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Some of the odds being offered.



http://www.businessspectator.com.au...ent=233734&utm_campaign=kgb&modapt=commentary

Cheers
Country Lad
 
Politicians not pandering to our own self importance. Don't see it happening.

Just look at the howling when it was suggested that a household on $150K a year is quite well off. I'm not sure how many people you need to be in front of before you consider yourself "well off" but if beating over 75% of the population doesn't put you "up there" then I'm not sure what does.

I'd love to force the Govt to bring out a top 20 annual report.

The top 20 tax breaks eg super / negative gearing / corporate welfare

The top 20 Government spending programs

Then show how much each of these is as a % of tax. Should be a huge wake up call for the community.

I'd love a debate about debt and to stop demonising debt that is used to improve the productive infrastructure of this country. AFAIC debt is the fairest way of making all tax payers share the costs over the useful economic life of an asset, unless you have the ability to apply a user pays toll which is designed to only pay the debt off over the life of the assets. Forget PPPs. Have Govt ownership of infrastructure, include the private sector if needed to get efficiencies in the building and running, but no more 20%+ ROI when 6% would probably do it. We'd all have better infrastructure and pay a sh*t load less for it!

I think half the problem is the majority of people out there have no idea how expensive a lot of the welfare programs are. They forget that if these programs were cut that taxes could be lower. It's like the Government has been gently giving us shots of heroine and now the vast majority of the punters are addicts and any attempt to target the payments at those who genuinely need them is whipped up by the shock jocks and media. Throw in an opposition (I'm talking Federal and State) who see an opportunity to turn the community against the Government, and well, it's practically impossible to make major spending and structural changes without bipartisan support.

Probably the best thing that could occur would be a Government funded political commentary monitoring service. It would FACT CHECK all comments made by politicians and publicly shame those who are making FACTUALLY incorrect statements. Might work best by giving the politician 24 hours to formally correct their mistake, then publicly shaming them if they wont fess up.
 
Great idea. Won't happen, however. Neither side would want their lies exposed.
 

For those not familiar with the working of politics (which has absolutely nothing to do with governing) question time has nothing to do with asking questions and receiving answers - that went out of fashion many decades ago.

Question time has 2 purposes, the first is for a member to say something which the media will run with, hopefully to their advantage. There are risks in that of course.

The second, and main reason, is to rally the troops. The leaders of both side of the house need to continually demonstrate to their troops that they can dish it put better than anybody else. This has always been the case. When Howard had a comfortable majority in both houses, the language was more temperate. When he was behind in the polls and his leadership was starting to be questioned, it became more strident to demonstrate that he was the best at handing it out, mainly to show that he was a strong leader.

The Gillard government has been behind in the polls for the entire period since the election. Abbott and crew were aggressive in QT from day 1 to get the media attention and rightly or wrongly continually used bullets such Carbon Tax for example and Gillard lying about it before the election.

As the polls got worse, the more abusive the government side became with Gillard doing her best to convince her caucus she was the best performer in the house. As we have the run-up to the election Gillard will become more strident in an attempt to shore up her leadership. I expect that Abbott will become more and more tempered in his words and leave the rough stuff to the headbutters. He doesn't need to shore up his position.

So you need to see question time for what it is - senior members, Ministers and in particular the PM showing their own side they are in good hands and the more abusive the language the better to prove that.

Cheers
Country Lad
 
Well, it doesn't appear that such a strategy is working too well for the government at present, does it!

Imo the electorate is well and truly sick of strident abuse in parliament.

Might be good for the politicians to remember that it's the electorate which ultimately determines their fate, not their political colleagues.
 
does idle speculation about a politician fall within the remit of this thread?:

that Richard Torbay fella, resigned from everything just like that!

and they mentioned an Eddie Obeid link ??

So supposing you are a crook, what enticement would one employ to have ensnared a public politician, especially a married one, that you wished to cultivate & trap for favor?

I know one I would use, cant remember who it was that allegedly arranged those girls for Ian Mcdonald, when he was drunk ?

now I am certainly not saying that is what happened, just what I would do if I was crooked and wicked and bought up in that way of doing business.
 
Good thread.

Interesting news item yesterday when our Deputy of the Reserve Bank indicated they may have to do something about the value of the Aussie dollar to stimulate business.

Do I miss something here. In my view anything that Governments decide or our own little piggy bank do are going to make absolutely no difference to our economic situation on the world stage.

Politics my friends, get over it, all they have really done in the last 30 years is to privatize and sell off our most precious assets. Water, power, phones to name just a few. All they have left now is to sell us.
 

would they have been better off buying everything? I wonder how 'us' would have felt then
 
Gee that "add user to ignore list" feature is handy isn't it?

Regarding compulsory voting. While there are advantages and disadvantages to both compulsory and voluntary voting I believe the advantages of compulsory voting win out. But in any case there is generally only be one outcome of an election - the election of a politician (unless of course you are in Italy where you get to vote for ex-pr0n stars). But that probably is a political discussion because to me at the heart of it is the degree to which one holds individual libertarianism to be above a duty to the community and the need to accommodate shared values for the social good.

One thing that I found quite interesting is that when countries like Hungary and Estonia escaped the shackles of the iron curtain and regained democracy, they turned to literary men as their presidents at a time when their county's needed to create a independent identity and national confidence amongst the people.

Well it's 2:57 in the morning and I can't sleep despite sipping on cheap cask wine. Might have to visit the muscatel barrel. What more nonsense can I say?. nothing much...
 
from
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/


the Entitled Australian:


‘The Australian public ... seem to expect that the full suite of welfare services will extend to them across the globe no matter where they go or how they behave,’’ the report says, citing a couple who wanted frequent flyer points while being evacuated from Cairo on a government-chartered rescue flight.


Is Australia/the world becoming too welfare dependent ? Are our citizens expecting too much for nothing and do they have a bad sense of entitlement?

It appears so.
 
dutchie said:
Could we please get rid of the NODDIES behind politicians being interviewed!!!
Click to expand...

Just saw two noddies behind Abbott talking about super.

At one stage one noddy was moving his head vertically and at same time the other noddy was moving his head horizontally.

Looked ridiculous.

They don't know how stupid they look.

Is the need by politicians, to have someone standing behind them nodding in agreement, a basic flaw in the psyche/confidence?

Imagine if all public speakers were to do this - how funny would that be!
 

Someone should suggest they do a takeoff in Micallef's program. Mad as Hell.
 
Knobby22 said:
Someone should suggest they do a takeoff in Micallef's program. Mad as Hell.
Click to expand...
Agree. They'd do a great take off of it.
Another terrific program (apologies for the diversion of the thread) is "The Checkout" with some of the Chaser team. Really, really good imo.
 
That man Eddie Obeid certainly spread his tentacles far and wide.


No wonder the Nationals dumped Richard Torbay like a sack of rotten spuds.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/the-secret-life-of-richard-torbay-20130329-2gz4a.html
 

The funniest noddies I saw recently were the two women behind Rudd when he announced he was not challenging for the leadership. Instead of nodding they were very carefully keeping very straight faces. I reckon that, aside from Rudd, they were the only two in the room that weren't displaying a gobsmacked expression.

I agree, they look silly and the pollies should get rid of them.
 
The current political debacle will make a great movie (as suggested by Logique).

I am putting the following up for the lead roles:

Gillard - Cate Blanchard
Abbott - Russell Crowe

Any other suggestions?
 
Would you consider voting for any of these minor parties, Danny?
 
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