In a post at The ABC’s Drumroll, and in comments on the link thread here, I’ve been critical of the fact that a concentration on the horse race, on internal ALP dramas, and Julia Gillard’s political persona has all allowed the policy positions of the Coalition and Tony Abbott to “fly under the radar”.
So, by request, here’s an open thread where we can discuss what the Coalition would be like in government, report on any notable inconsistencies in their policy framework (and there are lots), scrutinise and analyse both their policy announcements and campaign strategy.
Links are encouraged.
Fanfare, blaring of horns, rousing music please.
Now a drum roll rising to crescendo.
Thank you.
“Ladeez and gents, I gives to you our Shadow Treasurer, the man wot could be the Treasurer for real next month, theorertically at least in charge of our beloved Oz economy….here he is …… it’s ….Joey!!!”
http://today.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7934644
Please read.
Channel 2 news, for a contrast.
Gillard announces further work on disability policy, while Abbott and Brandis waffle about suburban “gangs”; true dog whistling of the lowest sort.
Then, on 730 Report, a savaging for both parties on their election handling of, “the great moral challenge of our times”.
“The horses” should be frightened! What are the Liberals hiding?
The Australian, 10 June 2010:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/time-for-tony-abbott-to-stand-small/story-e6frg6z6-1225877645540
First and foremost it would be time for accountability and freedom of choice in this great land of ours.
First thing to fix would be a reform of the electoral system. The two great democracies are working under a voluntary voting system so that’s what we should move to.
He might also look at tightening up identity laws on new and re-enenrollments.
Also raise the voting age to 21 and take felons, the mentally unwell and other undesirables off the roll. They’d only waste their vote anyway…
Kelly Higgins-Devine on Drive here has been assembling some panels on the forgotten people, those who are sailing under the radar in this election. Today it was indigenous affairs.
One young woman said she was quite happy to be forgotten by Tones given what he was dishing out to other groups on the margin.
I think it’s safe to say that the election of an Abbott Government would be a generation disaster for the ALP.
Imagine, for a moment, that (heaven forbid) Tony Abbott is successful on election day. He will be Australia’s Prime Minister until 2013. What does the political scene look like in 2013?
First, the Rudd-Gillard Labor Government looks like an aberration; a single term of progressive Government in a country which has elected conservative Governments from the Howard-Abbott camp of the Liberal Party at every election since 1996. We will live in a country where, in the past 17 years, only three were with a Federal Labor Government at the helm.
By 2013, it will be safe to say that the ALP dominance of State level politics will have been broken. At this point, it’s hard to imagine the ALP being reelected in NSW, and the Bligh-led Labor Government is significantly behind as well. Were both to fall before 2013, with the Libs retaining WA, we’ll have a situation where (outside the Territories) only SA, Tasmania, and Victoria (assuming Brumby wins) will have State Labor Governments.
Obviously, this has implications for areas like fundraising, which would be compounded by the ALP losing the Federal election.
At the Federal level, I can imagine the infighting were the Rudd-Gillard Government to fall would be enormous. There will be many who will argue the line that “We would have won with Rudd” and use it – perhaps openly – to attack people like Mark Arbib. There will undoubtedly be a small publishing industry built about asking what would have happened had Rudd called a double dissolution or not dropped the ETS. And heaven help the leaker!
Meanwhile, Tony Abbott mad the Murdoch press has the benefit of incumbency to push some of the myths about Labor that he’s been peddling during the election campaign. The GFC is completely pushed down the memory hole, and Labor is presented as being incompetent with money (“They always run debt and deficits!”) and a party with unstable (“and untrustworthy!”) leadership. I’m sure there would also be some creative rewriting of history on the RSPT.
And the truth is that – whoever wins this election – will gain a huge electoral benefit over the next term with the budget going back into surplus. Where the Gillard Government would use it to say “I told you so” to the Joe Hockey’s of the world, the story is very different if Abbott is elected. The narrative becomes that the Lib’s policy of beating up further on the unemployed and the privatisation of Medibank while underinvesting in infrastructure (including broadband) was what got the budget back into surplus. This further feeds into the “Labor can’t be trusted with money” meme.
And for these reasons, barring something utterly catastrophic happening over the next term, the Abbott Government would go into the 2013 election with a huge advantage. By “utterly catastrophic,” I mean something like a slowing of Chinese growth, the bursting of the property market bubble, a major Government scandal, a double dip recession, etc. On the flipside, barring something catastrophic, for the reasons above, it’s difficult to imagine Labor losing 2010 and then going on to win in 2013.
And that is what is at stake at this election. And that’s without even looking at all the radical right-wing policies that an Abbott Liberal Government would impose on us. With that sort of threat over our heads, still think that this election is “Boring” or “About nothing?”
The prospect of the vacuous Joe Hockey holding senior position in any government is almost enough reason alone to vote for anyone else.
Joe, while apparently a decent bloke (so says the great George Mega anyway) plays Opposition Minister like an extended game of good cop/bad cop with a range of pre-fabricated expressions and vocal tones of concern/outrage/other similies of true human emotion.
If Jacob Saulwick of the SMH is any guide then the press corps may be on the verge of open mockery of the Shrekster.
Tigtog(?) has already noted his ‘weird grin’ and ‘now traditional nodding’ while in company with Abbott.
The solace, if the Libs should win, is that the bulk of JH’s thinking will be done for him by others so the country need not unduly suffer.
AmishThrasher,
I like your description of the chaos that would befall the ALP if they lost. It sounds great. Australian politics will not improve until the ALP self destructs. It is already a shell of a party which represents little. I have never voted Liberal but Abbott is not the threat you speak of. He is not a typical Liberal. He is more DLP. My understanding is that he is less pro business than your typical Liberal and has a philosophy outside strict economics and capitalism.
