Comments on: Coast to coast Labor governments

By: professor rat

professor rat — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:24:11 +0000

Its plain that the present ( Oh-solo-mio?) federale leadership has been psyched out by a feeble weak opposition. ( Kiss me Nelson? hardly! )
In order to regain the vital psychological edge may I suggest that we follow Nepal in declaring a republic?
Surely an attempt may be made now to redress the long standing Gerrymander* in this authoritarian Governor-Generalate!
Labor has all the states and territories, so if not now- when?

Crash through or crash.

* One million Green votes don’t count while one million gNat votes gain those flaming Tuckeyed in arseholes a swag of seats to sniff. This stinks.

By: Tobias

Tobias — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:05:25 +0000

What Mark said.

And seriously, the only other seemingly coordinated sequence of policies I saw from Team Howard was in IR - culminating in WorkChoices, with the earlier shifts in unfair dismissal laws, etc. The Howard era was heavy on tactics, light on strategy - exactly the kind of action-oriented approach Milne attributes to the Labor states.

I find it hard to judge the credibility of Milne’s claims about what’s happening inside the Rudd government. He frames the piece so that it reads as if he has insight into Marn’s thinking, but a careful parsing of his language suggests that it’s second-hand knowledge at best (e.g., “The message, I’m told, from Ferguson …”). What emerges more clearly than anything else is that the Poison Dwarf and Denny Penny are both clutching at any chance to widen the cracks in Labor’s cohesion. The dumb choices by Rudd in responding to the media and Admiral Nelson over the past week have helped them in their cause.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:42:29 +0000

Won’t last. Australians are pretty contrarian that way. I think that’s good. It’s not a good idea to let one bunch have too much power. If Kevvie’s got notions re federalism etc he’d better get a move on.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:13:55 +0000

hmmmm…. what about the GST?

Excitement! A new tax system… The GST might have some importance in (to some degree) simlifying indirect tax - though the numerous anomalies and exceptions are going to be providing work for the Henry committee in spades. But it certainly didn’t fulfil the purpose of sorting out Commonwealth/state relations for a range of reasons, many related to the Howard government’s short-termism and obsession with politicising everything.

It’s also interesting that it’s about the only thing anyone can think of - they had twelve years almost.

By: Debbieanne

Debbieanne — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:10:24 +0000

I had to laugh, when, on the news thay showed Brendan Nelson saying ‘ you don’t live in the real world’ in parliment. What a joke.
Do any of our journalists actually think for themselves, or they all just pundits?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:00:40 +0000

“large-scale reform was neglected at the Commonwealth level, both in terms of action and supplying funds to the states.”

hmmmm…. what about the GST? Only the largest change in Fed/State funding sinxe Federation?

By: Tobias

Tobias — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:46:25 +0000

The Dwarf deftly sidesteps any parallels one might observe between the state governments’ action-oriented performance and the Howard government’s approach over a similar period. Apart from Howard’s fixation on industrial relations, large-scale reform was neglected at the Commonwealth level, both in terms of action and supplying funds to the states.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:29:28 +0000

Good point, Rob.

In Qld, the fear of borrowing has only recently dissipated - despite the fact that nothing similar to SA and Vic in the late 80s and early 90s happened under Goss.

By: Robert Merkel

Robert Merkel — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:26:41 +0000

As far as the underinvestment in infrastructure by the Labor states, I wonder how much of the blame for that lies in the ghosts of governments like Cain/Kirner, and the “debt truck” lines of the early 1990s.

Here in Victoria, the late 1980s and early 1990s were associated with some high-profile financial collapses, some directly associated with the government, some not. At the same time, the state budget was running deficits to finance recurrent spending. Henceforth followed Jeff Kennett…

The lesson for state Labor governments of the 1990s seemed to be “debt is always bad” without any consideration of what the debt was taken on for. The consequence was, of course, what we now regard as a gross underinvestment in infrastructure.

By: John Ryan

John Ryan — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:55:14 +0000

I,m buggered if I know what all the fuss is about I live in Perth and have a friend who is a courier driver and checks fuel watch everyday,Nelson is as usual talking out his Bum followed by the usual liberal party hangers on Bolt, Blair, Milne, Shamahan and the rest of Murdocks bum boys