The Abbott Government

[Whiskers]

You might be overanalysing.

Give them a chance and see what they do.

Maybe, but as they say;

"A man who misses his opportunity, and monkey who misses his branch, cannot be saved."
Hindu Proverb​

But seriously, when in a precarious situation it's wise to never squander an irreplaceable opportunity.

I'd be more comfortable if he was more focused on the opportunities of tomorrow rather than the problems of yesterday.

 

[drsmith]

Maybe, but as they say;

"A man who misses his opportunity, and monkey who misses his branch, cannot be saved."
Hindu Proverb​

But seriously, when in a precarious situation it's wise to never squander an irreplaceable opportunity.

I'd be more comfortable if he was more focused on the opportunities of tomorrow rather than the problems of yesterday.

The Abbott government outlined its priorities from opposition and during the election campaign and that's what the electorate chose over Labor.

Tony Abbott's gone from being deemed unelectable to PM and while his path was helped by a poor performance by Labor in government, he has surprised on the upside.

There's no doubt that government is a tougher gig than opposition. Getting down to business without too much noise is a good start in my view.

 

[waza1960]

Abbott needs to earn the maximum voter respect he can asap in the event a DD becomes inevitable.

Not IMO. All he has to do is what he is doing which is being a stable and no nonsense PM and then the population will realise that the massive scare campaign Labor waged against him was rubbish then he will easily increase the conservative vote

 

[sydboy007]

Not IMO. All he has to do is what he is doing which is being a stable and no nonsense PM and then the population will realise that the massive scare campaign Labor waged against him was rubbish then he will easily increase the conservative vote

Oh, what happens when every little issue is a "crisis", where the nationals agitate for far more restrictive investment laws and start argung with Macfarlane over CSG and access to resources?

Lets see what their first budget does. If there's not a decent drop in the deficit thn Abott should be recognised as a hypocrite since it was only a few months ago he said we had a budget crisis. How he plans to acheive meaningful tax reform is beyond me, since he's fought against most of it the last 3 years. Every rent seeker out there has seen what can be achieved with a small budget and lots of help from the MSM. There's no money to bribe the loosers of reform.

 

[Julia]

Yeah, me too... but from an analytical psychological perspective, eg like conducting an interview of a job applicant, one can usually get a good insight into what their main interests and motivations are and what they are capable of achieving.

To put it another way, the resume of the collective cabinet seems to be lacking for some key qualified and experienced potential, as I mentioned earlier, to transition from a can-do traditional (now getting antique) Howard style as opposed to more innovative and contemporary qualifications and outlook on life for the future.

This is one of the caveats the election result implied in the result, by routing the greens by 1/3 in the senate, but replacing with arguably less principled 'others' as a consequence of the 'traditional' often abused (now better by minority interests) than ever before optional above the line preferential vote.

So, you can see that "tradition", while usually espousing predictability, is often retrograde in terms of contemporary managerial and policy requirements.

Likewise, a poorly articulated resume with ambiguity easily leads to uncertainty and disappointment on perceived policy and managerial style.

While he tactfully made himself a small target during opposition, Abbott could have done much better in the cabinet selection to more quickly and completely shed his traditional persona of 'shifty' an 'head kicker' and transition to a contemporary leader.

To echo and re-apply the logic of the sentiments of Dennis Jensen MP, appeal to authority and appeal to consensus, especially in the absence of potential for the most qualified and contemporary management is not sound, scientifically, psychologically or administratively if you expect to be respected or more importantly, better respected than the alternative, as a leader of better government. He has to remember he didn't gain the voter support near as much as they chose to protest support the minors against Labor.

In a nutshell, he needs to get it... that he's been put on probation and needs to shine not only up to expectations, but above the alternative to maintain his job.

The danger he faces is if Labor re-unifies under probably Albanese, (less likely from a voter perspective for Shorton) he will face a tougher job trying to win over the 'Other' 7 in the senate to achieve anything (including abolishing the carbon tax) than if he stole the march with a smart, progressive and contemporary cabinet in the meantime. It appears the other 7 are probably more inclined to Labor philosophy and a re-unified Labor is more likely to entertain at least some of their key policies... thus providing all the ingredients that started the roundabout leadership uncertainty with Rudd and his frustration with not being confident in winning a DD.

