2010 Federal Election

[mbirbeck]

Rudd has to go

Stupid Stupid Stupid decisions on giveaways and then taxes, the usual ALP crap of giving all the money away to the stupid and people that do not contribute to the economy and then taxing the crap out of anyone who has done well(Our golden goose the mining industry). Surely there must be more than 50% idiots in this country but Rudd the Dudd is there to start with so probably not

 

[austiart]

return costello as pm, would he?

 

[Julia]

I don't think abbott is fit to lead a country but I want to make sure rudd wont get another term and thats where i think most of abbotts votes will come from

Agree. But the Libs still need to present a credible alternative.
Before tonight I'd have voted Liberal in this Poll, but after seeing Joe Hockey's pathetic performance on the 7.30 Report this evening, I voted Neither. That will change, but right now I just feel disgusted with both sides.
The Libs should have the government's collective head on a platter, but they are so incompetent I fear Rudd will be re-elected.

And so far the polls which show such a reduction in voter approval for Rudd are not showing most of those votes going to Abbott. They seem to be more going to the Greens, probably in the wake of the shelving of the ETS.

But voting for the leader means you are voting for the party too. Overall the opposition is the better pick with better ideology.

Snake, I'm not sure that is how most of the electorate vote. Personalities have become very important. I so detest Rudd that I would vote for almost anyone to get him out, but so far have not seen any opposition policies that particularly impress me.

And ideology is well and good, except when the people charged with coming up with policy based on that ideology seem incapable of clear expression and costings of said ideology.

 

[gooner]

Hmmm, so the choice is between Tony (homosexuality threatens me) Abbott who will take us back to compulsory church attendance, ban pre-marital sex and make the pope the head of state replacing the Queen and Kevin (I'm an economic conservative) Rudd who appears to throw money around like confetti at a wedding, is killing the golden goose of mining and will spend $50,000 of my family's money on a new NBN so I can get faster pr0n, which I don't watch (honestly).

So, rule by the pope or economic meltdown. Really is a Clayton's choice.

Think I might move back to England. Good exchange rate at the moment. Shame about the weather etc etc. Good pubs and football though.

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

Snake, I'm not sure that is how most of the electorate vote. Personalities have become very important. I so detest Rudd that I would vote for almost anyone to get him out, but so far have not seen any opposition policies that particularly impress me.

And ideology is well and good, except when the people charged with coming up with policy based on that ideology seem incapable of clear expression and costings of said ideology.

Julia,

Fair comments.

Popstar like leaders or pollies get elected based on their brand. It's like marketing. What voters need to do is look at the team and what they stand for. This is evident in their policies and moral fortitude or lack of. What is their ethos? What is their future vision? etc etc. Unfortunately we really only have duopolies so our choice is not that great.

 

[sails]

Hmmm, so the choice is between Tony (homosexuality threatens me) Abbott who will take us back to compulsory church attendance, ban pre-marital sex and make the pope the head of state replacing the Queen and Kevin (I'm an economic conservative) Rudd who appears to throw money around like confetti at a wedding, is killing the golden goose of mining and will spend $50,000 of my family's money on a new NBN so I can get faster pr0n, which I don't watch (honestly).

So, rule by the pope or economic meltdown. Really is a Clayton's choice.

Think I might move back to England. Good exchange rate at the moment. Shame about the weather etc etc. Good pubs and football though.

lol Gooner, do you really think the Libs would allow Abbott to do as you suggest above? I would think he would lose leadership very rapidly if he pulled anything like such silly stunts.

 

[wayneL]

Re: 2010 Elections

We shall see what the '"Australian" people say at the next election.

I agree with IFocus.

Of course you do, such is the tribal nature of politics.

So you would equate electoral success with the logic of ideology?

I definitely wouldn't. That would mean that liberal ideology was superior for over a decade previous to this gu'mint, but now labor ideology is.

That is fuzzy thinking. The fact is that many people vote on whims, tribalism, pork barrelling, personality populist policy making etc etc, but rarely on the basic platform of a particular ideology.

Any discussion on ideology would need to venture deep into logic, psychology, economics and a host of social sciences. Perhaps on this level the bods from the Von Mises Insitute and The Fabian Society would be an entertaining face off.

On this level the Fabians have it all over the Austrians in base cunning and political subterfuge, but not the logic of people's well being and prosperity.

We shall see in due course the failure of Social Democracy (In fact we can see it clearly now, but it's just that the indomitable spirit true Capitalism keeps it propped up)

 

[Tink]

Undecided.

Last election, Libs were completely wiped out, federal and state.

I would rather abit of both than all one way

 

[Bill M]

Re: 2010 Elections

That just leaves not voting at all.

Do that as a society and we would quickly be reduced to a dictatorship.


And abstinence is not a practical option.

Hello drsmith, there are times that I feel really pumped up and want to vote and there are times that I am not. In my voting years of past I would have been very happy not to vote at all about 50% of time. It really urks me that in a so called democracy we are forced to vote, I reckon it should be up to individual whether they want to vote or not. To me it is just like a dictatorship when I am forced to vote. This is one election I do not want any part of, they can all go and get @#%%&^*!

 

[noco]

Geez, the way Rudd is going about things ATM, one might get the impression he is trying to loose the next election fearing the tangle he has got himself into, he may not know how to get out of it.
Another three years of broken promises and debacles would be just too much to accept.

