Who are you voting for?

The libs claim to be good economic managers. This is a farce when one considers
1. The butchering of the Telstra privatisation. Initially the rationale behind this was to ensure Telstra had the capital to grow....a furphy when the fact was that the Howard Govt was milking it for dividends to the tune of 2 billion a year. The opportunity to put Australia at the forefront of telecommunications was badly blown...& now we are at the mercy of greedy self-absorbed Yanks.
Does no one remember that Alston's main contribution was to provide plasma TV's for his mates. And by not providing broadband speeds that would allow "video-on-demand" he was basically cosying up to the media barons....and ensuring that both "free-to-air" & pay-TV would not erode their audience (&hence power-base).
2. The US free-trade agreement...another farce according to a mate of mine who was intimately involved. The devil is in the detail. For example we are now allowed to export avocadoes...great you may think....but in reality we are only allowed to export in months when Oz production is minimal. Plenty more examples of this...plus we extended US patents...eg, pharmaceuticals, mickey mouse etc
The US negotiator (Zoellic (sic)) is now head of the World Bank so you can only imagine that this institution is now the vehicle to use to the advantage of the US.
3. The tardiness to negotiate a Oz-China free-trade agreement. Why? Howard was afraid to offend his/Liberals US masters. Whilst he dithered, China signed with our competitors.....Sth American nations, Cuba....even NZ.

Spaghetti said:

I am not voting Howard. He is morally bankrupt and has taken away too many freedoms and rights. He has become too secretive and hires total morons like Andrews. The war is unforgiveable, I mean you simply do not just go around invading countries that result in total destruction and massive loss of life without accountability.

The economy has been good to me because I realised that the share of profits allocated to shareholders was increasing for shareholders and decreasing for workers so I quit working and now trade the market for my living. However I am not entirely sure this is really an ethical way to run a country.

So who I vote for will be the best one to knock off the liberal candidate.

I do hope Australia returns to be a nice country. Sick of rich people getting baby bonus and FOBG then complaining if a refugee gets a bed for a night or if a single mum has a galss of wine. A nasty streak seems to have grown under Howard's leadership along with right wing christianity strange enough.

So thats my feeling on the matter.

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Morally bankrupt but a champion for big business and the baby boomer generation.

I'm no economist nor the political type and all I truly understand from raw experience is that before the coalition were placed in power ...

I lived in a country which was not at war.

I never felt threatened or fearful of police or other public servants nor people of unfamiliar background.

Resource booms were clearly felt through all sectors of the economy right through to those on welfare.

My job was considered highly skilled and in demand, now it's become an imported comodity from countries I helped train up. My existence and worth in the workforce today is measured purely in what daily/hourly rate I can be pimped out at.

I never had to pay tax on income that I technically had not yet earned or banked.

I could calculate exactly how much tax I paid and felt the larger portion of my tax dollar went into public infrastructure projects, so I at least felt I also benefited in some way.

I could afford to be single and still buy a property. In fact to take my time to shop around for something suitable and tasteful.

I could get by without a car.

I never knew anybody that bought property sight unseen.

I rarely saw grandparents attending property inspections and auctions with their grandkids.

I never felt the need to get into debt to keep up with the Jones'

Even though I didn't spend it, I always had more disposable income than I anticipated left over to spend.

I didn't have to speak slowly in broken English to get what I needed at the local shop or goverment agency.

I never had private health cover. I'm conviced I would definitely have lost an eye a few months back had I not taken out private health cover under the coalition. And still my private health fund made a profit on me this year. Clearly nobody susbsidising for me in my hour of need.

I was naive and figuratively speaking blind to what has been changing around me. I can now see that my work hard, save well and avoid debt ethic has benefited others more than it has me.

I was far too blaise about one of the more important choices I could ever make and will never again make my mind up at the polling booth or simply select the prefered party box on the senate ballot.

When you see the ASF poll the Libs 44.03% to Lab 38.06%
I would dearly like to know how the Morgan and Nielson polls are carried out.

It appears to me they do their polling in well known Labor strong holds, which indicates they are biased and are yearning for a change in Government for the sake of change.

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It's called a random sample. The ASF poll is clearly not a random sample - it is biased towards internet users who invest (or trade?) in stocks with an interest in discussing politics. That is clearly not a random sample.

Morgan, Newspoll, ACNielsen and Galaxy all poll random samples. You might believe that they are rigged, but it is quite a coincidence that all four have consistently been within 4-5% of each other all year. The consistency of polls this year have been quite remarkable.

I think it's far more likely that the bias lies within you rather than the polls.

mark70920 said:

The sky is falling the sky is falling , there won't be a union driven wages explosion. Just more of the ill informed scare campaign.