Gillard on the other hand is a right winger who stands for nothing except election. A Gillard victory will do exactly the same as an Abbott victory. The only difference will be is that the unions will not fight. Gillard is ruthless with unions. She supports scab labour and stated in the debate that her strength was staring down a teacher strike.
I am not defending Abbott though I do believe the left simply misunderstands his world view. I simply believe Gillard and Abbott are the same. The ALP and Libs are one party – two factions. Anyone who can seriously advocate a vote for Labor because they are better than the Libs and keep a straight face is living in fantasy land.
@5
Voluntary voting reduces the voter turnout to those who benefit in the gretest degree from the economic system i.e. in desending order the boss class, its compradors and the associated fringe feeders such as the middle class.
The rest, the mrginalised, recognizing they have no real importance to the economy except as cannon fodder and cheap labour simply stop voting, since they recognise that the political structures, created by and serving the powersful, consider their interests irrelevant.
Compulsory voting forces Capital to accommodate the interests of the marginalised to a small degree as it is assured that they will at least turn up once every two or three years and have their small say in outcomes.
And calling the USA a ‘great democracy’ and suggesting we should emulate it because of its perceived superiority, shows a rather uncritical acceptance of the myths peddled by…the USA…and as repeated by the worshippers of great power.
And reading back over my post above, I meant to type:
“Meanwhile, [by 2013] Tony Abbott and the Murdoch press has the benefit of incumbency to push some of the myths about Labor that he’s been peddling during the election campaign.”
…rather than:
“Meanwhile, Tony Abbott mad the Murdoch press has the benefit of incumbency to push some of the myths about Labor that he’s been peddling during the election campaign.”
Interesting ‘freudian slip’ there…
Baraholka,
So instead we make voting compulsory so all those people who know that the political system is not interested in them are forced to choose between tweedledum and tweedledee and in the process the whole system is given legitimacy. The ALP has used and betrayed working class electorates for years. They have not taken account of the economic hole in underclass areas. I work in a school in a very safe Labor seat. The school is falling apart, literally. We have second generation welfare dependency. Has the ALP addressed these issues. No way. But they still get a huge majority of votes from these people who are forced to vote. I say let the system be exposed and lets see just how deep the disgust and disillusionment is.
Compulsory voting is state co-ercion to make the disillusioned endorse what works against them.
“UP to 760,000 after-hours consultations with doctors and nurses will be axed under Tony Abbott’s plan to abolish a $417 million after-hours GP service, according to Government estimates.”
I pinched this from a link given by jane in a thread below.
Seems to be fairly drastic surgery by Abbott.
@9: The problem is that were Abbott to be elected, Howard-Abbott camp conservativism comes to be seen as the ‘norm.’ I’d go so far as to say that some in the Murdoch press would use it to vindicate Peter Costello’s call for a leadership change, and the ‘abberation’ of Rudd’s election is presented through the prism of people wanting the same policies with a new leader at the helm.
And by the time Abbott is through, the Rudd – Gillard years will end up looking (at least to progressives) like an oasis where incredible things (like investment in public schools, a female PM, a counter-cycle stimulus package, or not having to fight tooth and nail to defend women’s reproductive rights or existing workers rights) happened.
Meanwhile, as the ALP tears itself apart (as it would almost inevitably do were Gillard to lose), the problem is that there is no other progressive political force on the horizon in a position to form Government in its own right.
And it’s not too difficult to imagine under Abbott a whole host of issues – first amongst them climate change – completely falling off the political agenda.
An Abbott government will scrap all its new welfare policies “because the money isn’t there”. If they didn’t the 50 billion of unfunded expenditure they’ve promised during their first term would have to be funded by the paye tax payer and enormous cuts to welfare, to say nothing of the scrapping of fibre to the home etc. The crime rate [they know this and therefor the weight on gangs knives crime etc] would explode as a US style jail system for a large percentage of youth, mainly male, is used as slave labour to work in inhospitable areas. Thankfully I’m in my 70′s so I may miss out on jail but as a pensioner I can look forward to the poorhouse as my, at present, rent of 50% of income is blown out to 70 or 80%…ahhh!!
You’re all assuming that there isn’t a double dip recession. On their current policies, they would take the economy down the toilet, see unemployment up around 10% and get smashed in 2013 as they lost control of everything.
They would be utterly discredited.
Australia’s emissions might actually fall as the economy tanked.
The Greens would probably do well in such circumstances.
Abbott repeatedly made the assertion, in regard to WorkChoices, during the so-called debate, that he “respects” the will of the electorate. Winning government would obviously mean that the will of the electorate was for him to do whatever the hell he pleased, whether reintroducing Howard’s legacy or bringing in his own, not least being in regard to women and reproductive rights. He is a punitive, bullying creep, and will ever act accordingly.
@Spana
“…Abbott is not the threat you speak of.”
He is if you’re a woman who wants to be able to control her own body.
“A Gillard victory will do exactly the same as an Abbott victory.”
Unless you’re a woman who wants to be able to control her own body.
I simply believe Gillard and Abbott are the same.
Unless you’re a woman who wants to be able to control her own body. And doesn’t think women should keep their legs crossed til they’re married, and doesn’t think women should be doing the ironing and raising the babies.
“Anyone who can seriously advocate a vote for Labor because they are better than the Libs and keep a straight face is living in fantasy land.”
So being a woman’s living in fantasy land now, is it?
Even just on the one issue of women’s reproductive rights Gillard and Abbott have starkly different positions that would no doubt be translated into policy by an Abbott government (and I am not suggesting this is the only policy difference, just a damn stark one from where I’m sitting).
I seem to recall him as health minister in the Howard government stopping Australian women from being able to access RU486, and saying we’d have access to it “over his dead body”. Because if we’re going to have abortions, we should be punished dammit, by making the experience as painful and humiliating as possible.
