Where to for Tony ?

[WattleIdo]

... we will need a team of talented and dedicated politicians, working together to tackle government spending and tax reform.

Malcolm Turnbull is great - as long as we don't have to see him too often. I seem to remember him saying no, no, no all the time - got boring.
I honestly can't fathom how these clowns got to the top - Hockey is so lost and unconvincing that I turn the radio off whenever I hear his voice (which isn't often). That's why I missed the poor-people and how-far-they-go-in-a-car thing, which actually was very entertaining.
The PM is just childish.
Neither are true leaders.
Howard - though a liar - is a leader. At least when he took a stand it was for the good of the country (gun-control). That's the best thing he did and it was brave because the ones who love killing random creatures are usually the type that send votes his way. Howard improved over time though started from a low base.
Abbot's just a nut.

 

[property_girl]

John Vaz, Course Director Master of Applied Finance at Monash University:

.. $7B of these lost savings were due to the governments eagerness to remove the Minerals and Resources Rent Tax without finding structural offsets, rather targeting education and social security payments to balance the benefits handed back to the mining sector....
Some examples include the loophole reopened by the government in relation to salary sacrifice for cars, which costs this budget close to $2 billion per annum, reversing a saving undertaken by the previous government.

Margaret Mckenzie, Lecturer, School of Accounting, Economics and Finance at Deakin University:
The corporate tax fall attributed to commodity price falls is estimated at $2.3 billion in 2014-15. This is not nearly so large as the tax foregone by repealing the carbon tax which earned $6.6 billion for 2012-13 alone.

 

[HiEquity]

It is clear that if you promise the electorate that you will:

- Lower taxes
- Not cut anything much while bringing in parental leave etc; and
- Get the budget back to surplus

.... then you will get elected. But everyone knew this was a "magic pudding" as others have described it. Staying elected while you have taken the electorate for idiots is the next challenge.

Keeping the carbon tax would have yielded an extra $10 billion per year that we sorely need right now. And for every saving program the Libs come up with they have a new spending program to go with it. Government spending keeps increasing - as a % of GDP it has hit new highs under the Libs.

People forget that the Libs didn't get elected because of Tony or their wonderfully believable policy spiel - they got elected because Labor made such a balls up of managing their own house and the country. While a lot of legislation got through a hung parliament, the sideshow was just ridiculous and overwhelming.

I see no evidence that Labor has learnt any real lessons from their time in government and their policies are all over the shop, like opposing their own spending cuts. And Shorten is no statesman - a more unimpressive politician I've yet to come across - he may be fantastic at internal Labor politics but genuine political engagement with the outside world is just outside his capability.

Both sides of politics need to give the electorate more credit - stop trying to micro manage the message through the leaders office - let their backbenchers express their own opinions and bring back some genuine debate rather than bringing down edicts all the time. The micro management of candidates prior to elections is truly appalling - they don't trust their own candidates to say anything to anyone in the media - it's ridiculous and people are sick of it.

So I hope the Libs can get their act together quickly because the alternative is worse and we need less dogma and more good government. Blaming the Senate is just poor form - it's the government's job to work with the Senate and if they can't then they don't deserve to be in government.

 

[chilliblue]

Changing political parties in any election is useless unless the senior staffers under them also change.

It those people that decide what happens.

 

[perthguy]

Too often, electors think about what is in it for them at election. How about we turn that around ask: what would you give up to get the budget back into surplus?

Personally, I would give up the ridiculous tax concessions on super. For some of my contributions to super, I effectively get a 30% tax break. I would be happy for a 10% tax break. I wonder how much difference that would make?

 

[property_girl]

Changing political parties in any election is useless unless the senior staffers under them also change.

It those people that decide what happens.

Chilliblue, senior staffers always change with a change of government. Abbott's current chief of staff, Peta, is married to Loughnane (former tenant of mine lol) federal director of the Libs. Staff of backbenchers have usually worked in the electorate office and then fly backwards and forwarded when parliament sits.

 

[Nemo30]

Tony's just announced a re-shuffle.

Not all the details are out yet, but David Johnston is out as predicted. Looks like Scott Morrison is no longer immigration - he's moved to Social Services. Susan Ley is Health, Kevin Andrews Defence.

 

[Macca]

Bring back Costello !!!!!

I am not a Joe Hockey fan, not even in opposition, to me his face does not have a enough "maturity" about it, like he is not a natural fit to a position of responsibility.

His budget is stupid, the first budget needs to be a horror and blame it on the previous gov't, that is just the sensible thing to do. Then you gradually become Mr Nice Guy over the next two in time for the election.