Let me expalin how inflation works , relevant to labour costs.
Pay rises are only inflationary if they are not accompanied by an increase in productivity, so if someone produces 10 items a week at a labor cost of a $1000 ($100 an item) and then get a pay rise of 10% ($1100) each item would now have labor cost of $110 , that causes inflation but if he now produces 11 items a week the labor cost would still be $100 an item , that’s not inflationary.
So if the business you work for is producing more with less staff you deserve a pay rise and that won't affect inflation.
What both parties need to do to keep the lid on inflation and therefore interest rates, is to increase the productivity of our workforce. They need to be better trained , innovative and motivated. We need to invest in infrastructure again to help increase productivity.
There is no evidence that AWA's increase productivity and in fact the international evidence points to collective agreements(over individual agreements) giving the biggest increases in productivity.
Keep the lid on inflation vote for the party with the most productive IR plan and stop Listening to John Howard’s Lies.

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Well I have ran my own small business since 1983 and luckily its a non union business, but I run a fair ship, fair pay for a fair effort and flexible conditions, which works both ways, there are no AWA's here just Federal award conditions and over award pay.

I'm just waiting to hear what us "Greedy and Rich employers" are going to be expected to pay and administer once this 70% Union biased Labor front bench decides what and how much more employers can afford to pay for.

Time will tell who is telling lies and sadly the Mr & Mrs Average Australian will think he/she is voting for the right party because of the same simple views you are sharing with us.

Finally you only have to look at an example of the integrity of Labor, my neighbor an assistant secretary of the ACTU was given the blue ribbon seat of Corio by alleged branch stacking which caused the ousting of the sitting Labor member of 15 years, what did Rudd do when this was brought to his attention, nothing, another example of union control of the Labor party.

The irony of this might cause some pain to Labor as the sitting member has now nominated as an independent and as he has a lot of community support here his preferences if directed to Liberal could cause a spill over to Liberal here in Corio.

Should the Liberals win but Howard lose Bennelong, then Mark Vaile becomes Prime Minister......not acting, but PM. This would remain the case until the Liberals could call a caucus meeting to elect a new leader, in a tight election with recounts and challenges likely, Vaile could remain PM for a couple of weeks.

numbercruncher said:

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22780458-952,00.html


Um ... So who is it getting cocky again, im confused ??

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Yes, I made the same observation, Numbercruncher. In Mr Howard's case, I'd call it denial, i.e. reluctance to face reality. Such has been his demeanour right through the campaign and I suspect this has put even more people off him.

Pay rises are only inflationary if they are not accompanied by an increase in productivity, so if someone produces 10 items a week at a labor cost of a $1000 ($100 an item) and then get a pay rise of 10% ($1100) each item would now have labor cost of $110 , that causes inflation but if he now produces 11 items a week the labor cost would still be $100 an item , that’s not inflationary.

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But then you get the unscrupulous businesses that say "Look, these guys have more money now, let's put our prices up!"

And to all those looking forward to a Labor government let me ask, do you REALLY think there will be fewer lies & unethical decisions than there have been in the last 11 years?

Should the Liberals win but Howard lose Bennelong, then Mark Vaile becomes Prime Minister......not acting, but PM. This would remain the case until the Liberals could call a caucus meeting to elect a new leader, in a tight election with recounts and challenges likely, Vaile could remain PM for a couple of weeks.

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That's not true at all. Costello would become the leader of the parliamentary Liberals, and he would therefore become the PM. Vaile has the title of the deputy PM, but if something happens to the PM the deputy leader of the Liberal Party becomes the leader, and the leader of the Liberals - as the senior member of the coalition - will be the PM.

Finally you only have to look at an example of the integrity of Labor, my neighbor an assistant secretary of the ACTU was given the blue ribbon seat of Corio by alleged branch stacking which caused the ousting of the sitting Labor member of 15 years, what did Rudd do when this was brought to his attention, nothing, another example of union control of the Labor party.

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The Liberals did exactly the same thing with Mr Turnbull at the last election and faced a huge backlash from the outgoing member, Peter King. Where's the integrity there?

God is not a Liberal, but he sure likes Liberal policies, Prime Minister John Howard has told Korean churchgoers in his marginal Sydney electorate.

At the Riverside Girls High School hall in Gladesville, Mr Howard addressed a Korean congregation through an interpreter telling them he shared their belief in God and the "transforming influence" of Jesus Christ.

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http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/God-likes-Liberal-policies-Howard/2007/11/18/1195321595299.html

Has this guy been brainwashed by the brethen ? who informed him that God likes his policies ? Are we secular ? Have we been taken over by the religious right ?

JOHN Howard has exchanged letters five times with the Exclusive Brethren since 2003, but after 14 months of stalling on a simple freedom-of-information request, his office will not release the correspondence until well after election day.