Shorter Fran: things must get worse to get better. Please, spare me your Trotskist fantasies and spare a thought for the millions of people who will be thrown on the great pyre of economic disaster that would be a ‘double-dip’ recession.
Spana at his or her usual self. Parties just the same blah blah blah. When did remember hearing that? Oh yeah, 1996, and how did that turn out again?!
If Abbott’s in charge it will be worse than Howard. They can’t or won’t manage the economy except to enrich their fat mates in mining boardrooms. The rest of us will just go to hell.
One issue I know that is worrying the financial services industry over the prospect of an Abbott government is the fate of the Ripoll/Cooper recommendations on reforming superannuation and ridding the “advice” industry of commission-based conflicts.
For one thing, the Rudd/Gillard government’s promise to lift the compulsory superannuation guarantee levy from 9 to 12 per cent would not go ahead under Abbott. They claim it is an unnecessary impost on small business, which is a nonsense as it does not start applying until 2012 and will be phased in over nine years.
Their spokesman Luke Hartsuyker also today cast doubt on Labor’s intention, as recommended by Cooper, to allowed consumers to “opt in” to their advice arrangements each year so they are not fee gouged. They also dispute the Cooper recommendation that commissions on insurance be banned.
It was Howard who first introduced the dubious superannuation “choice” regime, which purported to be an advance for consumers but was really yet another way for the white shoe brigade to find new ways of pulling the wool over people’s eyes. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that thehy are now cosying up to the salesmen who masquerade as “advisers” against the virtues of reform.
AmishThrasher is just about right. If Abbott wins it’s Tory government for the next 20 years.
I wont be surprised to see:
1. The Pacific Solution immediately re-introduced with TPVs, and lower number of humanitarian + family reunion numbers
2. Compulsory income management extended nationwide to all
3. Scrapping of the NBN and anything approaching a cohesive telecommunications policy and plan.
4. To meet its promise of a budget surplus, infrastructure programs will be severely curtailed, with a likely return to the incompetence and corruption of Howard’s regional programs – small scale and usually pointless. If this also includes stopping the rest of Economic Stimulus spending from proceeding, we’re likely to see a severe shrinking in building and construction sector – latest construction figues for res. homes are absolutely woeful.
5. Development of local hospital and health board structures and plans, resulting in a very happy AMA and very unhappy Nurses Fed. And ultimately unhappy us.
6. Review of 2008-09 changes to the Marriage Act, which gave non-biological parents equal status
7. Another three years without the problem of our two speed economy being even vaguely recognised, let alone addressed.
8. I can’t bring myself to try and imagine an Abbott led Coalition’s response to climate change; other imagining Minchin as Minister for Climate and Clouds.
There will be lots of crackdowns:
Abbott thretens to crackdown on gangs
Abbott plans crackdown on alcohol abuse in Aboriginal Communities
$11bn Welfare crackdown inc. compulsorywork for the dole and tighter laws on disability pensions
Crackdown on Foreign Students intake – Tony Abbott’s announcement that …he..would crack down on ‘dubious educational and family-reunion applicants’
A tough crackdown on asylum seekers.
In spite of his fondness for crackdowns Mr. Abbott has not yet promised a crackdown on corporate fraud or tax evasion, unfair dismissals, ludicrous CEO payouts or white collar crime of any sort.
Crackdowns will instead be confined to the usual scum of the earth which suggests Australia will become some sort of paradise as imagined by a One Nation voter from Western Sydney…
.. while corporate Australia gets a general free for all in the pusuit of profit maximization unimpeded as much as possible by scare-mongering on non-existent global warming Carbon emissions increase by 13% by 2020 according to the Department Of Climate Change and as much of Work Choices as humanly possible is re-introduced.
To pick up on a comment I made elsewhere, the Labor government is also the first and only government in recent times to show genuine vision and committment to changing the situation for people with disabilities, services for whom were left to moulder under 11 years of coalition rule and I think a real disservice has been done in describing Labor’s announcements in disability as small bite policies. Supported accomodation is an area of enormous need and any improvement in this area is long overdue. We still await the outcome of the Productivity Commission review into Disability Insurance and given, as FB notes, the murmurs around double dip, it is unlikely we will see one implemented in the next term but this policy proposal represents probably the only hope for fixing a system that is irredeemably bad as it is currently constituted.
Rebekka,
Abbott does not think women should be doing the ironing and raising the babies as you say. I mean, seriously, this is just hysteria which discredits your arguments. Abbott’s wife works in childcare. I imagine his daughters work too. Cmon, disagree with me but lift the standard of debate.
Secondly, you raised it so I will respond. Women do have a right to control their own body as do men. You may not be surprised but I oppose abortion. The time to control one’s body is when one chooses to have sex. Basically, if you can’t deal with the consequences don’t do it. People have a choice. Ending the life of an unborn because people made bad decisions is not a good option. There is what is called a consistent ethic of life which opposes abortion, war, capital punishment, the arms trade, torture etc. It is about respecting life and human rights. It is not about attacking women but rather seeing how abortion culture often abandons them and pressures them into abortion and working to assist them rather than allowing male structures to dictate they should abort. There is nothing progressive about this. Many feminists oppose abortion. Check out Feminists for Life. http://www.feministsforlife.org/
That aside Abbott will not have much power or jurisdiction to influence abortion law as it is largeley a state issue.
@su, yes, and it did include a national strategy.
I should also say that the Labor “instability” which the Coalition is currently making so much of and which financial markets are ignoring would pale into insignificance should the conservatives take the Treasury benches and start sacking senior public service advisers.
It seems pretty clear that Ken Henry’s days would be numbered, given the venomous reception he received over the mining tax.
