ELECTIONS - Labor or Liberal

whitta27 said:

arminius
howard has managed to bring the unemployment levels down to extreme low levels
thats a significant achievement.
what could howard do to win your approval?

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Wrong. The mining boom brought down the unemployment. Without it the umemployment would have risen because Howard exported so many jobs. Howard has got to a point where he couldn't win me back because I would not have faith in being able to trust him, Abbot or Costello. Until I see otherwise I have would place more faith in Rudd.

whitta27 said:

if a rudd government is elected watch the unemployment level rise as business owners and employers aviod hiring people because they are scared of union thuggery.

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what absolute rubbish...
u seriously suggesting the our big miners are going to stop hiring people so that they can dig up more ore to sell to china just cause the labor party are in govt?

i notice you were the one defending politicians before as the only ones who have balls... if you mean balls to stand up and lie in front of everyone... on that point, i certainly agree with you.

are you a policitician?

Big miners are OK either way, but unfair dismissal law was stoping small shop operators hiring.

Great number of shops means great number of people employed.

agreed... small businesses need the protection.

i look forward to hearing what labor has to say about unfair dismissal.
I believe their thinking is a 1yr probationary period... which makes sense. But I would like to see unfair dismissal and all other red tape for small business reduced significantly.

nioka said:

Wrong. The mining boom brought down the unemployment. Without it the umemployment would have risen because Howard exported so many jobs. Howard has got to a point where he couldn't win me back because I would not have faith in being able to trust him, Abbot or Costello. Until I see otherwise I have would place more faith in Rudd.

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Partly Wrong. Flexible hiring allows for smaller business to take on more people without the risks.

The liberal cut off point for a small business is 100 employees.

That is way too high. A much more representative cut off point would be 20 employees, for example.

A recent project we did into the Steel and Metal Fabrication Industry found that the largest employer of our sample had 89 employees. The smallest had 2. Most were between 10 and 30 employees.

arminius said:

good evening all,

theres 140 odd people out there who want to return the government. can one of you outline for me how they, over a decade, have improved oz, leaving aside economics- suffice to say many people are well off. (the reasons for this are many and varied) leave out announcements made in the last few months as they are driven by politics, not policy.

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The problem with doing that is that it will be torn apart by opposing views who have there own theory.

Superannuation ,Ease of doing business thus creating a lot more opportunity, tax reform ,immigration of skilled labor instead of family reunion policy bs, I.R reform (to a degree) , Gun laws after public backlash(good or bad depending which camp your in)Foreign aid increases.

Now there’s also a huge list of bad stuff as well. Now are you voting labor because you hate Howard or think Rudd’s policies are good?

Rafa said:

agreed... small businesses need the protection.

i look forward to hearing what labor has to say about unfair dismissal.
I believe their thinking is a 1yr probationary period... which makes sense. But I would like to see unfair dismissal and all other red tape for small business reduced significantly.

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Small business you say. Yes Johnny said he was the chaampion of small business and killed it with the droconian manner in which he introduced the GST. Small business remembers all right.

And while we are on unemployment, the figures did not use to include part time jobs. Wonder what the real unemployment figure is. Yeh Johnny, the champion of the worker eh, who are the heads of the families

Several Points to make

1) The problem is Rudd has never, not once been a leader in any shape or form ... he has not even lead his local council. He's a puppet to union leaders which are going to bring this country back 10 to 15 years.

2) If we are going to be living in a country where we can strike becuase a site down the road has 3 flavours of ice cream and we have two ... god help us ... even better lets all chuck a sicky at the same time ... yeah thats a good idea ... no wonder the Perth to Mandurah rail line still hasn't been built and is way over budget ... Why?? Because leightons is a shoddy operator ... Yeah, thats right, leightons dont know how to deliver a job on time (you morons) ... Unions are the SCURGE of modern man! Labour govt should not build anything ... and everything should be privatised! Only business knows how to conduct business in the most efficient manner ... not governments ...

3) We should take a page out of the italians book and vote in a billionaire business man who knows whats going on ... at least things will get done in this country.

4) No im not an employer but i am a hard worker who is sick of LAZY people ... you work hard you get justly rewarded ... simple ... just cant wait until things slow down, when there are no jobs going around.

5) Why is it that when we as australians visit other countries/cities, NY, Berlin, Paris, Shanghai, we are in AWE ... come back like stunned mullets ... why cant we be developed, advance ... nope we always 2 years behind in everything .. never the first

6) WA again ... we have how many km of coastline ?? More than 10000km surely ... why cant developers take say 20km of this ... and develop the crap out of it .. make a satellite city, bring in tourists ... what do we have to offer them now? FARK ALL ... (excuse my french) ...

