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-- [Politics] Election 2007
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The lower house consists of Cabinet, who acting as the executive government have many connections with the public service. For example, the Minister for health is the boss of the department for health, though has only limited experience in the field. The public service head of that department will have all the experience and may influence legislation in terms of what he or she desires. The BBC production, �Yes Minister�, was based on this manipulation of the government by the public service. This therefore, raises the question, are the lower house MP�s, or directly, the executive government, really representative of the people? In a capitalist society, would a labourers vote count equally to that of Jamie Packers? The BS in practise is seen as promoting the wishes of an electorate/people, however it enters into a system filled with capitalists, political affiliates and lobby groups. This undermines the notion of electoral representation. Deals are done behind closed doors where there is no active public involvement.

With this said, John Howard has undermined the nation, in relation to most of his policies; IndustrialRelations, WarInIrag, InterestRates, and GST with his political affiliates that we don't see. Nuff said.

LOL @ you questioning the voting system and democracy.


How has johnny undermined the nation in regards to GST and Industrial relations? I dont see the state governments complaining about the GST they take, remember all gst goes to the states. Also i think Johnny has been pretty up front in regards to industrial relations regardless of our opinions on it.

quote:

Originally posted by Paulie Also i think Johnny has been pretty up front in regards to industrial relations regardless of our opinions on it.

yeah, upfront by telling us repeatedly that the IR laws would increase bargaining power for workers, raise wages, create employment- all untrue.

quote:

Originally posted by dan_essential The lower house consists of Cabinet, who acting as the executive government have many connections with the public service. For example, the Minister for health is the boss of the department for health, though has only limited experience in the field. The public service head of that department will have all the experience and may influence legislation in terms of what he or she desires. The BBC production, �Yes Minister�, was based on this manipulation of the government by the public service. This therefore, raises the question, are the lower house MP�s, or directly, the executive government, really representative of the people? In a capitalist society, would a labourers vote count equally to that of Jamie Packers? The BS in practise is seen as promoting the wishes of an electorate/people, however it enters into a system filled with capitalists, political affiliates and lobby groups. This undermines the notion of electoral representation. Deals are done behind closed doors where there is no active public involvement. With this said, John Howard has undermined the nation, in relation to most of his policies; IndustrialRelations, WarInIrag, InterestRates, and GST with his political affiliates that we don't see. Nuff said.

that's just how it works unfortunately. its the most manageable form of democracy an advanced liberal democracy can engender in the 21st century.

fuck democracy. Stalin FTW!

quote:

Originally posted by eRRaTiK fuck democracy. Stalin FTW!

hahaha
give us your five year plan!

So who is everyone voting this year? Let's make a list! Seriously this secret ballot stuff is crap now, everyone is telling each other who they support!

Myself: Labor

Labor.

Tis called Freedom of political communication!

Why labor? In my opinion, they seem to be socialist than Liberals, that's why!

Liberal

I'm happy with where we are. Yes there are issues to fix up but the option is there to fix them.

Can't see much hope for Labor if they get elected. All I envision then is a shitty economy and without a strong economy, all other plans have no meaning. You can't fix health, education, transport and environmental issues without money. Money drives the world.

Risk-taking drives decision-making. Decision-making drives money. Take a risk bi*tch...lol

With Labor? Yea right, I may as well just start paying double the price for everything already.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Liberal All I envision then is a shitty economy and without a strong economy, all other plans have no meaning.

how old are you fledz? were you paying that much attention during the hawke-keating years to be able to categorically state that labor cannot manage the economy, (a labor that is of course 11 years older than under keating) ?

for instance

quote:

Under the Hawke and Keating governments from 1983 to 1996, Labor pursued many economic policies associated with economic rationalism and the "Third Way", such as floating the Australian Dollar in 1983, reductions in trade tariffs, taxation reforms, changing from centralised wage-fixing to enterprise bargaining, the privatisation of Qantas and Commonwealth Bank, and deregulating the banking system. Keating also proposed a GST in 1985, however due to it's unpopularity amongst Labor as well as the electorate, it was scrapped.

-wiki

do those kind of reforms remind you of anyone?

there's no doubt some blame for the keating government to take re the recession, but to ignore that in the global (esp asian) economic context is a little narrow imo.

rudd is an economic conservative.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Can't see much hope for Labor if they get elected. All I envision then is a shitty economy and without a strong economy, all other plans have no meaning.

I don't understand this view at all. What possible policies are Labor likely to introduce that would threaten the strength of the Australian economy? The main threat to our economic wellbeing at the moment isn't economic cooling but economic overheating (which - aside from spurious IR reform - the Liberals have done little to address). It would take a very special kind of incompetence to ruin the economy with things as they are at the moment.

