I'm not talking down the economy, stupid.

I'm telling you how it is - with Labor. 

We're in a solid position courtesy of the previous Coalition government

You can't escape the facts - you try your hardest, but nope, they're still there, for all to see - the government squandered billions, botched a litany of disasterous and deadly projects and walked away from "the greatest moral challenge of our time".......

I'm not the best at balancing my budget Jez but if you gave me a few hundred billion extra and didn't expect me to provide any much needed infrastructure, let me cut spending on health and education etc I reckon I could do a pretty good job of it as well

just telling it how it is Jez

There was actually a record amount of investment into health and education during the Howard years.  You can see the numbers at abs.gov.au.  I saw an interview with Health Minister Nicola Roxon, during the election campaign, where she was presented with the ABS data showing the true figures - not Labor nonsense (you know, Abbott ripped a billion out of health).

Needless to say, she looked like an utter idiot.

you would hope there was record investment Jez, they were there a lot of years and as costs increase every year you would expect investment to increase every year - i.e. record investment every year - i would be SHOCKED if that was the case though

it'll be fine Jez

Julia Gillard losing ground to Tony Abbott
Dennis Shanahan, Political editor
From: The Australian November 09, 2010

JULIA Gillard is beginning to pay a personal price for Labor's continuing problems as she loses ground to Tony Abbott.  The number of voters dissatisfied with Ms Gillard's performance as Prime Minister is now equal to those who are satisfied.

For the first time since she became Labor leader in June, Ms Gillard has a zero net satisfaction rating. She has also dropped back to the lowest level of support on the question of preferred prime minister that she hit during her worst week of the election campaign.

According to the latest Newspoll survey, taken exclusively for The Australian last weekend, voter satisfaction with Ms Gillard dropped three points to 41per cent and dissatisfaction rose four points to 41 per cent.

The Coalition continues to hold the comfortable lead over the Labor government it has had since the election on both primary votes and a two-party-preferred basis.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
Related CoverageGRAPHIC: Federal Newspoll
DENNIS SHANAHAN: Labor's policy woes pile up
BUDGET UPDATE: Swan on target as economy fires
Labor support in the bush dries up: Newspoll The Australian, 25 Oct 2010
Voters still unable to split the parties The Australian, 11 Oct 2010
Voters back independents Perth Now, 14 Sep 2010
Parties still on knife edge: Newspoll The Australian, 13 Sep 2010
Smooth sailing for Brumby The Australian, 26 Aug 2010
.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
The Coalition's primary vote was unchanged on 43 per cent from two weeks earlier, the same vote it had at the August election, and Labor's is up one point to 34 per cent, four percentage points below its primary vote in August.

While not statistically significant, the Greens' primary vote has dropped from 14 to 13per cent -- the lowest level since the election, when the Greens won a lower house seat for the first time at a general election.

On a two-party-preferred basis, using preference flows at the August election, the Coalition has kept its four-point lead over Labor, 52 to 48 per cent. At the election, the ALP had a two-party-preferred vote of 50.1per cent compared with the Coalition's 49.9 per cent.

It is the first time the Coalition has held a four-point lead over Labor in successive Newspoll surveys since January 2006 when John Howard was prime minister.

Labor took a hit in the Newspoll survey two weeks ago in the wake of the release of the disastrous Murray-Darling Basin report, which appeared to turn off regional voters.

The government's primary vote dropped to 33 per cent, Labor's lowest since December 2004, in the wake of Mark Latham's massive election defeat.

Labor's primary vote and its two-party-preferred vote are still languishing below the party's level of support in June, when Kevin Rudd was removed as prime minister and replaced with Ms Gillard.

Since the previous Newspoll survey two weeks earlier, the Gillard government has been hit by another official interest rate rise as well as the Commonwealth's Bank decision to almost double its lending rates in defiance of calls from Wayne Swan for the major banks not to exceed the Reserve Bank's actions.

The number of illegal boat entries and asylum-seekers in a single year has hit a record and Ms Gillard's trip through the region did not help her attempts to establish a regional processing centre in East Timor for refugees.

The rising strength of the Australian dollar has also put Labor's promise to deliver a budget surplus in 2012-13 under pressure, although Ms Gillard and the Treasurer continue to guarantee the deficit will be wiped out that year.

While Labor's primary vote has stayed well below its election levels, Ms Gillard's standing as preferred prime minister has also begun to slip. In the past two weeks, her support has dropped from a post-election high of 53 per cent to 49 per cent, her lowest since the first week of August.