And one would not be surprised if highly respected RBA chief Glenn Stevens would also feel the Coalition’s knife given he scoffed at their ridiculous scare-mongering over Australia’s public debt position, attracting the ire of that economic giant Joe Hockey.
I can assure readers here that should the wreckers in the Coalition (who are mysteriously given the benefit of the doubt on economic policy despite the inferior policy record these past 25 years to Labor) start kicking RBA and Treasury heads in government, they will soon find international markets paying attention to Australia again, but not in a good way.
Tyro Rex,
Wasn’t it Gillard who just sold out to the mining industry as a way to stop their ads in the lead up to an election? Wasn’t it Gillard who met with huge miners and backed down and gave them more profits?
@17 I explicitly left out a double dip in my analysis (see post 7).
But what would happen i there were a double dip with the Abbott and the Tories in charge?
Well, if there were any stimulus at all, it would come in the form of George W. Bush style stimulus tax cuts to the rich and deregulation for business. There certainly won’t be any rail tunnels or school halls built, that’s for sure!
Aside from that, the “economic crisis” is used to justify all manner of neoliberal economic and IR reforms. Perhaps school vouchers or flat income tax? A lower (or even no) minimum wage? All necessitated by the economy, dontchya know!
Finally, the resulting Government deficit is used to justify cutting social services. Need to be fiscally responsible, dontchya know!
And any criticism gets shouted down in the Murdoch press as economic illiteracy or socialism.
In short, for the overwhelming majority of us it’s a disaster, but there’s a wealthy few who make out like bandits.
Spana @ 9
I wish I could disagree more with the points you’ve stated here. But I do believe Labor are mpre competent at implementing Liberal policies than the Liberals, at least back when they had some self confidence. Their financial management appears better and Julia has pulled back Howard’s overreach on workchoices. But I find it hard to see any real philosophical difference. Both are centre right, Abbot with a greater religious flavour. Both exist primarily to win government with the common wealth a much lesser priority.
And in both cases they prefer to tell scare stories about the other to telling us what they will do. The only reason to vote Liberal is (as always) to stop teh evil Labor commies and the only reason to vote Labor is to keep out the mad monk.
@Spana “Rebekka,
Abbott does not think women should be doing the ironing and raising the babies as you say.”
Tony Abbott said: “What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on, are going to go up.” Because clearly, men don’t do the ironing.
Tony Abbott said paid parental leave “is fundamentally designed to allow women time to bond with their newborns.” Which is no doubt why he’s only going to pay men their partner’s wage if they take it, instead of their own wage. That would be because it’s women’s work, so it gets paid at women’s wages.
“I mean, seriously, this is just hysteria which discredits your arguments.”
Oh that’s original – a man calling a woman who disagrees with him hysterical. Watch the gendered adjectives fly.
And I don’t give a crap what your views on abortion are – you’re never going to be in a position where you have to decide whether to continue with a pregnancy or not, so as far as I’m concerned you can stfu about it.
“That aside Abbott will not have much power or jurisdiction to influence abortion law as it is largeley a state issue.”
Last time Abbott was part of a government, he restricted women’s access to RU486. He can also do a lot to Medicare funding, which the former government Abbott was a part of tried to do too.
OK. Let’s look to the media side of things.
Fortunately Rudd did something admirable in not stacking the ABC board. And look what happened. Tones won’t make that mistake. The ABC will be replenished with new board members. And who better than John Howard? It would piss off the left and push the cultural aims of the Tories. Double score!
Sell SBS stat.
Close down the 24 hour news channel. Fox.Murdoch already has a privatised solution and thus the ABC is a needless duplication of effort wasting public money plus unfair competition for the ailing media sector.
Long term…sell the ABC. Short term reform it. Get adverts in there to help fund it. Replace Kerry on the 7.30 report. (Time for Uhlman to step up?) Shut down Media Watch unless you can get someone like Bolt, Ackerman or Henderson to run i9t for it’s final season.
Oh and definately bring in a ‘family friendly’ net censorship program. Accuse anyone against it as being for kiddy fiddlers. Worked for the ALP it will work for the Coalition.
Again, Mr Denmore to the rescue, with his example,a cameo of precisly the pathologies that provide such a such a dark underbelly to Australian scoiety and culture, evidenced in the calculating attention to detail that Howard’s superannuation scheme demonstrates, along with, say, education and health. How have people forgotten so quickly the wedges of Howardism, and the intentions and motives behind them?
#Also, an astute post from tssk of the same type as Mr Denmore’s, as to media. Doesn’t bode well for the future, whoever gets hold of it to further damage it.
Spana…this thread is about Abbott.
Oh hang on…you’re kicking the ALP. Carry on good man. You could say that will be an Abbott policy!
An Abbott government would be so obsessed with ‘cutting the debt’ and ‘ending the waste’ that they would slash infrastructure spending, causing a spike in unemployment as well as ripping funding out of the health system and starving education of any kind of funding. As services decline and unemployment rises, all of this will be blamed on the ‘fiscal recklessness’ of Labor.
Huge swathes of public money would be invested in useless middle-class welfare while those on unemployment benefits will be told to ‘get a job’ as their meagre benefits are cut back. All the while there would be tax cuts for the wealthy and big business with no concurrent transfer of wealth to the working poor.
Rebekka you’re right, there is reason to fear the mad monk. And Su the disability policy looks like a good step forward. Sorry for feeding Spana, mea culpa.
Tyro I think Fran was just saying that the coalition won’t stay in because they’ll cock up the economy, I don’t think she was implying that it will be good for all the workers to learn a lesson or anything similarly trotskyist.
I may have mentioned in a previous thread that I think Spana is a useful idiot for the christian right. I rest my case.