Some of the things tried by Abbott are dumb too, his parental leave scheme is silly enough to be a Labor initiative, way too generous to sell to the average person.

The Senate is a joke but the Libs should be starting way over to the far right then negotiating back to a bearable position and then putting it through.

And I want another republic referendum, simple question, Republic in 5 years yes or no, then work out the details

 

[chilliblue]

Chilliblue, senior staffers always change with a change of government. Abbott's current chief of staff, Peta, is married to Loughnane (former tenant of mine lol) federal director of the Libs. Staff of backbenchers have usually worked in the electorate office and then fly backwards and forwarded when parliament sits.

Those allocated to the departments are not

 

[Nemo30]

I've seen quite a few changes in Govt and Ministers.

In all cases, the advisors have changed with the Minister.

The Departmental Liaison officers, who are public servants, often stay. These are liaison officers - they arent providing advice on policy.

 

[property_girl]

chilliblue, then you are talking about the public servants. For the most part public servants don't lose their jobs with a change of government.

 

[Sylvester]

Once, just once, I'd love to see the Greens get into power.

Let's see Christine Milne balance the budget and reduce the growing debt being imposed on unassuming and lost younger generations. It's amazing how the Greens target themselves at younger generations, and these naives don't get that Greens grandiose and moral superiority will be funded by their toil.

BTW, it's so cliche for smug North Shore types, who have never raised an unpaid volunteer's finger for the public good, keep bashing conservative politicians. Nevertheless, I suppose it helps affirm their identity and membership of the intellectual elite.

 

[Corey Batt]

Once, just once, I'd love to see the Greens get into power.

Don't wish this upon poor Australia.

 

[willair]

Once, just once, I'd love to see the Greens get into power.
.

FMD, once you consider the silent consequences of that ,everyone would be sitting on the sit down money on an old milk crate outside the local coffee shop thinking who can provide more accurate forecast then the simple one some schizophrenic mathematician forecaster made..

 

[D.T.]

Once, just once, I'd love to see the Greens get into power.

Why do you hate Australia so much?

 

[topcropper]

Once, just once, I'd love to see the Greens get into power.
.

You'd only love it once that's for sure. Never again.

This belongs in the joke thread by the way.


See ya's.

 

[The Fence]

Once, just once, I'd love to see the Greens get into power.

Where were you for the last 2 terms of govt before this one?

Greens ran Labor govt, and look what happened.

 

[perthguy]

Where were you for the last 2 terms of govt before this one?
Greens ran Labor govt, and look what happened.

Read the rest of the post... "It's amazing how the Greens target themselves at younger generations, and these naives don't get that Greens grandiose and moral superiority will be funded by their toil."

 

[MarkB]

It those people [staffers] that decide what happens.

Yes they are powerful. Typically considered some of the most covertly powerful people in Australia.

How powerful? You would have to ask someone who worked in their office (I used to know someone who worked in Costello's office, but I don't recall ever asking him if him and his colleagues pulled the strings. I suspect they did not).

In any event, these people (staffers) can still be sacked at a moments notice if they fall out of favour with their master(s).

chilliblue, then you are talking about the public servants. For the most part public servants don't lose their jobs with a change of government.

Departmental secretaries can though (but my understanding is that they're a special case in the APS).

Peter Costello's biography mentions the following -

In the lead up to the 1996 election (at which time a change of government was expected) he contacted then Secretary to the Treasury (Ted Evans) and said "I want this, this and this, post election".

In their first meeting post election the book describes how Evans offered "the customary" (or words to that effect) resignation which all Departmental secretaries offer with a change of government. Costello brushed it off (as we all know), and Evans was Secretary until (I think) 2001 or so.

The reality is this - it is the elected government of the day (the politicians) that has been elected to make policies and control the public service. And the public servants - in theory apolitical, in reality they know who butters their bread - exist to do their bidding.

That's pretty much what I was told (and observed) when I was in the APS. Though I never saw a change of government during my (brief) stint in Canberra (1999 to 2003).

 

[Sylvester]

Read the rest of the post... "It's amazing how the Greens target themselves at younger generations, and these naives don't get that Greens grandiose and moral superiority will be funded by their toil."

well it will only be funded by their toil if youth can get a job....and in this day and age of internationally mobile jobs, I think the Greens would be most successful in raising the youth unemployment rate to a very high historical high. Foreign and locally controlled businesses would be exporting jobs offshore like never before.

Someone should make a comedy (or doomsday) feature film about the Greens getting into power.