Come on people ... think outside the BOX ... why be followers when we can be leaders! Australia has SO MUCH potential and frankly the time is being wasted. When resources run out ... what will we be producing and exporting??? Somebody tell me please!

Vote 1 - Peter Costello (this should open a can of worms) - just listen to him in parliament question time ... he's bloody good!

(This has not been proof read and is designed to bring up critical discussion. Take no offence to what is above. Its all a joke and only to be taken as that.)

I think howard has done a few good things
1. GST
2. Super (which was incidentally was introduced by Labor, and heavily opposed by the libs)...
3. Abolition of unfair dismissal laws for small business, tho I too also disagree with the 100 employees...

But a lot of good things, he has simply gone over the top (too americanised) in some of his changes...
1. GST: too much paperwork for smal busiess
2. Super: Still disagree with the way its done... by allowing lump sum withdrawals at no tax.
3. IR Laws... complete abolition of unions, which could be the thin end of the wedge, both in terms of wages, conditions, health and safety, etc
4. two tier health with all this private health rebates, penalties, surcharges, etc, lack of dental health, etc
5. higher education fees thru the roof

then there are the other issues (i am undecided as to for or against)
1. move towards a more traditional family values (mum's who works getting severely penalised)
2. more support for private education
3. gun laws
4. lack of any major attempt to keep manufacturing jobs in Australia
5. a deliberate vilification of minority groups incl aborignes, unemployed, refugees, single mothers, and now muslims.
6. blatant populism
7. so many skilled migrants being let in on 457's when vocational education has been severely run down.
8. yet at same time vilify immigrants to appease the hanson supporters
9. lack of activity regards to global warming

Overall, he hasn't done too bad a job

if ONLY he wasn't so devisive and blatantly cunning....
1. children overboard
2. tampa
3. refugees could be terrorists
4. interest rate rubbish
5. nuclear power is needed in australia
6. and the latest blame the states for everything...
i might have voted for him again...


He says he wants increased participation, but heavily taxes mums who want to join the work force...

He panders to the anti-immigrant sentiment, but lets in more immigrants than any other prime minister in history

he says boat people can be terrorists, but its doctors who come in becuase there is a skill shortage since he cut funding for higher education that seem to be the most risk!

he says he's a friend of small business, but small business have been burdened with more red tape with the GST and now AWA's its not funny.

he says he wants national outcomes, but fails to take things away from the states cause he rather have someone else to blame (abbotts response to rudds health plan exposes this tactic rather well)

i could go on...

there are simpy too many contradictions from howard for me to trust him anymore.

we live in a gloabal economy, everything is floated, we are almost tariff free, the rba is independent, we are riding on our mineral exports ... if the world economy booms, we will boom, if it goes bust, we will go bust.

in essence both leaders are virually identical... i.e. center right... howard is right of center right, more americanised and individual... rudd is left of center right.. a bit more social justice and collective thrown in. (more european).

zt3000 said:

This .... is designed to bring up critical discussion.

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bs, zt, no bloody way is that post gonna bring up any criticism !


Monty Python Argument Sketch

2020hindsight said:

bs, zt, no bloody way is that post gonna bring up any criticism !


Monty Python Argument Sketch

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heheh i know ... the more emotion i stir the less rational the response become hahaha

explod said:

Small business you say. Yes Johnny said he was the chaampion of small business and killed it with the droconian manner in which he introduced the GST. Small business remembers all right.

And while we are on unemployment, the figures did not use to include part time jobs. Wonder what the real unemployment figure is. Yeh Johnny, the champion of the worker eh, who are the heads of the families

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The GST isn’t that bad and is progressively being improved to make it easier. I still don’t like it, but who does like tax. Its better then what we had.

It’s fairly easy to get a job atm as well. Just had a friend call me 10 mins ago about being scalped by another building company at a much higher rate of pay.

Can we talk about Rudd and some actual policies people like or think are a step in the right direction. So far he seems to have dodged the whole process by simply not being Howard. And so far have not seen much discussion about him at all.The Unions were told to shutup till after the election and have since closed the doors on the media.

Happy said:

Big miners are OK either way, but unfair dismissal law was stoping small shop operators hiring.

Great number of shops means great number of people employed.

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Trouble is, all the "competition" stuff has largely got rid of small shops in order to enable the majors to more successfully win the "competition" to empty our wallets.

I think ten years is more than enough for one government containing the same leadership. I always feel that they tend to become a little detached / arrogant / they are the only ones who can govern and in the case of Howard currently policy driven by polls.
Howard's attack on the federation is bewildering coming from a Liberal centralizing power.