One benefit of an Abbot govt for you lot is that my partner and I will be less likely to return to Oz. This is a mixed blessing, I suppose, because my partner’s pretty cool. But you at least don’t get to suffer my presence.
On the upside the upturn in misery for the poor would make the churches a hell of a lot more relevant. Especially as public welfare and charity dries up many will discover the good works of the church.
If you really wanted to go out on a limb I’d say Abbott could call for the dismantling of unions and have them replaced with ‘guilds’ headed up with business representatives and executives to help skill up the nation in needed skills.
OK let’s get stuck into policies.
I would say that there would be a very public axing of any policy created or planned by Kevin Rudd, Jullia Gillard, Penny Wong and Peter Garrett.
Anything in progress would be stopped, reversed and dismantled after declaring it a waste of money.
Expect an inquiry into the deaths of roofers during the insulation stuff up. If handled correctly you could possibly lay charges against the ALP. If not…you could damage them for a long long time.
tssk, re unions.
Isn’t that what the ALP basically does to unions? They use them, have many of their leaders push pro ALP lines, sell out workers by co-opting any real power unions could have and then handing the union leaders a seat in parliament. The ALP is an anti union party. As I have said Gillard has publically advocated scab labour to bust strikes. Any unionist should be outrafed at this.
Scab labour! And people in here quietly pretend Gillard did not do this. Where is the outrage? Where is the scrutiny from the left? Gone. Many of you have been disempowered bu fear of Abbott whils Gillard quietly persues his agenda.
The reason Gillard is worse than Abbott is that unions will have the courage to fight under Abbott. Under Gillard they will go silent. Gillard will disempower unions to ram through her right wing agenda, just as she has done with education unions.
Unions were almost killed off under Howard Spana. Never fear, Abbott WILL finish the job properly.
Equal pay for men and women.
This is something the Coalition can deliver.
Under equal pay workplace reforms the mass of working men will find their pay adjusted down to the pay rate of women.
Problem solved.
tssk,
The unions fought back under Howard. They were ultimately responsible for his downfall. Now under Gillard despite Howard lite Workchoices, despite scab labour, despite ALP governments in NSW and QLD taking unions to court to ban strikes, despite unionists facing fines and jail, despite teachers facing 4000 dollar fines for workbans, the unions are silent.
As Bligh attacks public servants for demanding decent pay rises and Gillard attempts to bust union workbans by using backpackers, the unions fall in behind a deceitful ALP campaign.
The real victory in this campaign is to capitalist ideology. Unions should be outraged and be in the streets demanding Gillard’s resignation. The ALp should be thrown out for its anti worker policies but all we get is a scare campaign about Abbott who will do what Gillard will do. Unions need to abandon Labor.
What would an Abbott government be like for me?
Most of my income is derived from ESL teaching. An Abbott government would be absolutely disastrous for my industry, as the man wants to cut down on the visas for the students I teach. This sector is already unsteady from the GFC and the increasing value of the Australian dollar. I’d be out of a job, or back to teaching one day a week if I’m lucky.
So I may be forced back on getting most of my money from Centrelink. Do I want this? No, no – a thousand times no – especially under Abbott. Jenny Macklin wants to extend the income quarantine from the NT to certain (poorer) postcodes. I don’t know for certain, but the Libs would probably extend quarantine to the whole of Australia.
No matter that it adds extra humiliation to jobseekers, and extra bureaucracy to DEEWR. The Libs [*] have the certainty born of pre-calculated and deliberate ignorance that it’s the right thing to do. Personally, I find this attitude – no matter how common – contemptible.
I doubt I can be any more clear on why I am not voting for the man or his party. But wait – there’s more! Enter Fran Barlow@17:
You’re all assuming that there isn’t a double dip recession. On their current policies, they would take the economy down the toilet, see unemployment up around 10% and get smashed in 2013 as they lost control of everything.
Exactly. I find the Liberals’ obsession with public debt utterly puerile, especially when our debt’s the lowest in the OECD. But given the appalling way the US has managed its economic crisis, a double dip recession is pretty likely. We might need another stimulus. No stimulus from Abbott – he doesn’t like debt. Utter disaster results.
(Tyro Rex@19 – don’t know how you read “things must get worse to get better” into Fran’s comments. I’d rather things not get worse myself.)
During the Howard era the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and aint it a bloody shame.
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/5F4BB49C975C64C9CA256D6B00827ADB
Table S1
Income share of 5 quintiles 1994-5 to 2007-8
1 [Poorest] share 7.9% fell to 7.6%
2.12.8 fell to 12.7
3.17.7 fell to 17.4
4.23,7 fell to 22.9
5.[Richest]37.8 rose to 39.4
In roughly the same period poverty in Australia affected slightly more than 2 million people in 2006 with a poverty rate of 11.7% ie about 1 in 9 Australians.
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2008-09/09rp27.pdf
Spana..to save the rest of this thread…we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I mucked up the numbers for the increase in share of income of the richest quintile in my comment above [or it should be above, its awaiting moderation apparently. Not link friendly?].
Any way the very richest quintile at 37.8% of income in 1995 rose [the only group to do so] to 39.4% in 2007.
All other, ie less wealthy, decreased.
[number fixed - Brian]
Why are employers so opposed to the proposed increase of Super Contribution to 12% ? Won’t this sinply be offset in the wages part of the salary package ?
Also why are the LIbs opposed ? More super means less reliance on govt. pension hence less need for a welfare state.
Baraholka, I’m not sure it’s right to say employers are opposed to the increase in compulsory super. They will manage it successfuly.
The Coalition is opposed purely for ideological reasons. The superannuation guarantee levy was a Keating invention and is the envy of much of the developed world.
Aside from that, they can’t afford the increase because they oppose the MRRT, which is funding the loss in tax receipts resulting from the tax concessions under super.
