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Good afternoon everyone


I'm not up to speed on my political history as you might be so I'm not sure if Costello is the best we ever had but I would definitely put him up there with the very best....and little Johnny as PM for me would have to go down as one of the best PM's we have ever had....especially in terms of running the economy. I don't agree with eveything they have done but I do believe that they genuinely believe they are doing what's best for the overwhelimg majority of the population. Unfortunately no matter what policy is introduced by any political party in government it will not be beneficial for everyone

Re the GST people seem to forget that tax cuts were introduced to compensate for the GST and although some unfortunately did not end up infront after the GST and tax cuts, I believe the overwhelming majority did.

After we did our number crunching to see how the GST would affect us it worked out that annually we would be better off - albeit only a relatively small ~$300 - but still we were infront and so I at least had no hesitation voting the GST in when Howard and to some extent Costello showed immense courage and staked their political careers on the line when they went to the polls a few years ago on the platform of introducing the GST if elected so it was all above board. And the electorate chose to vote in the GST. Imo the majority of people whinging about the GST are simply displaying sour grapes by being in the minority who didn't get their way with the GST.

cheers and have a good weekend everyone

bullmarket
 
I consider myself to be a swinging voter and my philosophy is small "l" liberal. At the last state election I voted for Mr Bracks in Victoria and will vote for him again later this year as the state opposition is hellbent on self destruction. At the last federal election I voted for Mr Howard as I felt that although Mr Latham had some good ideas he came across as too volatile. I feel that the labor party is better at running state governments whereas the liberal party is more adept at running the national economy and security issues. I like Mr Beazley, but feel that on some issues he should be taking a stronger lead. For instance, the ALP's uranium policy is a joke. It favours the big end of town. He should either oppose uranium alltogether or let everyone mine uranium albeit with strong safeguards in place. Should Mr Beazley prove that he is capable of matching Mr Howard on the national economy and on security issues he could well be a better bet at the next election than Mr Latham was. At this stage I'll back Mr Howard even though his IR policy is looking shaky, but I have not ruled out voting for Mr Beazley should he become a stronger leader. The result could well be even closer should he face Mr Costello at the next election. I personally see Mr Costello as a brilliant treasurer but as PM I feel his arrogance would come out just like Keating.
 
It is a FACT that Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens, has strongly advocated coal as preferable to renewable energy on several separate occasions. The Greens are clearly NOT concerned about sustainability. Their own track record is proof in that regard.

It is also worth noting that Green policies are heavily based on the increasing consumption of cheap oil and the notion that this is sustainable. Absolute nonsense according to practically any serious environmentalist or expert in the field and dangerous both environmentally and economically.

Fundamentally, the Greens promote conservation and oppose sustainability where the two conflict (as they generally do). That's great news for the scenery today but absolutely disastrous for long term ecological sustainability.
 
Cool some one chimes in. But I STILL think the greens are the better alternative for me even as a protest vote. Ive heard the 2 party system is a crock. I will look into that as I have been a greeny forever and my views are constantly broadening. Thanks Smurf!



There are many supporters of the greens that have their heads screwed on right and I am sure they are aware of these supposedly contradictory views.

"Fundamentally, the Greens promote conservation and oppose sustainability where the two conflict (as they generally do)."

as opposed to the Liberals that oppose conservation and sustainability wherever theres a buck to be made



"That's great news for the scenery today but absolutely disastrous for long term ecological sustainability. "

The scenery is all that the liberals give a hoot about when it comes to nature its certainly not bio diversity.
and in my opinion conservation IS ecological sustainability.

As with every thing balance is a hard thing to achieve. I just believe that the greens are trying more than any other party, and in the end the natural environment is the key to our future.
 
Hi Ants

I posted earlier that I vote for whichever party I feel will do the better job for at least the next term.

At both Federal and State levels (Vic) it's a no-brainer decision for me

Liberal at federal level

Labor (Bracks) at State.

Re you comment below:

...........do you honestly believe that these people couldnt run an economy or get the same boffins that do now just with a slightly healthier/responsible agenda?..........
Click to expand...

If the Greens want to chase my vote then I would firstly need to know the following so I can check on their track records in order to determine whether I think they are up to the job.

1. Who would they have as PM? - I assume it would be Bob Brown

2. Who have the Greens got right now that would be treasurer?

3. Who have the Greens got right now that would be Foreign affairs minister.

4. Who have the Greens got right now that would be Defence Minister

5. Who have the Greens got right now that would be Minister for Industrial Relations?

Please excuse my ignorance for not knowing the answers to the above, since I don't follow the Greens closely, but I hope you can fill in the answers for me.