My only regret with the current administration is that Costello never got a shot at the top job. He is not the politician that Howard is in terms of playing the game but his intellect would have been a nice change and would possibly added some energy to the parliamentary Liberal party.

Its unfortunate that Rudd wont have the talent that Hawke started with (i believe at the time it was the best qualified front bench of any Australian government) but having said that the talk of doom and gloom re unions and the like is laughable (I was active in the union movement for a number of years and clearly the narrow focus on the union faults is a joke apply the same test to business and the horror story's are just as bad if not worse).

But in the end the people of Australia will get the government they deserve unfortunately resembling the presidential style deployed in the US.

Regardless who is in power you can only hope that the bureaucrats will run the county regardless.


Focus

Rafa said:

i notice you were the one defending politicians before as the only ones who have balls... if you mean balls to stand up and lie in front of everyone... on that point, i certainly agree with you.

are you a policitician?

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i don't think they are the only one with balls obviously there are people everywhere doing a good job in a variety of positions.
- but what kind of people do you want in parliament.? examples?

you and your drinking buddies?

i'm just saying these people are the ones that put their name in the hat having a go - yeah there not perfect but i for one respect them for having a crack.

haha and no i'm not a politician -

zt3000 said:

everything should be privatised! Only business knows how to conduct business in the most efficient manner ... not governments ...

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The problem with privatisation is that with very few exceptions it increases the cost thus requiring either higher taxes (in the case where government still funds the work and outsources it) or higher charges to end users where the private owner deals directly with the public.

Witness the disasters in electricity, gas, traffic lights, roads and all manner of other things that governments have privatised. We're paying, paying and paying again for that mess.

Just compare electricity prices in privately owned areas with the publicly owned suppliers.

I noticed this thread recently and would like to put some of my observations on forthcoming election.

First of all I hate to say that Labour will unfortunately win the election. To be frank and being a pragmatic I believe that will be a downturn of the Australian economy and sliding path of recession. But the fact is in March/April this year I have been visiting Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane in addition to Perth where I came from. I made s my own survey by asking taxi drivers, common people, hawkers and likewise. The clear trend at that time was towards labour though they all recognised the good work done by Liberal. One of the key factor was the perceived threat from changes in workplace relation. It seems the leverage obtained from royalty, taxes etc from high growth and resource boom were not capitalised well by Liberal Government. Specially some of the members in Mr Howard's ministry missed the opportunity to encash for next election forgetting that most of our Australian voters have fish like short memory, least political sensitivity and will tend to vote for labour out of complacency just to see the change after 11 years. What percentage of people really understand the policy, stratgic direction ?

Mr Howard has been too greedy to barter his personal ambition with country's benefits by not creating a stable second line of defence. After the loss his job will be simple - to resign from politics but damage will be done. The Liberal part in Federal will be of the same status of liberal party of WA - infighting. End of the day mums and dads will have sleepless nights with high interest rate, recession and Mr Rudd will convincingly blame Liberal and their bad policy.
I am no astrologer but please read my statement in mid 2009 and tally it then.

Regards
24 August 07

Smurf1976 said:

The problem with privatisation is that with very few exceptions it increases the cost thus requiring either higher taxes (in the case where government still funds the work and outsources it) or higher charges to end users where the private owner deals directly with the public.

Witness the disasters in electricity, gas, traffic lights, roads and all manner of other things that governments have privatised. We're paying, paying and paying again for that mess.

Just compare electricity prices in privately owned areas with the publicly owned suppliers.

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Im sorry but your completely wrong

Advantages of Privatisation

·Privtaely owned Firms are more cost efficient - because they need to make a profit.

·Privatisation places the risk in the hands of business or Private Enterprise.

·Govt. Businesses are subject to an enormous amount of red tape (Beauraucracy)

·Private enterprise is more responsive to customer complaints and innovation.

·Govt Ent. Have an advantage over private Ent. Because they can guarantee payment of bills and they don't pay tax.

·The Govt. should not be a player and an umpire.

·Privatisation provides a one off cash boost for Govt. This can be spent on Hospitals etc...

·Privatisation leads to lower prices and greater supply.

·Competition in privatization increases differentiation.


Shall i go on?

I can if you wish ... i wrote my honours dissertation on Economic Benefits of Privatisation ...

zt3000 said:

I can if you wish ... i wrote my honours dissertation on Economic Benefits of Privatisation ...

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zt, When I was a director of a small engineering company, our (deputy) bank manager asked could he do his dissertation for MBA on our company - we had a chuckle when we read it

I think, if I was to have my time again, I'd do an MBA as well, and write one on "The Economic Benefits of Dissertations" lol

PS I probably agree with you about privatisation tho
And don't Govt love handing over the reins - so that they can blame someone else lol