Once again, I challenge the automatic assumption that the Coalition are the better economic managers. They introduced a GST, to be sure, something Keating had wanted to do in 1985 and deserve credit for that. Costello formally recognised the independence of the RBA and he did some heavy lifting on fiscal consolidation in his first two budgets.
But apart from that, the Coalition spent most of its 11 years in office in a cosy armchair, as Keating puts it, feasting on the revenue windfall of the commodities boom and belching it out again in middle class welfare and boosting the entitlements of self-funded retirees.
The wonder is that Labor has run so far from its admirable legacy on economic reform. If I were advising them, I would talking up their role as the party best able to represent Australia in a rapidly changing world – dealing with the rise of China and India, increasing investment in education, rebuilding our infrastructure, reforming our tax system (a la the Henry review), rebalancing our economy away from a lazy reliance on non-renewable resources and making concrete steps toward putting a price on carbon.
Much of this was Rudd’s vision, of course, but he did not have the management smarts to get the job on the road. Now Gillard is fighting a rearguard action against a resurgent and dangerously reactionary opposition under Abbott that has no discernible program at all apart from pushing the most base populist buttons.
Spana sometimes seems like a fish out of water discussing gender, but his comments re IR have much validity. Australia is fin de siecle, like classical Athens it’s more creative era seems at an end.
The left, icluding myself, yearned for a “Spartacus” style final confrontation that would see off the parasite classes, as you do. But I think that time has passed; the global economy was developed to outflank Keynesian and Social Democrat attempts to tame capital and succeeded marvellously.
Australia is now a suburb, not a nation.
The real working classes, disguised by race and unfamiliarity, live forgotten out of sight and mind, in places like Djakarta and Manila and are no more comprehensible to we on the right side of the tracks, than the Irish say, or the English proletariat, were comprehensible to prosperous mid Victorians in the nineteenth century..
If AmishThrasher’s predicted dystopia comes to pass, we’ll look back on the Rudd-Gillard years in much the same way as many of us older folk do on Whitlam’s time – a brief, shining, golden age.
Despite its obvious problems.
Spana @ 29, under Abbott there will be no mining tax. that’s what caving in to the miners really looks like. That’s $10.5 billion less revenue to be spent in the public interest.
Not much has been said about the NBN which Abbott’s mob rubbish as a waste on money.
See Paul Budde for a different view.
He reckons that by 2014 they still won’t be back to where they were in 2006. Meanwhile the NBN is internationally recognized and features are being adopted all over the place.
Good one, Tony!
“The wonder is that Labor has run so far from its admirable legacy on economic reform. If I were advising them, I would talking up their role as the party best able to represent Australia in a rapidly changing world – dealing with the rise of China and India, increasing investment in education, rebuilding our infrastructure, reforming our tax system (a la the Henry review), rebalancing our economy away from a lazy reliance on non-renewable resources and making concrete steps toward putting a price on carbon.”
Actually, that was entirely Rudd’s vision. But both tax reform and carbon pricing were botched (the government should actually have linked them – for example, instead of industry assistance under the ETS the government could have promised large reductions to the corporate tax rate), and most voters don’t see education as an economic issue. I’d also argue that Rudd did himself a disservice by promising an education revolution, when any idiot can see that the changes they have proposed aren’t revolutionary. Also, the government never really thought about how it could fund a big increase in public infrastructure and thus an improvement in the livability and sustainability of Australia’s big cities. It either had to make the case for a long programme of debt financed investment or prepare the ground for an increase in the GST.
It isn’t enough to have a vision. You actually need the policies to back it up. It is called governing.
You guys will be happy as pigs in poo – able to bang on about how bad things are.
I can only hope.
DI(NR) I remember being at a dinner party a few years ago where there were two friends with a common interest in guns, as it turned out, but diametrically opposed political views.
One was saying that during the Whitlam years for the first time he could feel proud of being an Australian. This was no small matter, because he had a job representing Australian interest to O/seas people.
I was with him, but his friend felt exactly the opposite.
I remember feeling proud about Australia when my sister came to visit in 1993. Not so in 2000.
Abbott’s Australia will be cringe-worthy.
I never fully appreciated Donny Dunstan in his time.
And I still reckon we could have done better in his time.
But now…
He is a golden glow on the horizon behind us, sadly very faint and getting fainter, as we walk towards the gloom.
Mr Denmore @51, I don’t think the Smuggles Set is so much resurgent as having its way smoothed by a very compliant propaganda machine.
His uncosted paper-thin policies are certainly not being subjected to even the slightest scrutiny by the media; in fact they’re hardly acknowledged.
Snuggles wants the top job, so it’s incumbent on the media to subject him to the same scrutiny as Gillard.
He also has form; why isn’t his past performance as a senior government minister under the spotlight? Surely it’s relevant to how he’d perform as PM.
And so do a number of the parliamentary Liberal Party, but you’d hardly know that from the media coverage..
hd @ 58, I can tell you Donny boy looked very, very good from Joh-land.
An Abbott govt would be appalling in all respects – worse than Howard I’d wager, as Howard wasnt really that big on Tones’ medieval reproductive control of women schtick.
Fortunately, Im from QLD and Im here to help: we arent getting an Abbott govt.
So, moving forward, Id be more interested people’s assessment of what the next Gillard govt will look like. And being fair, lets assume we cant judge from this first couple of months – even if the ‘settled matters’ like the Mining tax arent that great – what will it look like? Im buggered if I can see the agenda & vision at this point. Does anyone have an idea? Perhaps another thread.
Meanwhile, the call’s gone out to Rudd to help with the wider campaign. Things must be looking bad up North.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/save-us-alps-desperate-plea-to-kevin-rudd-20100729-10y4s.html
Nice to bump into you, Lefty E. For the best answer Ive seen, re your question, go to Bernice, 23.
