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Tony Abbott for PM

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Musing after a few glasses of woobla.......

Well I've been back in Oz now for 6 weeks. After having seen almost nothing of our Tones for five years (and I rather disliked him back then), I'm still underwhelmed by him as a politician. I marvel that someone like him could be so far in front of the incumbent PM.

But then I've had six weeks to look at Jools. She's a far superior politician IMO, even if I heave up my last meal.... and that accent, the most offensive and cringe-worthy imaginable.

By way of full disclosure, I'm not a natural Lib voter, but I'm a natural non-Labor voter. As I look back I see the Whitlam years as the seed of destruction of the real Australia... the Australia that we should have and could have been. I see the Fraser years, as disdainful... opportunity lost and a de-facto extension of Whitlam. Though I'd never admit it out loud, I see the Hawke/Keating years as generally positive with many important and successful reforms.

I see the Howard years as wildly successful originally, only to descend into pork barreling and massive extension of middle class welfare.

Kev/Jools however has been a disaster.. outright economic vandals who should be shot for treason.

So back to Abbott. Poor politician, I think we all recognise that, but I have a feeling and a hope that he'll make a fine PM. Ironically, if he stumps up and does what needs doing, he'll be as hated and divisive as Maggie.

Though not slightly religious, I am reminded of Matthew 10:34

I just hope he has the cajones to pull Oz back from the edge of the chasm.

</pisstalk>
 
Watching Tony tonight had me stunned that someone finally worked out how to polish a turd.
He seems to be coming along. Hate to see his voice coach bill though.
 
+1
funny as I do not often share your views..
PS:
was not around for the pre Hawke/Keating so can not judge!
 
I think Tony Abbott is a decent man, misunderstood because of his verbal presentation.

I think he will do us proud, he is too proud not to.
 
A question I have is if the current deficit is due to Labor spending too much, then why can't Tony produce a surplus with his first budget?

If he's elected in September 2013, first budget released in May 2014 which means he has till June 2015 to have produced a surplus.

Surely that's plenty of time to cut the "waste and mismanagement" of Labor? It's just shy of 2 years.

For a party where supluses are in their DNA, where they would have been able to run a surplus back in 2008 FY even though Govt revenue fell by $25B (according to Chris Pyne), why is he now saying he might not be able to do it?

If I go by what the LNP has been saying for five years, all the Govt has to do is cut back on spending to easily balance the budget. The LNP obviously believe it's not about the revenue side of the budget.

As posters have mentioned in here numerous times, the current Govt has like $360B+ to play with this year, so it's not like they don't have the money to balance the books.

So I ask again, why can't Tony guarantee a surplus by June 2015?
 
drsmith said:
Because it will take longer than that to fix the budget mess Labor has left him.
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Why? Tony / Hockey / Pyne have all said the deficit is simply due to over spending. Surely Tony can cut spending by ~$20B in his first budget to balance things. I mean there's 5 years of "labour waste and mismanagement" so there's surely to be plenty of easy spending cuts to be made. It's not like they need to raise taxes. Spending cuts are far easier than raising taxes.
 

Sydboy - the real question to ask is how much is Gillard running up FUTURE expense that will make it near impossible for any incoming government to produce a surplus?

The thousands of boat arrivals will continue to have their hand our for money, medical expenses, legal expenses, education expenses and anything else I have missed.

The cost of interest of the massive debt run up by labor is now adding around $12 BILLION per annum (to the best of my knowledge) and that's without paying one cent back.

Gillard is also setting up five year contracts for public servants whom the libs won't want. That's sheer highway robbery to taxpayers, imo. There will be the huge cost of paying these people out. Much like Bligh's husband scored a five year contract on about $200,000 pa only weeks before the election and on the high probability that the LNP would close his department down.

I would agree with you if it was just a case of stopping the spending - but it seems Gillard is already spending money for the next government that may be difficult or costly for them to reduce.

What other damage has she put in place that will continue to rob taxpayer's funds?

These are the questions you need to ask. They are the root of the problem, imo.
 

Out of $~360B revenue is cancelling a few million dollars in contracts going to stop a budget surplus (not that I'm condoning appointments based purely on political patronage).