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http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/pmbrethren-letters-held-until-after-poll/2007/11/18/1195321608622.html

Something is very fishy ....

kivvygosh said:

That's not true at all. Costello would become the leader of the parliamentary Liberals, and he would therefore become the PM. Vaile has the title of the deputy PM, but if something happens to the PM the deputy leader of the Liberal Party becomes the leader, and the leader of the Liberals - as the senior member of the coalition - will be the PM.

The Liberals did exactly the same thing with Mr Turnbull at the last election and faced a huge backlash from the outgoing member, Peter King. Where's the integrity there?

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No, Costello can only become leader if he is elected as leader by the parliamentry caucus. It is not a right of passage as deputy "parliamentry leader" that you become leader automatically or for that matter PM. Leadership of the Liberal Party is determined by the Liberal Party Constitution, leadership of Australia is determined by the Australian Constitution.
As I said, until the liberals held a leadership contest, Mark Vaile would be PM.....think Harold Holt and Jack McEwan.

bassmanpete said:

And to all those looking forward to a Labor government let me ask, do you REALLY think there will be fewer lies & unethical decisions than there have been in the last 11 years?

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YES. YES. YES.

NO. NO. NO.
Which is why I don't want to vote for either party.

Not a word about Labour not costing the bulk of their policies....

rederob said:

Julia
There is no requirement that the policy be implemented.

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So everybody should feel quite happy if - whichever side is elected - they just say, OK, we've changed our minds now, sorry, just not going to do that.

Major media outlets have tallied up each of the respective parties' costings and thus far Labor has not racked up a bill that matches the Coalition's expenditure.

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But the difference is so small as to be insignificant. Just sufficient for Mr Rudd to cleverly claim the moral high ground by being able to say that Labor is not going on such a spending spree as the Coalition.

It does seem that many people have no idea what the Charter is about

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No, I'm sure that's correct. And we ignorant ordinary voters here don't really give a stuff about Charters. We'd just like to know if we should reasonably have any expectation that all the big promises on both sides have been properly costed and those costings independently verified. Doesn't seem like such a big ask to me.

By the way, I haven't voted Labor for at least 20 years, and this year will not be any different.

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Thanks for sharing, Rob. Care to tell us for whom you will be voting?

YES. YES. YES.

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Recall that the Whitlam government knew about Indonesian plans to annexe East Timor 3 days in advance but did nothing. Anyone remember Gareth Evans grinning broadly as he popped the champagne cork to celebrate Australia & Indonesia splitting East Timor's oil & gas reserves between themselves? Think of all those left-leaning people forever going on about 'Little Johnny' involving Australia in the illegal war in Iraq, and then recall that many of those same people wanted Australia to unilaterally invade East Timor in 1999 thus taking us into a war with Indonesia.

Don't get me wrong, I don't support John Howard, I'm just trying to make the point that both sides of politics lie, cheat, and do underhanded things. They just tend to do it over different issues

bassmanpete said:

Recall that the Whitlam government knew about Indonesian plans to annexe East Timor 3 days in advance but did nothing. Anyone remember Gareth Evans grinning broadly as he popped the champagne cork to celebrate Australia & Indonesia splitting East Timor's oil & gas reserves between themselves? Think of all those left-leaning people forever going on about 'Little Johnny' involving Australia in the illegal war in Iraq, and then recall that many of those same people wanted Australia to unilaterally invade East Timor in 1999 thus taking us into a war with Indonesia.

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By Proxy, isn't that what you would have been asking the Whitlam government to do?

The Howard government secretly planned to take its unpopular Work Choices laws further two years ago but shelved the idea, documents confirmed on Monday.

Prime Minister John Howard's department drew up changes to the industrial relations laws in 2005, Channel Seven reported.

But voters will not be allowed to know what the government was planning, with a two-and-a-half year Freedom of Information (FOI) battle failed on Monday.

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http://news.ninemsn.com.au/minisite/election_article.aspx?id=280266&sectionid=6046&sectionname=minisiteelection&rss=yes


These guys definately have some more evil plans in store, I suspect Costello will launch them.

By Proxy, isn't that what you would have been asking the Whitlam government to do?

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Not really. But again I'm just trying to say that neither side, nor the middle, is as shining white as their supporters would like to believe. I always find it amusing on election night when the winning candidate's supporters get ecstatic when the result is announced. Hey, he/she's just going to c**p all over you just like he/she is over everybody else.

Anyway, that's my cynical opinion after 50 years of election watching!

Julia said:

But the difference is so small as to be insignificant. Just sufficient for Mr Rudd to cleverly claim the moral high ground by being able to say that Labor is not going on such a spending spree as the Coalition.?

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You must be doing OK with the stock market. Can you give us a few tips. I mean if six or seven billion is insignificant to you then you are doing better than most of us.

VOTE ONE RANDOM PARTY