Good answer yes, PW, but wrong question. I need pointers on what the Gillard government will do when she wins easily on Aug 21.
I spose I can wait for another thread more suited.
Meanwhile: Foreign Minister gig now looking VERY available for anyone from QLD who’s here to … HELLLLLP!!1!!
Ahh, l’histoire ….se repete en farce.
I’m still of the opinion there isn’t much chance of Abbott getting in. Like Richo said tonight the amount of seats the Libs need to win is too great despite being on the nose in certain seats in Queensland.
Latham said Labor should win comfortably going on their private polling and I think that’s more than likely. Because of this Abbott will have to do something drastic as he’s no hope on the current “under the radar” strategy and that is when it will all fall apart for him.
I still think Abbott will be blown out of the water when Labor start getting serious after the campaign launch. He’s toast.
Also keep in mind on the slim chance that the Libs did win they won’t be able to pass anything unless either Labor or the Greens sign off on it. Under that scenario an Abbott government wouldn’t be much different that this shitty Labor government.
How would Latham have any inkling of ALP private polling?
Sell the Murray-Darling system resources to private enterprise?
Abolish the minimum wage?
Sell the ABC, universities, whatever else he can get his hands on?
Reintroduce conscription?
An attack on Iran?
Increase the GST?
Abolish Medicare?
Tyro@20 said:
This makes no sense. We are speaking hypothetically about what would happen under Abbott-rule. I’m not advocating it. I’m commenting.
I do believe that we need to go beyond the whole binary of ALP or Coalition if progress is to occur in ths country.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch 30 minutes of Mark Latham, but I did see Graham Richardson and John Della Bosca on SKY before then, who would know the internal Labor polling. Richo reckons the election is line-ball, and Labor’s position is weakening in Western Sydney and Queensland. He thinks that Labor-left types confidently underrate Tony Abbott, as they can’t relate to a partisan conservative activist, and overrate Malcolm Turnbull, as he is more like they are (urbane, inner city, likes the arts, pro-republic etc.). He also thinks Labor are going to run into problems if they keep saying Abbott doesn’t understand women, as this invariably brings the question of families back into play, which is probably not in Labor’s interests. He also thinks the idea that Julia Gillard opposed the pension increase or paid parental lerave for political reasons rather than questioning the cost is a complete fantasy.
Abbott’s cultural policy: John Howard stuffed and exhibited, next to a government-funded flagpole, in a glass case next to Pharlap.
What are the current estimates for the spending plans RE the Opposition camapaign promises?
I think what says it all is the fact their mental health policy is costed to be more than the spending plans of both the government and the government’s erstwhile mental health expert combined. They just aren’t planning on having to deliver a 2011 federal budget.
This is not a bunch of people who expect or want to win office. Not this time. Not with their obsession of showing they’re greater supplicants at the altar of the balanced budget than Labor is. Not when they’re also running on the creepily empty and misleading rhetoric of ‘stop the taxes’. (FFS, how does one contentious tax become plural? The Liberals have greater than average contempt for the voters, even for politicians.)
If Abbott were to pull off the impossible and actually win this thing they would, after the hangover has cleared, go into panic mode about what should or shouldn’t be a ‘core’ promise… And keeping the MMRT in some version or other would be at the top of the list. There’s no way the likes of Robb would let Tone introduce the SuperAbbottCareLevy as it’s currently promised, and that particular middle class welfare plan & the 2013 corporate tax cut & the balanced budget aren’t going to pay for themselves. Cutting KRudd stimulus programmes that are already being phased out just isn’t enough to give a hypothetical Coalition government walking around money to pay for the promises they can’t declare non core.
The fact that in 2010 Mark Latham is considered by the MSM to be a consumate insider tells you all you need to know about the pool of potential leakers for both recent anti-Gillard tales.
Forget about the gang of four faction leaders, or Tanner, or Rudd, or Rudd’s personal staff—there’s probably hundreds of fuckers the gallery will accept as having the inside dirt on Team Gillard.
Don’t let any ex-staffers telling us about an ALP insider world that apparently doesn’t extend beyond Cabinet fool you.
Richo would be massaging expectations.
Unless you’re talking about a different, transparent, non-manipulative Graham Richardson.
Rebekka, I note that spana has given up the fight trying to justify Abbotts history on matters relating to women. It is a frank admission that your concerns are real, and a stark difference between the ALP and the conservatives, as you state.
I agree with you and I’m a man. Abbotts conservative ‘moral’ outlook (and I use that term loosely) is abhorrent to me. The guy has a serious problem with the way he views women.
The fact that Spana can ignore this glaring facet of Abbotts world-view, just so he can justify his own stance on the ALP, says a lot about his own ‘moral’ centre.
Might I suggest that further off-topic comments on breaking news regarding Mark Latham’s latest blurt and cabinet leaks in general go either on the most recent cabinet leaks thread or, at a pinch, on today’s Open Election Thread?
Coalition to appoint environment commissioner – not to propose environmental schemes of course (that would be just foolish talk!), but to scrutinise other people’s proposals to make sure they tick the necessary “economic rationalist” boxes.
OK. Health.
Two pringed approoach this.
The broad approach would be to ration health by moving towards a more US based privatised system of health care.
As for the promises they’re making especially in regards to mental health. Brave and admirable. However once in office they can renege on this by stating the cupboard is bare and by blaming the financial ineptitude of the ALP. (In fact that strategy can be used for any broken election promise. It’s working a treat for the Tories in the UK.)
