BF2S Forums Australian politics thread.

George Bush withdraw money from the U.S. Social Security Trust Fund in order to pay for the Iraq War. It was the first war we didn't have to raise taxes for at least. Free market yacht club, baby.

Ty wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Not really been paying attention, but sounds like a shitactic to me.

Why wouldn't people be enrolled though?

Might be their first election, might be a number of other reasons. The very short time to enrol would certainly cut out a number of first-time voters - who don't tend to vote Liberal strangely enough.

Adams_BJ wrote:

I personally don't mind that Liberals are in power.

I don't mind all that much either. In NSW they're doing a pretty decent job - the ones who aren't corrupt are anyway, (and corruption exists quite prominently on the other side as well.) I don't know too much about how well they're doing in Qld but I understand Newman's lot is on the nose with a lot of people and an early election suggests Newman knew his polling was on course for a heavy landing. As for Federal... well that sort of had to happen, no-one thought everybody's buddy Ruddy should have stayed in charge of the self-flagellation nation that was Labor at the end of their last term. And Tony Abbott is just too entertaining to be living out his political retirement hiding from failure in New Zealand - at the moment anyway, when he gets turfed out is another thing, (he can live in Greymouth if he wants to.)

Oh no, please take Abbott and make sure he doesn't come back. He's all yours.

Adams_BJ wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

My understanding was it wasn't a levy, it was a reduction of the rebate.

I'm sure every Doctor would swallow a $60-120/hr pay cut and not pass on the cost.

Jaekus wrote:

Adams_BJ wrote:

I don't know Jake, he hasn't really done anything unexpected yet.

True, I didn't really expect him to actually keep many of the "promises" he made.

Let me rephrase.


He's done what the people who voted for him expected to do, and they are pleased, because it reflects their views.

I bet there would be a lot less movement on the polls if there wasn't a poll every other day. We don't need a poll that often and it influences the public whether you think it does or not. On wednesday you will notice, oh shit Liberals have dropped 2 points, people more intelligent than me must have noticed something bad so I will also think less favourably. Multiply that by a couple thousand and next poll it has dropped again. Continue until death.

Theres a reason he got elected and if any people that voted for him are surprised about what he has done, they either don't pay attention to politics at all, or vote off the polls.

I for one am not surprised by anything Liberals have done.

People just vote for whoever they hate the least now. Before they bitched and moaned about Rudd/Gillard now its Abbott. I think govs should have 5 year terms like the UK now so they can actually get shit done.

Jaekus wrote:

Five years of Abbott? *shudder*

Even his own party is starting to turn on him now.

5 year max limit but elections can be called earlier.

I think abbott is just a giant troll at this point. he obviously doesn't really want the job and does everything the opposite what a politician would do to be re-elected.

Ty wrote:

"Maybe you shouldn't Tony."

Its got the Republican debate going again though hasn't it? Maybe that was her intention.

Has there ever been as much of a colossal political failure as Campbell Newman?

He gets parachuted into the leadership position for kind of no reason ahead of the 2012 poll. His party were always going to win in 2012 and win well. And yet despite winning 75 of 89 seats and reducing his opposition to just 7 MPs we're now seeing a situation where Labor is on the verge of securing the unthinkable 36-seat swing. At time of writing the LNP has 33 seats down from 89, (well 87 after losing two by-elections during their term,) and Labor is at 44 seats, (up from 7/9,) one off the 45 seats needed to form government. And the cherry on top of course is that Newman lost his own seat.

You can always rely on Qld to do something fucking hilarious.

Got to wonder how long Abbott has left. This has been another awful start to the year, worse the the various rorting issues that came up at the start of 2014, (remember those?) The complete confusion over the Medicare rebate plus the arse-brained Captain's Call to knight Phil the Greek combined with general underwhelming performance even to his supporters and now his MPs are witnessing clear evidence of how secure their jobs really are. I know there are all those claims that state polls don't have anything to do with federal politics but they do, and with Abbott in charge federally the LNP has lost two first-term Governments, (assuming the LNP doesn't have an amazing finish ahead of it in Qld.) The illusion that first term governments are safe has been well and truely shattered. I'll bet Abbott is hoping he can hold out until the NSW election - which the LNP will most likely win - to get some sense of security back. In the meantime the media is pleased to be able to report on leadership speculation again.

Galaxy poll commissioned for News Corp (ie. Murdoch) has Labor ahead of the LNP 57% to 43% on a two party preferred basis. That kind of gap would annihilate the current federal government.

No-one does. Thing with Bulb Snooten is that he's adequately performing as "the other guy" by putting his head down and limiting his AC/DC puns as much as possible. Which isn't a great statement about the Australian political class and pretty much shows that Tony Abbott would lose to a wet paper bag at the moment.

I'd like to see Build Sorter actually develop himself as a leader, to become someone people actually want to vote for instead of one they're resigned to vote for. Otherwise there's just going to get in an endless loop of sub-par uninspiring leaders. Personally the prospect of Blip Scooter as PM just makes my shoulders slump - at least Abbott is entertaining. Thing is there's not a whole lot of other options. Plibersek's one but I'm not sure she's ready for it, Albo's another but I think he'd be a much better Opposition Leader than PM. Tony Burke's a possibility though he's similar to Albo in that he's a political skirmisher rather than a leader.

To be honest I thought Abbott came into power with an advantage. No-one liked him, no-one had high expectations of him, all he needed to do was perform adequately and people would have been pleasantly surprised. But he just hasn't let any opportunity to incredulously fuck up pass him by. Bill Pullman would start with a similar advantage and while I don't think he'd take such opportunities so willingly as Abbott I get the feeling he'd bumble around looking out of his depth until people felt sorry for him and put him out of his misery.



Abbott will scrap his paid parental leave scheme today. Another Captain's Call down the toilet. Funny how much he used that as an election sweetener and funny how he now sees breaking yet another pre-election promise as something that's going to help him out. We're through the looking glass people.

Maybe "I'm not the other guy" is the most Australian politicians will ever be able to offer.