The Abbott Government

[drsmith]

Labor overcame that problem with opening the borders, to mass immigration through Indonesia.

Labor just continued a program that Howard has started ie increased migration.

Three cheers for Labor.

We just won't count the dead or the cost.

 

[waterbottle]

CRISIS IN THE LNP!

Infighting between Bernardi and Turnbull. How can the LNP "govern"? We need to elect some adults.

Kick this mob out,

WB.

 

[trainspotter]

CRISIS IN THE LNP!

Infighting between Bernardi and Turnbull. How can the LNP "govern"? We need to elect some adults.

Kick this mob out,

WB.

Just LOL at this one .... 100 days in office and still trying to clean up the mess left behind by Rudd/Gillard/Rudd .... now THERE was some inhouse fighting !! You have another 995 days before the pencil hits the paper and slides into the ballot box. Until then I would suggest you sit back and enjoy the ride.

 

[trainspotter]

*yawn* largesse on both sides without impunity seems the norm these days .....

TAXPAYERS shelled out more than $1.1 million over six months for near-empty air force planes to pick up politicians and other dignitaries or to return from having dropped them off.
More than $200,000 was spent for a passenger-less KC-30A transport plane to fly to and from China in April, a Defence report shows.
The aircraft was used to fly then-prime minister Julia Gillard, ministers Bob Carr, Craig Emerson and Bill Shorten, staffers, bureaucrats, business delegates and journalists around in China - but it did not transport them to the country from Australia or fly them back.
Ms Gillard took a different RAAF plane to and from China for the trade and business trip.
Journalists on the trip used commercial flights to get to Hainan province, where Ms Gillard started her tour.
The air force's VIP fleet was also sent to Perth each parliamentary sitting week to bring Western Australian politicians to Canberra.
Coalition, Labor and Greens politicians all took advantage of the flights.
Those 10 missions cost taxpayers almost $275,000 - including $151,680 for each of the Canberra-to-Perth legs when there were no passengers.
RAAF planes were also used to fly politicians home from Canberra after the budget week in May and the final sitting before the election in June.
These trips cost a total of $75,210.

http://www.news.com.au/national/bre...t-over-1-million/story-e6frfku9-1226784329872

 

[sydboy007]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxq__3z9zGM

Best summation of the first 100 days of the Abbott Govt I've seen.

 

[sptrawler]

I must admit I found Abbott's stand on the Browse basin extremely disappointing.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/mini...se-onshore-gas-processing-20131216-2zgbv.html

To follow the short sighted view of "better to dig it up and sell it".
Rather than the long term view, is disappointing, having said that Labor had the same view.
It would appear the Barnett is one of the only politicians with Australia's long term sustainability at heart.
He certainly appears to be a voice in the wilderness, at the moment.

 

[sydboy007]

I must admit I found Abbott's stand on the Browse basin extremely disappointing.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/mini...se-onshore-gas-processing-20131216-2zgbv.html

To follow the short sighted view of "better to dig it up and sell it".
Rather than the long term view, is disappointing, having said that Labor had the same view.
It would appear the Barnett is one of the only politicians with Australia's long term sustainability at heart.
He certainly appears to be a voice in the wilderness, at the moment.

The disappointing fact is that most levels of Govt are about the NOW and getting re-elected. There is no sense of doing the "right" thing or genuinely looking at issues from an objective point of view.

Complex issues are either ignored or distilled down to black white either or solutions with no nuance.

As for Barnett, I'm not sure if he has the long term future on his mind or if he's just showing WA parochialism. I suppose getting the better solution via other motivations would be considered a win in this day and age of politics.

 

[drsmith]

On matters budget, what's going on with general government services ?

General government services' cost $29.85 Billion in 2006-07 budget year

http://www.budget.gov.au/2006-07/overview/html/overview_30.htm

General government services' cost $92.86 Billion in 2010-11 budget year

http://www.budget.gov.au/2010-11/content/overview/html/overview_37.htm

Other years I imagine would also be available. The above was part of a post response in the following ABC news article,

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-17/myefo-paints-dire-picture-of-economy-deficits/5161466

 

[IFocus]

I dont get how the Coalition continues to spend.


Coalition must accept $20bn worth of blame

FOR all the alerts on the dire state of the nation's finances, both major parties keep adding to the burden on the federal budget. While Joe Hockey went to the election vowing to improve the budget bottom line, his claims are in doubt as he makes his first big statement as Treasurer today.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...-worth-of-blame/story-e6frgd0x-1226784436804#

 

[banco]

I dont get how the Coalition continues to spend.


Coalition must accept $20bn worth of blame




http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...-worth-of-blame/story-e6frgd0x-1226784436804#

Because Santamaria's boy committed to keeping big ticket Labor items and insisted on adding some of his own (PPL)? Not to mention the revenue side isn't looking too healthy.

 

[orr]

Abbott rules out Government Job Sophie Mirabella;

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...a-government-job/story-fni0cx12-1226756465160

Ah!!! but what's this;(exclusive to all news papers, but we'll just link 'Pravda', So the many can believe it's not true)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...n-board-of-submarine-maintenance-organisation

Obviously something that Tony must only have said, so no sense taking that seriously.