Abbott needs to earn the maximum voter respect he can asap in the event a DD becomes inevitable.

That wasn't my belief. As I suggested it was implied that Macfarlane had the job (based on tradition)... but perception while not paramount, is important in the absence of clarity of the importance of science in a contemporary context.



I think there are three key points I would make here summarised from my rationale above.

Firstly, It's unwise to gauge your bar standard against the low standard of the opposition. The voter expects the bar to be as high as possible all the time.

Small government is generally perceived and accepted as a good thing. However, Small and traditional does not fit well for many contemporary voters bearing in mind contemporary has become trendy atm in terms of unfounded extreme beliefs such as climate change. The Cabinet needs to be very capable and effective as well. In the ministry there is an apparent lack of credible and capable scientific expertise to counter the significant climate change (attitudinal) tend perpetuated by elements of Labor. This is probably the most significant deal breaker in terms of which party people believe and respect atm.

Finally, Abbott has won the voter belief for now. He now needs to win their respect as well, hard, right off the bat, so to speak, to maintain his position and spare us more leadership changes. Repeating, the senate may be more difficult to negotiate than previously thought, and more likely to lean to Labor and welcome a DD... or even succeed in a vote of no confidence.
​

Abbott needs to very clearly demonstrate an appreciation of what is his Achilles' heel... voter dissatisfaction with the prospect of retrogate leadership... not just going back to divided labor, but also ultra conservative LNP trying to force in new laws that have not been fully or accurately presented (eg workchoices).

PS: It would be dangerous to presume the new minority senators would not force a DD this time. It's a very different scenario this time and some of the newer parties in the senate probably fancy their chances of increasing their representation with continued efficient lobbying.

...as a result of all seats being contested, it is easier for smaller parties to obtain election to the Senate under the Senate proportional voting system: the quota for the election of each senator in each Australian state in a full Senate election is 7.69% (1/(1/(12+1))), while in a normal half-Senate election the quota is 14.28% (1/(1/(6+1))). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dissolution​

Um, Whiskers, have you been taking lessons from one K. Rudd in terms of obfuscating language?
All you need to add is his "programmatic specificity" and you'll be right up there with using a huge number of words, the ultimate meaning of which is, at least to me, somewhat unclear.

The Abbott government outlined its priorities from opposition and during the election campaign and that's what the electorate chose over Labor.

Tony Abbott's gone from being deemed unelectable to PM and while his path was helped by a poor performance by Labor in government, he has surprised on the upside.

There's no doubt that government is a tougher gig than opposition. Getting down to business without too much noise is a good start in my view.

Exactly. We do not want a repeat of the last six years of overblown language, vast rhetorical promises, and ultimate failure.

Not IMO. All he has to do is what he is doing which is being a stable and no nonsense PM and then the population will realise that the massive scare campaign Labor waged against him was rubbish then he will easily increase the conservative vote

+1. The government has only been sworn in today. Yet Whiskers, Sydboy and others are determined to send them down in flames before they've had a chance to do anything.
For heaven's sake, can't you at least give them a chance!

 

[MrBurns]

.
+1. The government has only been sworn in today. Yet Whiskers, Sydboy and others are determined to send them down in flames before they've had a chance to do anything.
For heaven's sake, can't you at least give them a chance!

Poor losers, we will beat their hides again next election if they can put a team together by then.

 

[Tink]

The Abbott government outlined its priorities from opposition and during the election campaign and that's what the electorate chose over Labor.

Tony Abbott's gone from being deemed unelectable to PM and while his path was helped by a poor performance by Labor in government, he has surprised on the upside.

There's no doubt that government is a tougher gig than opposition. Getting down to business without too much noise is a good start in my view.

Agree, drsmith.

Its been very refreshing not seeing Rudd, his selfies and all the other rubbish.