 

[nioka]

At this stage it looks like the big winner will be the greens. They will get a protest vote from a lot of unhappy chappies who don't want either other party. That will mean a bigger disaster than we have now as the party that gets the most seats will be reliant on the greens to govern. That is why we will not see a double disolution as the greens would strengthen their position more there than they will with a normal election.

Remember green around the ears and solid wood between them is how I see most greens.

 

[Putty7]

I didn't vote in the last election, coming from a farming background I have had National and Liberal fed into me for years, but after working in mining and construction for the last five years, well the five years before I took this year off to trade, I watched the big companies use any excuse to push employees wages down and the contractors tried to follow suit blaming the big companies, the bottom line was they were all still making similar money it was just a good time to short the employees so to speak, this was the Libs doing.

I couldn't bring myself to vote for Labour and I certainly wasn't voting for the Howard Costello Libs that was thrown together at the last minute when it became clear Howard was to retire during the 3 year term. I coped the fine even though none of them were worth my time standing in line at the voting office, my mindset was I was not going to vote when there was nothing to vote for.

Rudd and Labour have made so many stuff ups doing things on the run rather than doing their due dilligence I have to vote in this election to make sure it does not continue.

The school fiasco, the insulation fiasco, the hand out of $900 which most people use to pay debt or go to the pub with, the cigarette tax grab disguised as to be given to the health system, save the whales from the Japanese fiasco, the ETS backflip when the taxation nature of it came out when Abbott came in to bat and Malcom retired hurt, was the mining tax responsible for the drop in the dollar and the fall in the stock market, maybe not but my belief is it gave a credible excuse to short the cr*p out of Australia in a time when we looked strong and secure to International investors. I would have missed a few no doubt but this rubbish can not be allowed to continue.

Where is Costello when you blo*dy need him !!

 

[Aston]

I was gobsmacked after reading the following article, which provides examples of the rorting of the federal government's schools stimulus scheme. For example $600,000 for a “a canteen that's not big enough to put in the fridge or freezer." Who is signing off on this and how do people get away with it. Someone in the government needs to be made accountable for this blatant waste of tax payer’s money.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/canteen-too-small-for-a-pie-warmer/story-e6frg6n6-1225867479199

 

[Julia]

I was gobsmacked after reading the following article, which provides examples of the rorting of the federal government's schools stimulus scheme. For example $600,000 for a “a canteen that's not big enough to put in the fridge or freezer." Who is signing off on this and how do people get away with it. Someone in the government needs to be made accountable for this blatant waste of tax payer’s money.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/canteen-too-small-for-a-pie-warmer/story-e6frg6n6-1225867479199

Aston, I tried to post up a link to tonight's 7.30 Report where Julia Gillard was quite rigorously interviewed about this, but can't find a linkable reference.
She is quite amazing in her capacity to sound quite reasonable while completely ignoring the actual question.
Another thread on this forum laments the sad lack of care for our aged people.
There's something particularly immoral about all this waste, while we have sectors of our community so much in need of funding.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

From conversations with people in Townsville, the atmosphere in the electorate about the federal election is rather like that prior to Howard replacing Keating in 1996.

People are waiting, not saying much, sitting on their verandahs, with their baseball bats, waiting to punish Rudd and his blundering party for the wasted opportunities of a huge surplus and the possibility of our major miners moving their operations to Africa, Canada and Chile.

I see no spontaneity in the shows of support for Rudd or Labor up here. The usual suspects in the unions front up for noddy opportunities when government ministers or Rudd visit North Queensland to be interviewed on TV.

If they could stuff up something as simple as home insulation, imagine what they would do with major infrastructure, publicly funded from this tax.

The divisions have started in Labor, and will spread, as the potential leaders position themselves for the leadership of Labor.

The result of the election is a foregone conclusion in the house of Reps, a Coalition victory.

gg

 

[DB008]

They are both as bad as each other.

The huge back-flip that Rudd has done on Climate Change is just mind-blowing. How many Australian delegates went to Copenhagen and how much money did that cost? Now it's all dead and buried like it never happened. If climate change was so important, how come there is absolutely no interest in it from any political party (Liberal or Labor).

Tony Abbott, as others have said, is just too conservative and Christian IMO.

I don't know who l'll be voting for.
They all lie through their teeth just to get your vote. Once they are in power, nothing happens. Terrible.

 

[Julia]

I don't know who l'll be voting for.
They all lie through their teeth just to get your vote. Once they are in power, nothing happens. Terrible.

I think you're expressing how much of the electorate feels - frustrated and powerless. It's just not possible to vote for either of them or the Greens, without being aware of a huge downside to all of them.

I don't remember a time when the political choices have been so dismal.

 

[So_Cynical]

the possibility of our major miners moving their operations to Africa, Canada and Chile.

What...the big miners are gona dig up all there ore and move it to Africa Canada and Chile?

 

[DB008]

What...the big miners are gona dig up all there ore and move it to Africa Canada and Chile?

Nope, Afghanistan.
2 sides to the coin
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7150081.ece
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/14/say_what_afghanistan_has_1_trillion_in_untapped_mineral_resources

 

[orr]

I so detest Rudd that I would vote for almost anyone to get him out, but so far have not seen any opposition policies that particularly impress me.

Now you know how I felt for the 'decayed' on from 1997. I'd lean toward anything progressive though.
What would be the cost of a couple of extra percentage points of Unemployment, Through a sustained recession? have you had a look around the other western democracies.
There might be the 'Gang of Four' (great band by the way)... but I'm sorry Bronwyn Bishop, Barnaby Joyce, Eric Abetz, Phil Ruddock, no matter what their policies are there's your Clang of four...