Support for the Opposition Leader as preferred prime minister has risen slightly from 32 to 34 per cent, his highest rating in two months. It also marks the closest he has been to Ms Gillard since the election campaign.

Personal support for Mr Abbott has also improved, with his satisfaction rating rising three points to 44 per cent and dissatisfaction falling four points from 46 to 42 per cent.

It is the first time that the Opposition Leader has had a positive net satisfaction rating for two months.

Interest rates went up last week Jez, it's going to have flow on effects - we're a LONG way away from an election, the polls will be up and down between now and when it happens - you can get your rocks off on these early ones as much as you like - I won't get carried away.

Mind you, you might notice Julia is still well ahead of Tony as preferred PM

they ran a shocking campaign and Tony held it together - I was surprised that he did and would be totally shocked if he can until the next election

the indies will be just fine, subject to what happens the next 3 years - don't be surprised if there are more of them next time around - politics has changed

Labor’s doing itself slowly

Jack the Insider blog - theaustralian.com.au


THE latest Newspoll shows that Labor is in deep trouble. Under Gillard, Labor’s primary vote has reached a point where the party’s rusted on supporters remain but everyone else has fled; either to the Greens or to the Liberal Party.

If a week, as the cliché goes, is a long time in politics, then a year can only be measured in geological time. It was almost a year to the day when a Newspoll recorded Labor’s biggest ever margin over the Coalition. The poll taken on the weekend of October 16, 2009 had Labor ahead 59 to 41 on the two-party preferred and Labor’s primary vote sitting on a very healthy 48 per cent. 


This was the time when Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership of the Coalition was in terminal decline after his intemperate and ultimately untrue allegation that Kevin Rudd had acted corruptly over the Utegate affair. The mess blew up in Turnbull’s face.

Between that poll and the one taken over the weekend, Labor has lost 14 per cent of its primary vote - one in seven Labor voters have moved on. The Coalition has picked up its primary vote by nine per cent from these disaffected punters with the remainder landing in Green territory.

In October 2009, the Liberals cast an eye across the party room and decided that they were shot wood ducks. There was no one waiting in the wings to lead the party or so they thought.

In short, the party was on its knees and for those of a Machiavellian bent, the opportunity existed for Labor under then prime minister Kevin Rudd to consign the Liberal Party to oblivion once and for all.

Had Rudd not been so busy seeking agreement with the Liberal Party over the CPRS legislation - a consensus that would never come - he would have been eyeing off an early election late in November, 2009.

Many pundits tipped it and the double dissolution triggers were scattered all over the place.

Instead Rudd plodded along with this silly mantra: “I believe a government should run its full term”. And here we come to one of the first of his tactical blunders. Why paint yourself into the corner of running the full three years? Our political system doesn’t work that way. Setting an election date is the primary advantage of incumbency.

Indeed Australia’s longest-serving prime minister, Sir Robert Menzies made an art form out of calling early elections. He won seven on the trot. Bob Hawke had a talent for it, too.

As Niki Savva reported in The Australian yesterday, the Liberal Party’s finances are not exactly shipshape. When the election came, the Coalition underspent Labor on advertising by two thirds. It wasn’t a clever strategy to save a bit of coin. The Libs didn’t have the coin to spend.

Now consider if an election was called at a time that most suited the Government - late November 2009. Certainly the 59 to 41 two-party preferred would not have been manifested in an election but every sign pointed to a swing to the government and a win of such magnitude as to render the Coalition out of the game for at least two terms.

The Liberal Party would have been bereft - virtually broke and with party donors likely to keep their hands in their pockets. One more pummelling at an election and the Liberal Party would have been sharing a post office box with the Australian Democrats.

The argument that Australian politics exists in a pluralist framework and that a healthy opposition means a healthy democracy is a wonderful idea promoted by political scientists but if you’re a leader of a political party, surely the first objective is to obtain power, the second to remain in power and the third to do whatever it takes to render the opposition ineffectual, if not wipe them off the political map altogether.

Back in 1992, Opposition leader John Hewson demanded to know why prime minister Paul Keating would not call an early election. Keating’s reply almost brought the lower house down: “Because I’m going to do you slowly”.

Of course, Keating had little choice but to let his government run its full term. The government was behind in the polls and Keating needed as much time as possible to dismantle Hewson’s much vaunted Fightback program.

Keating was a politician who believed that once you have your foot on the throat of an opponent, there can be no let up.

Obviously, Rudd does not share these values. And clearly his colleagues lacked the necessary mongrel. The prime minister of the day has to wear the responsibility for the government’s tactical blunders but Julia Gillard was his deputy and Wayne Swan his treasurer and all three were along for the ride.