Just to put the $12B in perspective that is 3.33% of Govt revenue. Quite a few ASF members use the household budget analogy, and i would argue that quite a few households have higher interest bills than them.

I suppose I'm hoping to get the discussion deeper than the sloganeering we've had for years now.
 
sydboy007 said:
I suppose I'm hoping to get the discussion deeper than the sloganeering we've had for years now.
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It won't happen on this forum - you would have to pursue it elsewhere. I hate to be blunt, but that's the way it is.
 

Business needs time to turn it around, stupid labor policy needs to be undone, labors tactic of overpromising in an election year now needs to be cut back along with all the stupid departments it setup. Labor spent a lot of time twisting the country up in red tape.
 
Ves said:
It won't happen on this forum - you would have to pursue it elsewhere. I hate to be blunt, but that's the way it is.
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Thats a bit of an 'up yours' statement, Im looking to bait.
 

So your argument is that Labor are shoddy economic manager because they will have a $10B deficit this year, equivalent to say 2.7% of revenue, yet if the LNP produce the same that it's not their fault as they're cleaning up Labor's mess?

Surely the LNP can find 2.7% of savings to provide a balanced budget by June 2015. They have 21 months to achieve it. We're talking 7 quarters for business to turn things around.
 

As I understand it (and stand to be corrected), the next gu'mint will be contractually obliged by the actions of this lot. Hence much expenditure will be locked in, whether the Libs like it or not.
 
wayneL said:
As I understand it (and stand to be corrected), the next gu'mint will be contractually obliged by the actions of this lot. Hence much expenditure will be locked in, whether the Libs like it or not.
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What expenditure are we talking about?

Unless there's a legal contract that stipulates the Govt HAS to follow through with the expenditure, then really it's at the discretion of the LNP.

Now I know spending cuts are hard, especially when you have an opposition and MSM barracking every vested interest as to why the spending shouldn't be cut, but at the end of the day we are talking about a < 3% cut in Govt spending.

If I was talking about someone on 100K and they were saying they just couldn't cut their spending by 3% to balance their books you would rightly question why, so if the LNP can't find < 3% of revenue in spending cuts to balance the budget by June 2015, then why is the ALP not giving the same leeway?
 

1/ What has LNP (AFAIK a peculiarly Qld party) got to do with it? Federally, we are speaking of an LP/NP coalition.

2/ Labor created the excess expenditure, and seems unwilling to reel this in.

3/ There are political considerations, Ozzies must be weaned of the public teat carefully, lest we end up with a calamitous Labor administration in short order. Political altruism is not a feature of Oz society.... the pork barrel is the Ozzie politicians main stock in trade.

This is the reality.
 

$10b deficit are you sure that's it, because last year was a surplus come hell or high water.
I am saying they are shoddy because they have restricted business sentiment/ growth and then wonder why the money isn't rolling in. They have a long list of policy that has affected different segments of the economy just enough(and more than enough) to set the ball rolling in a negative direction . They then fail at policy, or jump from policy to policy on a weekly basis. destroying any confidence in their ability to deliver stability for business decisions longer then a week. Their message is confused and often hypocritical and it seems the factions are each vying for a piece of conflicting policy.
Libs want to grow revenue and no doubt make cuts. Yeah it's yet to be seen if they manage it, but I'd rather libs then labor which is hamstrung by the union factions
Flavour of the week for Labor sounds like Gay Marriage for a bit of vote grabbing. Yep well done.
 
wayneL said:
1/ What has LNP (AFAIK a peculiarly Qld party) got to do with it? Federally, we are speaking of an LP/NP coalition.
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+1. I have raised this with Sydboy before. Why are you determined to continue with this misrepresentation, sydboy? The federal party is not the LNP, fergawdsake!

+100
 
Julia said:
+1. I have raised this with Sydboy before. Why are you determined to continue with this misrepresentation, sydboy? The federal party is not the LNP, fergawdsake!
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Is it correct that the Coalition is made up of Liberal Party of Australia, National Party of Australia, Liberal National Party of QLD and Country National Party?

If not, I'm awfully confused as to what you guys are debating. It sounds like the LNP is involved in Federal Politics???
 

So you choose to assign a minor constituent's name to the whole?

It would be like calling the Labor Party the AWU

Absurd
 
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