Great start for Abbott.

 

[sydboy007]

Poor losers, we will beat their hides again next election if they can put a team together by then.

Day one and already they've set up potential sovereign crisis over resources. Far larger issue for taking the resource off a company than applying a tax to it.

So develop the resource, even if it's not economic to do so, or it provides a lower income to the country by forcing an over supply.

Pure dead brilliant policy by someone who's supposedly a steady hand. I wonder if the guy who released their internet filtering policy was involved

 

[Whiskers]

Um, Whiskers, have you been taking lessons from one K. Rudd in terms of obfuscating language?

Absolutely not! In fact Rudd could have used a bit of good holistic advice (like mine ) to be more effective in beating off his own party assassins and maintaining stability of leadership to tone down (or out) some of his policy positions.

Hmm... obfuscating: To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand

Who me!?

Analysis is an integral part of model development involving sensitive data and analytical examination of input parameters to aid in model validation and provide guidance for future decision making. This requires each sensitivity, the required calculation, the sensitivity ranking of parameters, and the relative method performance, include partial derivatives, variation of inputs by standard deviation, a relative deviation of the output distribution, a relative deviation rank correlation coefficients, standardized regression coefficients, rank regression coefficients... :

Seriously though, on that point, remember I was one of few who foreshadowed Rudds return to the leadership.

One can live in simple, one step linear dimensions and pray everything will turn out ok... or try to understand the range of possibilities from the given set of limiting parameters and be proactive in fulfilling your goals. The later is the reason why I particularly like people like Dr Dennis Jensen MP, study of the universe, study of the soul and pretty much everything in between that makes people tick.

It gives one an inherent advantage to the Nike syndrome... 'Just do it'.

+1. The government has only been sworn in today. Yet Whiskers, Sydboy and others are determined to send them down in flames before they've had a chance to do anything.
For heaven's sake, can't you at least give them a chance!

Hey, hang on Julia... don't label this innocent looking little goldfish with those who wilfully expose their underwear. I'm clearly different!

Consider it like a coach on the sideline for Andy Murray. Murray had great potential but he never achieved it until he got a coach who taught him how to control his temperament and focus his thoughts and energy on the damn ball and his strategy. He then got lazy again, expelling his emotions all over the place and his opponents won.

Abbott is NOT the typical complete balanced 'Leader'. That is not to say he can't achieve good things, But just as Rudd and Gillard had unbalanced personalities, Abbott is more vulnerable atm than either of them, BUT for very different reasons, that my ramblings are attempting to convey to his blind-faith-followers.

Sure they have only be sworn in one day... but is that a critical criteria! They have delayed swearing in for longer than usual, thus exposing them to considerable examination especially re cabinet makeup and it's potential.

I conclude with some more wise old sayings about why proactive choice, not chance determines your destiny and why you should never give a sucker an even break:

Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson​

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
-- Winston Churchill​

Kevin Rudd can potentially retain leadership of Labor under his new rules and the parties newfound wisdom to accept them... and re-launch a revival akin to Kevin 07 within a year. -- Whiskers​

 

[Whiskers]

Poor losers, we will beat their hides again next election if they can put a team together by then.

I got one for you too Mr Burns... :

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure... I think that might have been from Mark Twain.

Isn't that what Howard, Gillard and Rudd etc also suffered from!

MrBurns, it appears you are making a risky presumption that the next election will be a scheduled full term election. While I hope you are correct, how can you be confident of that and more importantly, not have a contingency plan for a much sooner election such as a DD.

Aren't you also making a second risky assumption that Labor won't be able to regroup within three years? Remember what Rudd achieved from the LABOR leadership roundabout pre 2007. I estimate someone, even Rudd again has the potential to repeat that like Howard and the Lib recycled leadership roundabout in the 90's.

Do you have any logical basis (as opposed to ideological wish list) for writing-off a Labor resurgence any time soon?

 

[wayneL]

Um, Whiskers, have you been taking lessons from one K. Rudd...

I believe Mr Abbott would have an interesting rhetorical question for this discussion... a bit second hand as he already used it during debate one, but still very apt.