At the end of the day, for the Greens to have any chance of getting my vote the people in at least the above roles would have to have some time in 'opposition' to gain my trust and convince me of their competancy.

cheers

bullmarket
 
HI Mr Bullmarket
Of course your questions are spot on. The Greens can never form a Government, at best they are useful in reminding people about Environmental issues. But as Smurf points out, they are so averse to alternatives like Uranium that their green policy does not make any long term sense.

Labor is starting to talk like small 'l' liberals - eg with the private school fee issue, so maybe they are starting to think like an alternative Govt needs to think before they can get my vote. However, as it stands at the moment while their policies are driven by trade unions then I will continue to avoid them.
 
This debate is getting interesting. As far as I'm concerned, the Greens mean well but they will never get my vote. I feel that we have an over-reliance and have to look at alternative fuels such as uranium. The Greens may well one day revisit this issues. Some of the party's economic policies are a little bit on the wild side. To increase income taxes when we have a big surplus is a ridiculous policy. On human rights issues I sometimes agree with the Greens on human rights. For example, Bob Brown's views on human rights in China. However, we must be diplomatic about how we approach them on such matters. Overall, with the Greens I feel that the problem is that they are still relatively inexperienced, but atleast they're still better than One Nation.
As previously mentioned, for the record, I voted for Mr Bracks and Mr Howard at the last state and federal elections. My political philosophy is small l liberal.
 
1. Who would they have as PM? - I assume it would be Bob Brown

NO he is a puppet . It would be KERMIT.

2. Who have the Greens got right now that would be treasurer?

Slimer

3. Who have the Greens got right now that would be Foreign affairs minister.

Green Lantern

4. Who have the Greens got right now that would be Defence Minister

The Hulk


5. Who have the Greens got right now that would be Minister for Industrial
Relations?

Green Arrow or Oscar the Grouch.
 
ok thanks Ants

At least you confirmed what I thought was the situation

So I'll stick with the liberal and labor parties under which I am much better off with

cheers

bullmarket
 
bullmarket said:
Imo the majority of people whinging about the GST are simply displaying sour grapes by being in the minority who didn't get their way with the GST.
Click to expand...
If you spent more in accounting for the GST than making payments to the ATO after the fact, you might not agree.
If your sports association had to add 10% to its fees so that kids can play their chosen sport I am not sure you would agree.
If you chose tradespeople to do jobs for you "GST free", you might agree.
It is a fact that the GST has benefited the wealthy substantially by reducing or eliminating taxes on products at the luxury end of the market and transferred that burden onto lesser earning folk.
Unfortunately Bullmarket has a narrow understanding of the impact of GST.
I felt the real impact as the consulting services I provided post-GST were pretty much the same pre-GST, meaning I absorbed a loss of over $10,000 per year.
The service industry felt the impact immediately, and it took restaurants and the like several years to achieve their previous levels of profitability as they too had to absorb many of the extra costs associated with running their businesses.
Perhaps "sour grapes" does describe losing over $10,000 a year, although it was what I would normally have put into super, given I am responsible for my own contributions. I would have called it straightforward robbery.
 
Mr Bullmarket. You may well be better off, now... superficially but the environment is going to hell in a handbag and the liberals with a big or a lil' L
definately arn't helping the situation at all. and thats a "FACT".

 
Hi rederob

I can't verify any of those numbers you posted or any of the very generalised claims you made and so, no offence, they mean zero to me.

The majority of the electorate chose to vote in the GST and I still believe, as I posted earlier, that the tax cuts more than compensated for the majority of people/families for the replacement of sales tax or whatever with the GST which although made some goods and services more expensive it also made many goods and services cheaper where the GST was less than the tax they replaced....and some essential goods attract no GST and still had the old sales or whatever taxes removed thus making them cheaper.

As I posted earlier, sure some will not have been better off post GST but I still believe the majority have been better off.
cheers

bullmarket
 
Hi Prospector and Ants

you guys can feel free to drop the formalities - I don't have to be addressed with a 'Mr'

just call me........bullmarket or bull ..............or as tech/a used to call me when he got upset with me......................bulldust

cheers
bullmarket
 
bullmarket said:
I can't verify any of those numbers you posted or any of the very generalised claims you made and so, no offence, they mean zero to me.
Click to expand...
Then you really need to work a lot harder on your claims which are more generalised still, "I still believe the majority have been better off".
It is not rocket science to work out out that prior to the GST a sporting association did not need to levy a GST: So post-GST they are required to add that on to memberships. The sporting Association I work with contributes literally thousands of dollars every year to the ATO via a GST impost on children as young as 5 years old: Come along to our next AGM and look at our accounts or PM your email to me and I can send you a copy so that you can't claim an ignorance of the facts.
If you did some homework you could have looked at a typical restaurant menu pre and post-GST - and you would have found that very few put up their costs to defray the GST burden - perhaps you did not frequent such outlets around the time so don't have first hand experience.
Furthermore, the fact is that "consultants" (of which I am one) pre-GST would provide their services at a cost that clearly did not include the GST. The introduction of the GST required those same services to include a 10% premium.
I'm not asking you to "verify" anything, but exhibiting a lack of understanding of the impact of the GST, or a willingness not to acknowledge the impact of the GST, is a curious defence of your position on the matter.
 
