My general feeling on the election is that the Liberal alliance will make a recovery in the last 7 days, leading up to the election, and win with a slim majority.
Good one, noirua - you have raised an important issue that needs resolving! So, here is my suggestion....
Sometime within the last 5 days leading up to voting day, this forum should start the FINAL PRE-ELECTION POLL thread, to try and gauge the last minute sentiment of voters here in ASF, since so many respondents have already said they will leave it until near voting day to decide.
Now that WOULD be interesting, wouldn't it?
Whaddya all thin
AJ
the question should be who will you vote for?. not, who do you think will win?
I consider myself the youth of this nation at ninety and this election has just put me completely off Australian politics. In my eyes, Australians see an election as what they can get from there public purse, and see the government as an asset for the individual, rather then something that deals with economic policy. Infrastructure and and a respectable gov't surplus don't win votes.
Peace Guys
Good one, noirua - you have raised an important issue that needs resolving! So, here is my suggestion....
Sometime within the last 5 days leading up to voting day, this forum should start the FINAL PRE-ELECTION POLL thread, to try and gauge the last minute sentiment of voters here in ASF, since so many respondents have already said they will leave it until near voting day to decide.
Now that WOULD be interesting, wouldn't it?
Whaddya all think? AJ
Also - amongst the passion and drama of Mr Rudd's speech yesterday - where he announced so many new projects/handouts, I noticed there was no dollar figure attached to any of them. Not much point in establishing some wonderful sounding new scheme if it's not adequately funded.
The poll on "Is there a God" scored about 270 votes total.PS How's this for an option.... Start the thread here on the morning of voting - and ask "How did you vote".
That way we won't have as many branch stacking problems
(PS only rarely do polls around here score upwards of 400 votes btw)
Auditor slams Coalition grants use
Siobhain Ryan | November 15, 2007
THE national auditor has slammed the Howard Government's use of a key regional grants program, citing many examples of financial mismanagement and apparent pork-barrelling.
The Government pumped a third of the money from the Regional Partnerships program into 10 rural Coalition seats over three years, asking for a list of 100 projects by electorate and bid amount to be funded in the 2004 election lead-up.
And the auditor found that ministers were more likely to overrule departmental opposition to specific projects if they came from Coalition seats, and more likely to knock back funding for projects recommended by the department if they originated in Labor seats.
The damning suggestions of pork-barrelling are in an audit report released today that shows $110 million worth of projects approved for regional partnerships funding between 2003 and 2006 breached its own financial management rules.
It shows the Government, including then regional services minister John Anderson and then parliamentary secretary DeAnne Kelly, regularly overruled departmental objections to funding proposals and, in some cases, did so without having received a grant application.
“The manner in which the program has been administered over the three-year period to 30 June 2006 examined by ANAO had fallen short of an acceptable standard of public administration,” the Australian National Audit Office said.
Its three-volume report had more than a dozen detailed examples of blatant breaches of accountability and management guidelines as well as no-holds-barred electioneering.
Ahead of the October 2004 election, Ms Kelly asked that the department submit 100 projects, by electorate and bid amount, for her consideration over a nine-day period.
Projects were approved up to 5.30pm on the day the election called.
Nationals leader Mark Vaile today refused to apologise for the way ministers approved the grants .
``This is very good program that has delivered some fantastic outcomes to regional Australia and I don't apologise for it - not for one minute,'' he told reporters in Taree, NSW.
``The reason more Coalition electorates receive funding is because the Coalition holds more country seats than Labor.
``This is a program for regional Australia, so obviously there are going to be more projects going into some of those seats.
``This was always going to be a work in progress - if we can see a change that may improve the program to make it better targeted, then we will make the change.''
lol,Dont leave any Rodent Droppings in Kirribilli you pest - we own that...
It appears that John Howard will finally find something to be really sory about
Are you suggesting Rudd will hand over to Swan. We know Howard will hand over to Costello.
RUDD IS MORE LIKELY TO REWARD THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED HIM IN THAN A HAND FULL OF UNION BOSSES.
Un/fortunately, Costello is not guaranteed the job - Mr Howard said so in one of his latest interviews. He said that it will be up to his (Costello's) colleagues in the party room after JH retires.
So who knows? Maybe Ruddock? Downer? Abbot? Turnbull? Hockey?
Which one of those alternative members of "The Dream Team" tickles your fancy....?
Cheers,
AJ
I'll put my money on Costello. Julie Bishop is an impressive perfomer; has charisma, well educated, intellagent and above all pretty good looking. Could make a good first female PM. What do you reckon Aussiejeff.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?