Perhaps those with a closer, intimately closer, understanding of the ASC Board, can tell us if there's any older gents among the board that Sophie may be able to 'help'.

 

[>Apocalypto<]

Swan Ginger KFud what a bloody disaster... I feel for Abbot what a mess he inherited. will be 3 years cutting just get that disaster to a manageable level.

 

[trainspotter]

I dont get how the Coalition continues to spend.

Squawk .. Like Labor didn't?




This has been done to death.

 

[sails]

Squawk .. Like Labor didn't?


View attachment 55859

This has been done to death.

TS - it's called propaganda. Labor supporters seem to be pretending that the debt didn't happen at all under labor and are trying to make it all look like Abbott's fault.

The supposed spending by the libs in the last 100 days is more likely that labor tried to cover up some of their deficit before the were voted out. But a rusted on labor voter is never likely to admit any such thing.

 

[sptrawler]

Squawk .. Like Labor didn't?


View attachment 55859

This has been done to death.

I don't understand how you could post a disgusting graph like that, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Its not that simple.

 

[sydboy007]

I don't understand how you could post a disgusting graph like that, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Its not that simple.

You could be right

Could there be some sort of relationship between how much the household and business sector saves and how much the Government is able to save?

It looks like when the household sector was piling on debt during the Howard years that Government debt started falling pretty fast, but nowhere near enough to offset the massive ballooning of economy wide debt.

Once households returned to their more historic savings levels of circa 10% Government debt started to rise again.

Did the Howard Government do anything to encourage household debt? Possibly the halving of CGT helped to make debt the preferred way to fast track wealth accumulation?

Can you imagine the the outcry if Govt debt had increased by 13% in a single year, yet during Howard's term we had 4 years where household debt increased by more than 10% If Only Rudd had been able to replicate the Howard years where household debt had increased by another 50% he'd be lauded as an economic miracle worker up there with Howard and Costello. Rudd might have even lasted long enough to equal Howards DOUBLING of household debt.

I think Australia is certainly on it's way to a debt crisis, but currently it's not the Federal Govt causing it. With an economy as diverse and large as Australia's, focusing on a small subsection generally doesn't provide a great deal of insight when looked at in isolation.

 

[McLovin]

Did the Howard Government do anything to encourage household debt?

Yes, it ran large surpluses. It also was also pretty open about its preference for private instead of public debt (Pitchford thesis etc). The relationship is very simple: Private debt + government debt + current account = 0.

In order for the government to run large surpluses, it depended on the private sector to take on debt in order to fund the CAD. When there was a reversal in household spending either the CAD had to shrink, or the government was going to have to fill the gap with deficit spending.

It's simple accounting.

 

[sydboy007]

Squawk .. Like Labor didn't?


View attachment 55859

This has been done to death.

Does this factor in the asset sales that Howard embarked on and the foregone revenue streams?

If you have $10B in debt and $10B in assets (that generate a higher rate of income than the debt servicing costs) is it smart to sell the assets to pay off the debt? Considering the yield on Telstra shares alone, looks like we got dudded a bit, especially now we've got to pay them XX billions to get a functional upgrade to broadband in Australia.

Some of the Government building lease back deals Howard engaged in had the Government loosing money after only a few years, while locked into long term leases. Great for the initial money grab and debt pay down, not so good that the recurrent expenditure is a long term drain on the budget far in excess of the original debt burden that has been paid back.

 

[bunyip]

I dont get how the Coalition continues to spend.


Coalition must accept $20bn worth of blame

As Hockey says, a government can’t just stop spending completely, even during tough times.

I didn’t hear you complaining when Labor was going nuts with billions of dollars thrown at stupid projects like unnecessary and overpriced school buildings, pink bats, cash handouts (even to people no longer living in Australia), not to mention all the loot they threw at helping illegal immigrants to invade our country.

I didn't hear you complaining either when Labor was raiding the Reserve Bank for dividends, but your side is doing plenty of complaining now that Hockey replenishes the RB with a cash injection to top up their coffers after Labor's hit and run raiding.

 

[bunyip]

Don’t you just love the way that clown Shorten is swanning around the country, feigning indignation at how the big bad LNP government is supposedly treating Holden workers so shabbily.
As ACTU boss for many years, Shorten bears some of the responsibility for the impossible wages and conditions agreement that Holden was forced to broker with its workforce. In typical union style, the unions think they’ve had a win with these types of agreements, but they’re too dumb to see the detrimental effect on the profitability of the company, and hence on long term job security of union members.
Holden’s impending closure is a good example.

And Shorten was a senior member of the government that introduced the carbon tax which has been a burden on industry, thereby making companies less profitable and in some cases forcing them out of business.
Another example of the unions and the ALP looking after the best interests of the workers? Yeh right!!
Far from realizing the folly of imposing an additional tax on struggling companies like Holden, Bill the dill is intent on blocking the government's efforts to get rid of this insidious tax that’s killing the competitiveness of our industries, and is doing almost nothing to reduce carbon emissions.
I can’t wait to hear the moaning and whining from Shorten next year when the new senate finally kills the carbon tax.