BF2S Forums Australian politics thread.

KuSTaV wrote:

Ty wrote:

Also, can someone shut Joe Hockey up? Please? Actually shut Abbott up while your at it, their constant bitching, moaning and overreacting is starting to really piss me off.

Its the opposition's job to complain.

It's the Opposition's job to scrutinise and one can scrutinise without just complaining all the time. I'll be interested to hear what Abbott has to say in his budget reply speech tonight, if it's more of his rhetoric on his two favourite issues and pulling out more melodramatic words then he would have proven my point that he has absolutely nothing to offer. If so he's got a serious problem in proving that he is a viable alternative Prime Minister.

Ditto, an Opposition shouldn't be advocating for national political instability no matter how close the numbers are. Not to mention that the Coalition keep criticising the Labor Government for being wasteful with money when a Federal Election is a significantly expensive and hugely wasteful process.

I know Abbott's strategy is to keep trying to deny the Government's policies so come election time he can showcase the Government as being ineffective but doing this and offering absolutely nothing else is detrimental to Australia.

And Joe "I can return the budget to surplus this financial year" Hockey is no better. It's all very well to says that "A Labor Government will never return the budget to surplus" and "I could do it this financial year" - how, Joe, how exactly? You can't just claim something and then come up with nothing when you're asked to explain yourself.

Reading through Abbott's speech at the moment. Can't say I'm surprised with anything he's said but he has hardly responded to the budget. He hasn't offered any ideas just talked about the successes the Howard Government had - neglecting to mention with his "friends of Australian families" image that the Howard Government had the higest tax rate in Australian history. It's all just re-hasing all the stuff he's said before with few actual plans -  he actually basically admitted that he has no actual plans and would address them when they're brought up in the house. He makes some good points, particularly regarding the budget's impact or lack thereof on small business but others he is just spined criticisms like the $580m cut for psycholoists visit - which experts have said was ineffectively spent money anyway. You can't say the Government wastes money and criticise them when they rectify this.

Okay in summary it's not a bad speech. A lot of the points Abbott touched on were valid but so much of the speech was all the old complaints which obscured these good points - and there are some good ideas and policies. I mean Abbott doesn't have a hard job in criticising the Gillard Government, they have made so many junior fuck-ups. But again, he hasn't really offered all that many alternatives short of calling for an election which as I previously said isn't a good idea. He didn't say how the Coalition would return the budget to surplus and just said that the Howard Government was good on this - yeah Tony, Howard also imposed a fuck-load of taxes but I know you don't want to make that your solution judging by your efforts to stop both the mining and carbon taxes.

Again calling for an election... why would Australians want another Federal Election less than a year after the last one, especially considering what a bloody tedious nightmare that was, (Rob Oakeshott still owes me 17 minutes of my life back not to mention the days it took for the Independents to decide what they wanted to do.) Abbott needs to concentrate on doing his job in the Opposition right. If he does this there's no reason he can't completely and utterly cash in at the next election. But he's over-eager, he's so close to forming Government he can taste it and at this stage all his energies are focussed on getting this instead of formulating what he'll actually do once he's there.

Good points there, like seriously good.

I heard someone say a while ago that Abbott is the Latham of the Liberal party. What do you guys think of this comment?

I reckon you're right, like I said it's not hard to criticise the Gillard Government. I'm just concerned that as he isn't articulating policy if he gets to form Government too soon  it'll just be that same mess it is with Julia backflipping over a number of poorly-thought-out policies like the introduction of a carbon tax and pacific island processing centres for asylum seekers.

I've got to say from a more macroscopic, strategic POV politics is pretty interesting right now. What is now is basically a staring contest/game of chicken writ large.

Last edited by Spark (2011-05-15 23:42:45)

Carbon Tax and the push for an early poll. Abbott is banking that his constant attacks will force the government coalition to buckle under the pressure. The govt is relying on holding on to the next election by which time Abbott will probably have run out of steam (ie voters will get bored).

I can't think of a single thing Abbott stands for.

No, his policies amount to "what the Howard Government did".

For some reason I got a mental image of Darth Vader bowing before the Emperor after reading your post.

But yeah, he does know what they were, Abbott was a part of the Howard Government.

Apparently the libs have declared Turnbull will never be in charge because he supported the carbon tax.

I now have no party to vote for.

Haha I'm not sure what Turnbull is doing... maybe he's gotten bored. Gun that he's going it though.

Jaekus wrote:

Some of what I thought were interesting points made about Abbott and why he is unlikely to become PM from Barrie Cassidy. I know, it's an opinion piece, but the point of Howard and Rudd both becoming PM by exhibiting similar qualities is bang on I reckon - http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 … 216341.htm

Like you said, bang on. Pretty much exactly my thoughts on Abbott and Hockey - and to a certain extent Turnbull too. I'd like to see Turnbull back as Opposition Leader.