Abbott has clearly stated:
No more dole for under 30s
Compulsory bible classes in all schools
Tssk
Wha… what?! If any such enquiry was handled correctly, I would expect no charges at all against the ALP. I would expect charges against dodgy bros. builders for not following proper health and safety procedures and killing their workers. I would expect it to conclude that such deaths were the responsibility of the builders themselves regardless of the source of the job funding. I would expect it to conclude that the sheeting home of such responsibility to the Fed Govt as funds provider was blatantly political and dishonest. If “properly” conducted perhaps it would even reveal, as commenter John(?) pointed out here a while back, that the rate of death and injury was in fact lower, relative to the amount of work being done, even though of course the only acceptable death rate on the job is zero.
Sorry, Tssk, I’ve just completely misread your point which was of course a sarcastic summation of how such an enquiry would go under a Tones government. [Headdesk] I’ll shut up now
“Compulsory bible classes in all schools”
You are kidding me, aren’t you?
I mean, this is a joke surely?
Please tell me this this is a joke.
Please.
That’s OK Helen. I watched an opposition minister last night on the 7.30 Report unchallenged talk again about the deaths of these roofers as the fault of the government (not their employers for poor training or making sure their workplace were safe?) and also adding 250 house fires into the mix (again not the fault of shoddy cowboy operators but the fault of the ALP.)
Brian @ 60, I remember a couple of people I worked with in the early 70s who had moved from Qld to SA precisely because of the difference between Joh and a govt of any flavour in SA.
C’wealth public servants, so the move was comparatively easy.
I reckon Abbott would make even Joh look good.
I’m hoping that an ‘Abbott’ government would be short lived because now that Labor have shown the way, he would be toppled pretty quickly. But the problem is who would replace him. I doubt they would let perennial Deputy Julie become PM, PM Joe certainly doesn’t appeal. Malcolm might make a comeback?
Would there be an exodus of well off voters moving to NZ? A decrease in the tax base as high income earning Labor voters take their money elsewhere could be interesting.
My children would not be attending compulsory bible classes. They’d be sitting up the back with me and watching Star Wars. If we didn’t up sticks and move to NZ until sense prevailed and someone else became PM.
The make up of the Senate is going to be a very real and interesting issue. Even if Tones does get in I still think that the Senate is likely to be hostile. He may be able to do some mischief before next July.
hannah’s dad @ 79
no joke…
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/all-kids-must-read-the-bible-federal-opposition-leader-tony-abbott-says/story-e6freo8c-1225812010013
That can’t be true. Can you imagine the uproar from non-Christian denominations? Let alone different strands of the Christian church? (Which bible to use eh?)
And for those Christians who think this is OK…would you be fine with your kid being forced to read the scriptures of other religions? (And I’m not talking about studying them in a comparative sense.
That’s Abbott for you tssk.
Mindy…indeed. He’ll do it to. We’ve already got the school chaplains…it’s not a wild leap. “Can you imagine the uproar from non-Christian denominations” …well there has been some uproar about the chaplains tssk..but they are still all there and the ruddster gave em a helping hand..uproar is good, we like uproar it shows how right we are about all those latte drinking atheist left wing islamist post modern chardonnay swilling elite pseudo intellectual un australian gay politically correct idiots undermining our australian way of life. i mean what’s wrong with the bible? i mean, why would they want to stop the kiddies reading the esstential building block of our australian values?
The thing that makes me livid is that a lot of the attitudes and behaviours the God botherers display are the very sort of behaviours that Jesus rallied against in the New Testament.
Mindy @ 82 threatening to leave the country if a conservative government is elected:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/24/75-threatening-to-move-to-canada/
Link didn’t quite work. Can anyone fix behind the scenes?
I don’t see anything wrong with telling infants fairy tales.
Shorter Spana:
ALP proposes tax on miners, and in the teeth of an enormously well funded, very public and noisy campaign against it, finally makes a compromise that the companies can live with.
Liberal party opposes said tax in every single aspect. Will abolish it.
But the ALP is somehow *worse* for making a compromise.
Looking at the polls and given the massive mandate Tones is going to get workplace reform must ABSOLUTELY be on the table as the first point of business.
It might have been dead but given the landslide for the Coalition they MUST LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE AND GIVE THEM WHAT THEY DESERVE!
I have long considered Abbot the most interesting member of the Howard gang. He actually has ideas and some of these are driven by consideration of people. (Even if I don’t agree with a lot of his solutions.) Abbot, for example was the first to talk about welfare traps but was blocked by Howard.
The Abbot direct action climate policy is vastly superior to what Julie is offering and would really be a very price effective way of driving down emissions if it is linked to challenging targets.
By contrast, Julie is looking like a small target government believer along the NSW right lines with policies that seem to be all about attracting minor voter groups rather than good policy. She needs to show some signs of being willing to take the risk of commiting to something big.
DI(NR) @ 51:
“If AmishThrasher’s predicted dystopia comes to pass, we’ll look back on the Rudd-Gillard years in much the same way as many of us older folk do on Whitlam’s time – a brief, shining, golden age.”
If things become truly dystopic, we may even remember the HoWARd years with regret.
Maybe Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” should be made compulsory reading (best) or viewing between now and 21 August.
Fiona Reynolds comment had me in mind of the Farenheit 451 movie repeat trotted out again during last week, let alone the gist of a pointed conversation between Spana and Rebbekka, the other day.
Looking to Britain for evidence of post 2007 politics, it seems Cameron is launching a purge on DB welfare based on a fudged consultancy report if I read Legal Eagle right, at her blog.
The bailouts haved to be paid for and those who can least afford new imposts will be invited to shell out, as usual.
@John D, since you apparently don’t know the PM’s name, I think we can safely assume everything else you say is inaccurate as well (particularly as everyone else in the known universe outside the Liberal/National parties agrees Abbott’s “direct action” on climate change will achieve absolutely no reduction whatsoever in emmissions).