I think a lot of this attitude probably stems from the economic performance of the Hawke / Keating governments (which I'm glad PKC brought up) but that was a very different time. During the 80s (when Labor inherited the economy from treasurer Howard) basically all the economies of the world faced the same economic problem facing Australia - that of stagflation (simultaneously high inflation and unemployment). Although Keating probably over-shot with his contractionary policies in 89/90, he was basically right to say it was "the recession we had to have". Even the US and UK - where neo-liberal governments of the same disposition as the Liberal party took power (Howard actually named Reagan and Thatcher - alongside JP2 - as his most admired figures of the 20th century) - experienced recession during this time as a means of alleviating stagflation. The only difference being that the UK suffered from double-figure unemployment and vanishing growth for the best part of the decade and the US only averted this by running obscene budget deficits (unmatched in scale until president cuckoo-bananas took over). Regardless of the economic ideology of the ruling party, a recession was clearly going to be difficult to avoid.

I don't think anyone can deny that the economic management of the Howard government has been "good" (particularly the management of the budget over the past 11 years and the response to the Asian recession) but they get more credit than they are due in this regard imho. I'm not a Labor voter, but it's an unfortunate myth of this election campaign that they pose any threat to the current strength of the economy.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz With Labor? Yea right, I may as well just start paying double the price for everything already.

Inflation in developed economies is a symptom of economic growth that's reached the boundaries of productive capacity, so make up your mind. Is Labor going to destroy the economy or is it going to strain it beyond capacity?

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Can't see much hope for Labor if they get elected. All I envision then is a shitty economy and without a strong economy, all other plans have no meaning. You can't fix health, education, transport and environmental issues without money. Money drives the world.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade president cuckoo-bananas

I never said the Liberals were amazing. They are far from it but from what I know about Labor and from what I can tell, I just don't hold any hope with them. I'm not going to vote for someone I'm not comfortable, especially that weasel Rudd. This country's leaders are atrocious. I had to suffer through that NSW election (which most of you here wouldn't understand) and pick the best of the worst and now I have to suffer through a Federal election and pick the best of the worst. I still see Howard as the best of the worst and will still back the Coalition over Labor. I don't like what Labor stands for in any country, let alone here.

At least with Liberals we know what we're getting. We have no idea what Labor wants. As much as they talk, it is still not clear what they want to achieve and how they want to achieve it. I'm not up for taking such a massive risk to fix something which isn't as broken as people would have you believe.

SMH (Nov 7th 2007): The rate that stops a nation in its tracks

quote:

JOHN HOWARD faces his toughest credibility test of the election campaign this morning with the Reserve Bank expected to raise interest rates by 0.25 percentage points - and the news will be compounded for many credit card holders.

i transfered to a citibank credit card, with 4.9% for the life of the transfer. good from me

quote:

Originally posted by eRRaTiK SMH (Nov 7th 2007): The rate that stops a nation in its tracks

I'm a bit damn sick of interest rates headed up all the time and I don't think they're going to be going down for some time.

Whoops! Not that anyone probably noticed or cared , but i made a mistake in saying there had been a change to senate voting. The change was for voting in state upper house!! So sorry, but you do still have to fill in all the boxes if you don't want to follow a particular parties how to vote card.

And to make it easier, here are the cards for all parties http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/fed...didates/gvt.htm

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz At least with Liberals we know what we're getting. We have no idea what Labor wants. As much as they talk, it is still not clear what they want to achieve and how they want to achieve it. I'm not up for taking such a massive risk to fix something which isn't as broken as people would have you believe.

LOL, from what i can understand your voting for the liberals because your afraid of change ... One party can't stay in control forever lol.

quote:

Originally posted by Dj_Es-Dva LOL, from what i can understand your voting for the liberals because your afraid of change ... One party can't stay in control forever lol.

I'm not afraid of change but I'm not going to blindly jump on the ALP bandwagon and hope that something good happens. It is now less than 2 weeks before the election and all Rudd has done is attempt to counteract the Libs proposals. What radical changes has the ALP proposed? Where are the fresh ideas? The forward thinking?

There are none. The whole ALP campaign has basically screamed that people are worse off now than before and the country is in a crisis. Ummm...what? Who is actually worse of right now? As far as I can tell, the nation is in a pretty damn good state right now and has been for the past decade.

While I do admit that I'm a Liberal, that wouldn't stop me from switching over to another party if I thought they would be better. Well, the ALP has done absolutely nothing to prove that they would be better and has been running a smear campaign on Howard. Yes, Howard probably had it coming so it's not that surprising but that does nothing for me. It doesn't make me want to vote for them at all. Rudd is more likeable than Howard? Probably. How does this result in a better government though?

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz Ummm...what? Who is actually worse of right now? As far as I can tell, the nation is in a pretty damn good state right now and has been for the past decade.

So the government has a heap of money, yet its people dont. Interesting concept you have

What's wrong with a budget surplus?

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz What's wrong with a budget surplus?

Can someone explain to me the purpose of the surplus?

I always figured it was "rainy day" money, in case we have a natural disaster, or need to lend aid to Timor, or something like that. Otherwise what's the point?

Also - all John Howard needs to do to win election is introduce (temporary) petrol rebates and aim for $1/L. Not only would people notice every week at the pump and think "thanks John!", but it would also prevent further inflation and more interest rate rises - something which is counting against him at the moment.

If I was John Howard this one would be in the bag.

p.s thank christ I'm not.

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