared to many others. ...but hey Australia has taken the mantle as the biggest whingers in the world off the poms. Keep it up.

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The good thing in Australia is the governments are flipped on a regular basis. Therefore no boys clubs start up between the parties.

Knobby22 said:

They got us the the GFC with not much damage. They have generally been a competant if not visionary government.
We in Australia are blessed with good governments at the Federal level, so lucky when compared to many others. ...but hey Australia has taken the mantle as the biggest whingers in the world off the poms. Keep it up.

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Good points Knobby22. There are truckloads of country's i would be really unhappy to be in. i think our govts are pretty middle of the road, I do get upset at how much sliming there is against each other (and within).
I could only imagine what could happen if they actually got on with their work.

I always thought a close govt with line ball seats would make a govt perform well. I dont sense that that has been the case. I feel that the independents had hamstrung the govt particularly early and I hope we dont suffer that again.
Had we really taken that mantle from the Poms. Shame. We really need to have a look at ourselves. And ask why are so many busting their R's to get here?

jb