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| quote: | Originally posted by Philby
quick delete this thread before renegade sees it |
Haha, damn... 
Anyway, I don't want to get too deeply involved in this as I'm pretty disillusioned with Australian politics at the moment (neither candidate should be filling anyone with a great deal of hope about the future of the country) but I just genuinely don't understand how there are so many people here willing to vote for Howard. I'm not necessarily saying that Latham is any better, but at least think about and ask yourself whether your really going to be better off under another three years of Liberal government and then consider the alternatives. Don't just vote for Howard because you can't find a reason not to (you aren't looking hard enough!) or because you don't like the alternatives.
Now I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that most of the people are aged between 18 and 25 (or predominantly under 30 at least) so this is going to be aimed at all of you. Firstly, while it is true that the Howard government's macro-economic management has been very good (most key economic indicators are where they should be) don't automatically assume that this means you are going to see any direct benefit from it. While unemployment has come down under the Howard government (though it's starting to rise again), 42% of all new jobs created have been casual jobs (source). So while more people are employed these days, more people are also "underemployed" than ever before (75% of people in casual work want to work full-time but can't - source - and our "casualisation rate" is the second highest in the OECD). What this means for us young people is that there aren't as many good jobs out there as the unemployment figures might otherwise lead us to believe - when we walk out into the big, wide world with our university degrees, the likelihood of us having to settle for a McJob for a substantial period of time before entering full-time work is significantly higher than ever before (we're twice as likely as even the yanks - where the McJob was born - to be employed casually or part-time).
Oh and speaking of university degrees, are we really comfortable with accepting John Howard's 25% HECS increase? A nation is built on the quality of its education system and if John Howard makes it even more difficult for the average student to attain a university degree then the entire nation (not just us) suffers. Quite apart from discouraging young people from studying, the HECS increase is just going to add to the level of personal debt in a nation that's already crippled by it under the current government (source).
Oh and should we have the good fortune to obtain a university degree and stumble, against the odds, into a decent, full-time job, you can still forget about owning a home. House prices have risen by more than a third over the past three years, are at record levels relative to real household income, are predominantly being fueled by speculative buying (40% of all houses are being purchased to let) and are overvalued by 29% according to Goldman Sachs (source). Fucking great if you're a wealthy investment banker, but not so great if you're a young couple looking to buy a home. The problem - apart from making housing inaccessible to those who most need it - is that this isn't going to last. The Howard government should have done more to take the sting out the bubble while the opportunity was still there and now - when the property market does regulate itself back to more "normal" price equilibrium - a lot of people (rich and poor alike) are going to be stung by it.
Now I'm not an economist but as young people I think that these are the sorts of things we should be thinking about more so than the general macro-economic figures that are flying around at the moment. Put simply, I want you to look at the webpages of all the major parties (not just the ALP and the Libs) and ask "Are these guys really going to do what's best by me?" before you decide on who you vote for. I could be wrong here, but unless you're incredibly wealthy for your age, I can't see how the Liberals can possibly best represent your interests.
Oh and that's just economic policy. I haven't even touched on the Liberals' dispicable human rights record, their badly conceived foreign policies (Iraq? Marshmallows? Pre-Emptive strikes on any of the Asian countries that we've successfully alienated over the past 8 years? What the fuck?), their complete disdain for international law and treaties, their backwards approach to social issues (esp. abortion, gay rights etc.), their xenophobic immigration and refugee policies, their assault on civil liberties, their complete disinterest in environmental issues (until the election year of course  ) or their misguided love for the most dangerously incompetent and corrupt US president in living memory..... but I guess that's another topic altogether, huh?
EDIT: - For what it's worth, I don't really care about the house of reps, but please vote for the Dems in the senate. Even you Liberal voters might want to consider it - if the Dems don't get the votes, then the Greens may hold the balance of power there and I'm sure that none of you would want that.... right?
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http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/
Last edited by Renegade on Oct-05-2004 at 16:04
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