bullmarket:

I'd query your phrase
"the majority of the electorate chose to vote in the GST......."

We are presently having a discussion on the merits of voting either Liberal or Labor. I don't think many of us would be prepared to offer whole-hearted support of either party for every one of their policies.

I don't think I'm atypical when I vote for the least awful of the options in terms of Liberal or Labor.
That doesn't mean that I support all of the policies proposed by the party for whom I am voting.

So what I'm suggesting is that at the time of the GST being "voted in" this may simply have been a consequence of the majority of the population finding the option of voting Labor unpalatable, and although they may not have been enthusiastic about the GST, would have had to accept it as an unavoidable consequence of voting Liberal.

e.g. if an election were to be held tomorrow, I would vote Liberal largely on the basis that I believe they are more competent to manage the economy than is Labor. I do not, however, fully support all their other policies, but would have to accept the implementation of those other policies if they were elected.

Julia
 
Hi rederob

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.......I acknowledged that a minority were probably worse off post GST but I believe the majority have been better off after the GST.

You posted your views and I posted mine and gave my reasons for them....if you don't accept them that is fine by me because at the end of the day I don't see how it matters

We obviously disagree and I don't have a problem with that, but if you want me to alter my views in any way for some reason then you will have to post some verifiable numbers proving anything I said is wrong in anyway whatsoever....it's as simple as that....

In the mean time we'll just have to agree to disagree.

cheers

bullmarket
 
Hi Julia

re your comment:


Yes that is a possibility and I'm sure that was the case for a few....but then again it may not have been the case.

As I mentioned earlier, after we did some number crunching to see how the GST would affect us we saw that we were about $300pa better off with the GST and so I personally at least had no hesitation voting in the GST.

I also believe that the vast majority of the electorate had the ability to work out for themselves if they were going to be better off after the GST and the associated tax cuts.

From my experience talking to others I believe the vast majority of the electorate did work out also that they were better off after the GST and tax cuts and hence voted in the GST.....working out the pros and cons of the GST was not rocket science

good night,

bullmarket
 
The ultimate proof on Green policy integrity came only a few days ago when Bob Brown proclaimed hydro-electricity "clean and green" and said that use of coal-fired power was a "dirty" tainting of the supply.

A somewhat amazing statement given that what is now the Greens was formed (originally as the UTG and then as The Independents) for the express purpose of opposing hydro-electricity and Bob Brown himself has been a long standing advocate for using coal.

I nominate that as being one of Australia's greatest ever political backflips.
 
bullmarket
It is clear you cannot see the points I am making because you have chosen not to.
It is not that we disagree about anything.
It is a fact that children are now paying taxes via the GST on items that were never taxable in the past. I am not sure that is a good outcome for anyone as this tax is now being paid by millions of Australians that never paid it before because it never extended to them.
Your challenge of "verifiable numbers" is as churlish as those that seek evidence of the Holocaust.
Yet without any evidence at all you contend only a minority are worse off: Who are this majority that are better off?
You may well be talking about "views", but I am not: Unlike you, I have presented just a few "facts" about the impact of the GST, and offered to you an opportunity to research the matter further.
I notice many of your posts choose the defence of "agreeing to disagree".
This is the classic defence of people who choose not to debate facts or possibilities, but hide behind a screen of generalities and half-truths.
I have no intention of trying to change the minds of any readers, although it would be good if they "opened" them just a little to a possible alternative reality.
In my world it is not a matter of what you think, but "how" you think that is important. It assumes that geting it wrong sometimes is part of the journey of getting it right when it counts.
Debating an issue with a person that closes their mind to matters beyond their own experience can never be fruitful.
 
Perhaps someone whose political memory is better than mine can recall accurately BUT I thought that GST was introduced after the Liberals were voted in, on a no GST platform. This caused John Howard to lose his "Honest John" tag. Then the Libs at the next election when they were re-elcted, claimed their re-election was a vote for the GST. Can anyone help clarify?
 
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