If a senior politician can’t get the tactics right, what does it say about his or her ability to perform in other aspects of the political game?

Rather than seize opportunities, the Labor Government under Rudd fumbled its chances and made the unforgiveable mistake of giving a mug an even break.

Now under Gillard, the Government finds itself in a hellish situation; a timid group with a nebulous policy agenda in the vortex of a hung parliament. This weekend’s Newspoll shows that the Labor Government has it all to do and no real way of doing it. To borrow a line from Apocalypse Now, the Labor Government is now in a state of “slow death and malaria”.

The Newspoll taken a year ago is a stark reminder of what might have been

Pamela Curr, campaign co-ordinator at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, says that it is a great win for the rights of asylum seekers:

“People’s liberty should not be left to the whim of the politician. This decision does not give the courts the power to award visas, what it does do is make the denial of a person’s liberty a matter for the courts to decide. Which is a basic tenant of our democracy.”

Im surprised Labour hasn't started building more seaworthy boats and sending them over fully manned

90% of refugees that arrive by boat are found to be genuine.
20% of the refugees that come from the camps and arrive by plane are found to be genuine.

To go to a camp for these people is not a safe haven, it continues their exposure to retribution
and opens up a whole new world of violence and abuse.

If you are driving home one night, with all your family in the car, and a car load of masked gun-men pull up alongside you, and fire a round into your car, what do you do to protect your family?

You floor it and get the f##k out of there. But they chase you, so you break the law and speed and place the lives of other road users at risk, but you speed anyway, because in that moment, the safety of your family overrides any consideration you might have for the other road users. The cops catch up with you and pull you over, you run up to them and tell them about what happened, but they seem to be only interested in the fact that you have broken the law and sped. They are only interested in what you have done.....and not.... what got you there.

That would be unjust......Desperate people do desperate things and Refugees do not deserve to be maligned in this way. THAT DISGUSTS ME.

Well said AFl. A very accurate analogy.

It is a pity that the conservatives don't have the same compassion or empathy.

Spin spin spin for the looney lefties.

AGAIN, I repeat.

You see AP, wombleoz and co believe everyone, EVERYONE that comes to this country by boat is a genuine asylum seeker - tamil tigers and all.  He also believes in leaving families (who can't find the money for people smugglers) to languish in genuine refugee camps for years apon years.......

Who gives a f*ck about them huh? 

I'm sure if wombleoz and the other fairys around like him had their way, we'd have ZERO process on coming to this country, you just rock up and welcome.....very naive, foolish and dangerous.

We do our fair share in terms of accepting refugees, in fact the numbers increased under the Howard Government.  But I do not believe in going soft and thereby encouraging people smugglers - and risking people's lives in leaky boats.

WAKE UP

AFL
"To go to a camp for these people is not a safe haven, it continues their exposure to retribution
and opens up a whole new world of violence and abuse. "


So who gives a flying toss about the folk who don't have money for people smugglers...and are left in camps......?????????????

One of my best mates came to this country via a refugee camp and his story stirs my emotions.......it is a harrowing tale......and it makes me extremely angry when we drop the number of LEGIT refugees to allow a boat people to just slide in.

From all the looney lefties who wear this "SOFT STANCE" as a badge of honour, think very fkn carefully ---- your not as heroic as you think you all are......ffs

Anyway....for the record, I am very much against the death penalty across the board, hope I live to see the day that this disgusting "punishment" is abolished worldwide.

An interesting thread I begun in the Politics forum called - Capital Punishment.

easy way around your concerns about people losing spots in queues Jez is to take a few more, we've got plenty of room.  lock them up while you do the initial health and background checks and then let them into the community until you give them a final yes or no, they report in a couple of times a week to get their names checked off like someone on bail and if they don't show up they get knocked back - it's not rocket science, and along with being more compassionate would save us a fortune

as to the death penalty, and this will probably surprise you, I'm all for it for the worst of crimes and when there is as close to certainty as possible that the person did it

as to the death penalty, and this will probably surprise you, I'm all for it for the worst of crimes and when there is as close to certainty as possible that the person did it

......And if by chance that "certainty" is off the mark, then what?

Exhume the remains and dump them on the families doorstep?

I think if one innocent life is lost, it is one too many.
Lock them up for life in prison, without parole.

Same outcome - no further crimes from the criminal locked away tightly - but we stay well away from "playing god" and the "eye for an eye" nonsense.