Liberal or Labor

Knobby22 said:

I have changed my vote to Labour federally.
Lately they have shown themselves to be poor managers -
I site - labour shortages
- US free trade agreement
- collapse of maufacturing
- failure to monitor wheat trade adequately.
- willingness to ignore information that does not meet party views.
- 19th century labour policies that even internation right wing groups predict will be deletarious to our economy.
- failure to address housing bubble.

I don't know if Labour will be much better but it is definitely time for a change in the guard.

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just a few thoughts..continually changing from one party to the other just leads to more problems..the debt australia has now is nothing compared to the missmanagement under labor and i mught at at the last election labor put in Latham who bankrupted the Liverpool council,lets face it Labor have no idea about anything..Labor apparently for the working class yet in their tem they had house mortgage rates at record levels(18%)hello working class ppl are the ones with the home mortgages .....the union movement just wants workers to get higher and higher wages which will lead to more foreign workers coming here to work plus many companies continuing to source cheap labour overseas so this will lead to a massive drop in aussie wages in the long term and its the Labor party who support unions..my vote is clear..Labor will again bankrupt this country

Almost any economist will agree with this and say, based on the previous 30 years of economic policy from both sides, that labour is far better at managing the economy and implementing policy to facilitate economic growth than the Libs.

It was labor who had the courage to seriously cut tariffs, invest in infrastructure, float the AUD, deregulate our backward socialist economy etc etc etc.

Do people realise that interest rates were lower when labor handed gov to liberal in 90s than when liberals handed to labor in the 80s? Indeed governments have very little influence over interest rates anyway? Although two key reasons why RBA has increased rates have been excessive credit growth and capacity constraints, both of these have been adversly effected by this governments irresponsible policys and lack thereof.

The libs are simply lucky, sponging off policy decisions made 20 years ago, currently they are losing an opportunity to increase the countrys capacity, but choose short term politically popular fixes, they simply add to the problem long term.

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Smoothsatin,
Good post. I think you point out the major differences between the liberal and labour governments. The liberals only seem to make policy that looks to winning them the next election, hence they generally have kept the ecconomy in good shape for the short term. But this lack of forward planning is starting to bite them with housing, water and skilled labour shortages. Labour on the other hand tend to overspend the buget to build essential infrastructure that will probably only have an impact long after their government is gone. So the shorter term ecconomic conditions under labour are not so good.

The government is a balancing act. You can't have it good all the time. Ecconomies need harder time in order to rebuild so they can effectively go into new growth phases. So labour will come in, overspend and probably create more difficult ecconomic condition but then set it up for the rapid growth and expansion under the liberals. Too long under either party leads to imbalances and the ecconomy will suffer for that. Its time for a change.

I feel that the liberals are better at handling the national economy and national security issues, whilst state labor govts are better at running state issues such as health and education. If you look at recent election results , this has proved to be the case. I for one am a swinging voter.

greggy said:

I feel that the liberals are better at handling the national economy and national security issues, whilst state labor govts are better at running state issues such as health and education.

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Libs have botched Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands and East Timor, then sucked in to Iraq.
That's an incredible record!

If you want change dont try and change the party, just change the pollies. Regardless of party just put the sitting member last.

The liberals have my vote because they are good for defence.

FXST01 said:

The liberals have my vote because they are good for defence.

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Absolutely agree.
Put them all on the front line with a rifle, etc.
Should go down well.

Personally I liked Keating.

But seriously Liberal without Howard, he's an embarrasment.

Labor seem to be a lost cause at the moment.

rederob said:

Absolutely agree.
Put them all on the front line with a rifle, etc.
Should go down well.

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I am against violence in general, but i can't help agreeing with you on that one.

petee said:

Labor apparently for the working class yet in their tem they had house mortgage rates at record levels(18%)hello working class ppl are the ones with the home mortgages

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I must point out that mortgage payments as a % of income are HIGHER now under the Liberals than when Labor had the 17% interest rates. Housing affordability is at generational lows. Not only are the interest payments higher, the capital to be repaid is about DOUBLE the amount (relative to income) that it was under Labor.

It's like buying something half price but then finding that you need 3 times as many of them to do the same job. It looks cheap but you're worse off overall.

Not that it has anything to do with either Liberal or Labor since interest rates are set by global markets. If John Howard had somehow wiped out the Current Account deficit then he might have some claim to encouraging low interest rates, but for obvious reasons Mr Howard carefully avoids discussion of that subject lest the words "banana republic" be mentioned.

One last point on inteerst rates...guess the highest ever 90 bank bill rate in Australias history? over 21%...meaning a mortgage rate of 24%? perhaps a fraction higher? Who was treasurer at this point? Yep, you guessed it, John Howard in 1982...how did this labor = high interest rates thing ever start and why does 90% of the population blindly believe it?

smoothsatin said:

how did this labor = high interest rates thing ever start and why does 90% of the population blindly believe it?

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Key to politics - just keep saying it and pretty soon most will believe it.

All sides of politics do it, and much of what's said is far from the truth. That doesn't stop people believing it...

A few myths which have been pushed in this way by various groups:

"Ethanol will damage cars". Too much will, but not the 5 or 10% we're talking about.

"Water is scarce in Australia". Water is scarce in some parts of Australia, but the country as a whole has vast amounts of fresh water, most of it totally unused by man. It justifies all manner of water restrictions and price increases however.

"Real estate always goes up". Remember the early 1990's?

"Tasmania has surplus electricity". Annual demand - 10750 GWh versus long term production capability of 10250 GWh. A shortage rather than surplus. It took near total depletion of storages and front page photos in the newspapers to shoot down a myth that at one point formed the entire basis of a political party.

"Oil companies make huge profits". True in absolute $ terms, but in terms of profit per $ of sales the likes of Coca Cola leave the big oil companies for dead. No exploration, fire or tanker sinking risks for Coke either.

Lots of myths about the climate in Australian cities. A few facts (source ABS - in print so I don't have a link). These stats only cover capital cities.

The city with the lowest record high temperature is in fact Darwin, not Hobart. Adelaide has the highest recorded maximum.

Rainfall - Darwin, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, Canberra, Hobart, Adelaide in order from wettest to driest. Contrary to popular belief, Sydney and Brisbane both get nearly twice as much rain as Hobart or Melbourne.

Melbourne has the least amount of sunshine with Darwin having the most.

Sydney has the highest average wind speed with Canberra being by far the lowest.

rederob said:

Libs have botched Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands and East Timor, then sucked in to Iraq.
That's an incredible record!

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Voters are not fools out there. If the Fed Labor Party is so good, then how come they have not won since 1993. The Libs, for better or worse, are part of the coalition of the willing along with Blair and Bush. I can't see the Federal Labor Party doing any better on defence issues.