BF2S Forums Australian politics thread.

That and the banks not making stupid investments - again nothing whatever to do with the govt.

Well at least the media will stop calling for a Rudd challenge every week.

Joe Hockey just started the next round of Labor leadership speculation. Gotta love him.

Ty wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Thats hardly Gillard's personal doing though, or Labor's, or the Coalition's, thats the culmination of the last 40 years plus the growth of China.

Cybargs wrote:

Yeah I'd have to agree with dilbs over here about the economic aspect.

I agree too, my point is that there was really no reason to complain. Certainly not to the extent there was.

Every time I saw someone say something like "worst government/PM in Australian history" I wanted to get in their face and demand to know how they qualified that opinion. There is economic and social advantages in Australia that most of the world can only dream of as well as a proactive government putting through good policy to benefit everyone. And people kept saying such dumb things while the media was obsessed over idiotic matters like leadership and the PM's gender.

Politics and the media seem to be centres of misogyny.

As for the rest of it, you're arguing that things unconnected with immediate govt policy - the overall economy, the stability of the big four banks etc are an indication the govt was doing well. You might as well praise Gillard for the absence of meteorite impacts in Australia for the last 3 years - no meteorite impacts -> we shouldn't complain about the govt?

Pretty well everything the govt had an actual hand in controlling policy on, from asylum seekers to the fiscal deficit, has been an utter disaster.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Ty wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Thats hardly Gillard's personal doing though, or Labor's, or the Coalition's, thats the culmination of the last 40 years plus the growth of China.

Cybargs wrote:

Yeah I'd have to agree with dilbs over here about the economic aspect.

I agree too, my point is that there was really no reason to complain. Certainly not to the extent there was.

Every time I saw someone say something like "worst government/PM in Australian history" I wanted to get in their face and demand to know how they qualified that opinion. There is economic and social advantages in Australia that most of the world can only dream of as well as a proactive government putting through good policy to benefit everyone. And people kept saying such dumb things while the media was obsessed over idiotic matters like leadership and the PM's gender.

Politics and the media seem to be centres of misogyny.

As for the rest of it, you're arguing that things unconnected with immediate govt policy - the overall economy, the stability of the big four banks etc are an indication the govt was doing well. You might as well praise Gillard for the absence of meteorite impacts in Australia for the last 3 years - no meteorite impacts -> we shouldn't complain about the govt?

Pretty well everything the govt had an actual hand in controlling policy on, from asylum seekers to the fiscal deficit, has been an utter disaster.

That's not a fair judgement especially when you pretty much contradict yourself. You say that the Government isn't responsible for economic stability but then essentially claim they are responsible for asylum seekers - this about a week after a UN report noted that the number of displaced people in the world is the highest it has been in 20 years and that Australia's asylum seeker intake is comparatively very small.

By the way that is not a defence of Labor's asylum seeker policy, I think it's crap. The Coalition's is worse of course but that doesn't excuse Labor.

And fiscal deficit are you kidding me? Labor may have shot itself well and truly in the foot with its repeated "there will be a surplus" claims but fiscal irresponsibility is not one of their crimes. Abbott and Hockey may stamp and chant about how horrendous a $19b deficit is but all economist furrow their brows and wonder what the fuss is about. $19b is not a terrible result, in fact by many counts it is a positive, especially considering it represents a slashing of the fiscal deficit of more than 50% in one year. I'm pretty sure Howard never made up over $20b in one year.

And there is a difference between wasteful spending and investment, let's not forget that. For the record, wasteful spending = Howard. Not Rudd and not Gillard.

Anyway I've had far too much whisky to get into economics, it's not my strong suit at the best of times.

Edit: I just realized how dumb my first argumennwas. Ignore me. Sleep now.

Not according to pretty much every economist.

Spark wrote:

did lol

That looks shopped with the pixels and everything.

Yes, except the 'backstab' part.

I dont really understand how that works... basically does it show that since Rudd is PM, the polls show that Labor may win more seats? I dont know how it all determines that.

KuSTaV wrote:

I dont really understand how that works... basically does it show that since Rudd is PM, the polls show that Labor may win more seats? I dont know how it all determines that.

state-by-state breakdown. there are a ton of marginal seats in queensland that it wouldn't take that much for labor to win.

From what I recall they've got 85% of the seats but at last election it was around 49% of the primary vote.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Are these the same economists who say it doesn't matter how big your deficit it as long as someone else has a bigger one (deficit)?

No, they're the economists who look at the big picture rather than one indicator. The kind who take into account GDP, deficit/debt, investment, interest rates, and other factors which leads them to conclude that not only is a $19b deficit small comparatively, it is also fairly insignificant in terms of rating the success or failure of the Government or the state of the economy. Essentially the only thing the Government failed to do in the budget was live up to their own lofty promises - again, let it not be said that the ALP doesn't have a certain fondness for shooting itself in the foot.

Anyway moving on, I hate talking economics.