 

[sydboy007]

So another brilliant policy from the Coalition.

They want another million house with solar PV or hotwater over the next 10 years, and are willing to add a cool half billion on top of current schemes to achieve this target.

Got to say, doesn't sound like climate denialist Tony eh.

The only problem is, with the massive cost reduction of solar PV, roughly 500,000 house have had solar PV installled since Jan 2012.

So the Coalition want to achieve in 10 years, at an extra cost of half a billion dollars, what the market with NO SUBSIDY, is likely to achieve in the next 3-4 years. Maybe they see it as a cheap way to say hey we got a million extra solar houses in 1 term. Gee aint we great fro the environment.

When Tony says the budget is in crisis why is he looking to spend HALF A BILLION DOLLARS that will achieve nothing, except maybe more cheap and nasty installations using second or third tier panels and cowboy companies that go broke after a year.

 

[Julia]

Absolutely not! In fact Rudd could have used a bit of good holistic advice (like mine ) to be more effective in beating off his own party assassins and maintaining stability of leadership to tone down (or out) some of his policy positions.

Hmm... obfuscating: To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand

Who me!?

Hey, hang on Julia... don't label this innocent looking little goldfish with those who wilfully expose their underwear. I'm clearly different!

OK, Whiskers. I agree that usually you are. I'd even say you often write thoughtful, interesting posts which I enjoy reading.
I'm just a bit alarmed that you have taken a turn for the incomprehensible and am hoping it's but a temporary abberation.

 

[wayneL]

Syd, if you ever want to knock over people in this forum, just say something positive. I reckon most here would faint on the spot.

 

[wayneL]

Listen to Pravda just now. The question is, after sacking of department heads and disbanding the ludicrous climate commission, is the government off to a good start?

61% yes 39% no.

I'd say that's a pretty stellar endorsement from Pravda listeners.

 

[IFocus]

Coalition goverments manage money better.........ops

State Govt eyes port sales after ratings cut

Port assets are being eyed for sale by the State Government in a bid to restore WA's AAA credit rating.

After Standard and Poor's (S&P) downgraded the once-boom state to AA+ yesterday, the Liberal-led government said it would pursue asset sales to boost a balance sheet weighed down by mounting debt

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/19007307/state-govt-eyes-port-sales-after-ratings-cut/

 

[sydboy007]

Syd, if you ever want to knock over people in this forum, just say something positive. I reckon most here would faint on the spot.

My Gosh Wayne, when was the last time you said something positive about the non right side of politics?

I also noticed you're not defending their policy. Do you agree with spending $500,000,000 on a policy that is not needed? Do you think if Rudd had proposed that policy that Abbott would have used the words "waste mismanagement" in the same sentence about it?

Get with the program. Australian politics is all about negativity these days. It's straight from the Abbott rule book. Make everyone think that there's a crisis, even though economic growth is at trend, inflation at trend, employment at trend, retail spending increasing roughly in line with income growth, but it's a CRISIS.

 

[Smurf1976]

Coalition goverments manage money better.........ops

State Govt eyes port sales after ratings cut

Politics aside (both Labor and Liberal do much the same in this regard) I fail to see how selling assets which are profitable, or at least self sustaining, brings about an "improvement" in finances.

It's like saying that a landlord with $5 million worth of properties and $2.5 million worth of debt should sell half their properties and repay the debt. That only makes sense if the return on the recoverable value of those assets is less than the interest on the debt which, given current low interest rates, would not generally be the case with public assets held by governments.

There's also the broader economic consequences. Ports, rail, electricity etc in public ownership will usually have a broader focus on economic development and facilitating business. Put them in private ownership and that disappears - it then becomes all about profit maximisation for the asset owner and to hell with the broader economic consequences.

Then there's the inevitable running down of the infrastructure itself, to the point that a government bailout may be required in order to avoid broader economic impacts at a future date.

The railways in Tasmania are perhaps the best (worst) Australian example - run into the ground under private ownership to the point that it became impossible to simply move a train from one end of Australia's smallest state to the other without it literally coming off the tracks and ending up in a paddock lying on its' side with whatever it was carrying strewn over the surrounding area. Even at snail's pace they couldn't make them run, such was the extent to which the system was run down as profits were stripped out. The state government ended up buying the whole thing back for a small amount (few $ million since that's all it was really worth) and then spent a fortune fixing tracks, rolling stock and locomotives simply so as to have a working rail freight system. Not that they could afford to fix it properly up front - but trains running at 40 km/h and actually getting from A to B is at least better than trains falling off the tracks on a regular basis. Pump in more money each year and eventually they'll get them up to a decent speed - currently they're buying some new locomotives, the track itself having been the first priority.

Trains in Tas are just one example. Much has been said about power generation in recent times, especially the emissions from certain old power plants. The harsh reality is that most electricity in Victoria still comes form the exact same power stations it came from 20 years ago and which were built by the former SECV. The only thing that's changed is a cut in maintenance, less technically efficient operation and a big increase in unplanned mishaps. Piling up shipping containers inside a power station as a "blast wall" in case a faulty turbine ***** itself and flies to pieces at 3000 RPM complete with superheated steam going everywhere is truly Third World stuff (to say the least). Then there's that nice "new" plant just down the road - actually it's simply a relocation of a plant built in the 1960's in NZ which that country subsequently scrapped as obsolete. They'd have relocated another old clunker from India too, if the EPA hadn't stepped in amidst concerns about filling the air with fumes not far from Melbourne itself.

I'm not against private enterprise, not at all, but I don't see that transferring the ownership of infrastructure from government to private owners is really achieving a benefit. Government gets some cash today but loses forever an ongoing revenue stream and also the ability to influence broader economic and social outcomes. In return, government still carries the risk if the private owners choose to walk away or otherwise mess things up. It's not like a small shop going broke or even the likes of a car manufacturer. If the owners of a port, major power station, transport system etc walk away then there's really no option other than for government to either find a buyer immediately or (more likely) resume ownership and spend a fortune fixing it up and making it work. So as taxpayers, we're privatising the profits but retaining virtually all the risks in public hands.

 

[Smurf1976]

They want another million house with solar PV or hotwater over the next 10 years, and are willing to add a cool half billion on top of current schemes to achieve this target.

Got to say, doesn't sound like climate denialist Tony eh.

They are also trying to convince gas companies to "extract every molecule" of gas as quickly as they can, with most of it to be exported overseas.

In all seriousness, this has to be the dumbest policy I've ever heard. What happens 20 years from now when gas production has peaked and practically the whole lot is tied up in export contracts? In short, it spells the end of Australian manufacturing and other gas-using industries that's for sure.

We have 100 years' worth of gas I hear someone say? Not if we massively scale up production we won't. Massively scale up exports, allow for increasing consumption for traditional uses in Australia, now add in the prospect of a broader move to gas powered vehicles (noting that oil is currently a much larger energy source than gas). We'll likely be running short on the stuff well within the lifetime of most Australians living today if we continue down this path.

Exploration will find more? No doubt it will. But then future discoveries are already factored into the activities of the gas industry today. Hence the campaign to gain access to huge areas of agricultural land for CSG production - in short they've pretty much already sold it and now have to actually find the stuff.

WA is the state that will end up most totally stuffed by this in the long term. They rely very heavily on gas for industrial fuel, power generation and so on - what happens when it's all been committed to export and there's nothing left for local use? Going back to coal won't work since that's now being shipped out of WA too (and WA coal reserves aren't exactly huge to start with).

With all this going on, I can understand very easily why there's a push for solar. It won't power the country, but at least some households will have hot showers and, if they also buy some batteries, be able to keep the lights on.

 

[wayneL]

Syd,

What would you like me to endorse about the last government? Straw man misogyny rants? Pink bats? Massive increase in people smuggling? Blown out deficit? Carbon Tax? Worst of all, dividing this country like never before?

Give me something positive to cling to.....apart from them losing the election.