Australian Election 2013

[mr moose]

It seems we're in a pickle,

Vote Labour, Get NBN, Send the country into further debt. I don't want to be part of the next greece.</p>

Vote Liberal, No NBN, spend the next 4 terms getting the country out of debt and have no money pumped into anything, How liberal always work.

@Windspeed36 said something about There should be a lot of things more important than internet.

As there would probably big advantages to most of the sectors he mentioned. Generally what we have is good enough.

Personally Kevin Rudd is a much more likable person the Julia Gillard. I don't think there is anything they can do at this stage to save Labour at the next elections. I would also be quite surprised if Kevin doesn't call the election sooner than September where it is currently scheduled. As much as most of the stuff they've done will likely be better for Australia in the long run, The way they've done it; by making the citizens angry and going on with plans as Unpopular as they are, Seemingly in spite (May not have been the intentions but that is how it has come across). You could almost compare Labour's last term with Microsofts announcement of the Xbox One. They Announced it, realised people didn't like it. Continued with they're plans Seemingly in spite of consumers... Only to turn around and reverse some decisions to try and win back some of their Customers before it was to late.

Our Government is the Joke of the world right now, But whats happened needed to happen. We don't want to end up like America.

The only way it could work to some sort of advantage would be if somehow we ended up with Labour for 1 Term (To spend all the money and give the country the boosts in the areas it needs it) and then Liberal to 4-5 Terms (to get the Country back either out of debt or into solid standings).

Things obviously need to change and I'll admit that I've never really supported Labour and doubt that I ever will; That without The Howard Liberal Government getting up such a large surplus, Followed by Rudd/Gillard/Rud Labour Government Spending all of the surplus. Our Country would be in a much worse position that it is.

Our Country needs both parties, Just it needs to balance them.

On a positive, If liberal does get in, the Carbon tax should help reduce time that it takes to get out of debt.

My 2c

P.S. I'm pretty impressed at how civil this conversation has stayed. Its nice to see that there is people out there who can have an opinion and not tear everybody's heads off just because they don't agree.

Well Done Everybody :)

edit: Quote broke while I was typing

edit: Post broke during edit :(

from what I can tell in the commentaries and opinion polls, you have pretty much nailed the Australian sentiment.  If we ignore all the finer details then yes we need labor to build stuff but we need the liberals to save the money so they can, too much of either one and things turn bad. 

 

I feel after researching this more that the NBN should be put on hold for a few years regardless of who wins the election. Enough time to sort out the flunked contracts and re-evaluate the best approach to fuure implementation.

[SubTract]

from what I can tell in the commentaries and opinion polls, you have pretty much nailed the Australian sentiment.  If we ignore all the finer details then yes we need labor to build stuff but we need the liberals to save the money so they can, too much of either one and things turn bad. 

 

I feel after researching this more that the NBN should be put on hold for a few years regardless of who wins the election. Enough time to sort out the flunked contracts and re-evaluate the best approach to future implementation.

This seems like the best compromise at the moment.

 

This is the first place I've been able to actually have a discussion on politics :)

[PhilPC]

Is anyone else incredibly surprised by the lack of no-confidence vote?

2wildcard4me

[FireFox]

Personally I'm a fan of neither but I'm not happy with Labor's history of actions

 

wow same here, the UK Labour Party pretty much wrecked our economy and the current morons don't seem to be doing anything but waste money and piss everyone off lol

[SubTract]

wow same here, the UK Labour Party pretty much wrecked our economy and the current morons don't seem to be doing anything but waste money and piss everyone off lol

Fortunately you guys have a 3 party preferred system, with the conservatives in there as well. Seems to work better than our 2 party system.

I'm not a fan of a 2 party preferred system. It doesn't seem to balance properly.

[FireFox]

Fortunately you guys have a 3 party preferred system, with the conservatives in there as well. Seems to work better than our 2 party system.

I'm not a fan of a 2 party preferred system. It doesn't seem to balance properly.

 

If I remember correctly, Australia never entered recession and we've had 2 and avoided a 3rd a couple of times, I know where I'd rather be :)

[mr moose]

Is anyone else incredibly surprised by the lack of no-confidence vote?

2wildcard4me

 

No, there is no point in raising a vote of no confidence when it will be defeated, that would just give labor ammo for the election. Abbot has been smart in talking about a vote but he has always put in the proviso that he will only do it with the support of the independents, thus showing the Australian people that the independents are only pro labor and not in reality independent. I think The liberal plan here is to paint the independents in the same light as labor.

 

Australia has come closes to recession several times but didn't either by a whisker or by a very semantic interpretation of the definition of recession. We also have a resource sector that is keeping a failing economy afloat, this confuses the issue significantly because without the mining, Australia would definitely be in recession. Manufacturing is hurting and job hours have been significantly reduced, This is reflected in the latest analysis.  It has shown that while the interest rates have fallen people are still paying of their homes at the same rate (scared of the future and trying to reduce debt as much as possible). Also research shows our personal wealth is higher, but that could simply be because we are too scared to spend our money for fear of loosing our jobs. The retailers will certainly attest to this.

 

Whilst I don't want to be in the UK, from where you are you guys can improve, we still may fall. Our economy is intrinsically linked to the Asian market, it has been the key to our survival so far, but because we have no reserves and excessive debt, if the Asian market fails now or starts a downward trend while the American economy strengthens then we could be in for a world of hurt.

[chimmychunger]

My question is does the NBN really matter that much? Are public health, education, the national economy, employment and defence not more important issues to focus on? 

i personally believe the NBN is worth it we need to catch up with the rest of the world and people saying that 25 down and 1 up is good enough by todays standarads is  just stupid yes its valid for today but what about tommorow or next year next ten years we dont know DO IT ONCE DO IT RIGHT imo :D

[Muffinator]

To be honest I don't like the idea of having KRudd, Gillard, or Abbott as the leader of this country. I do think that the Labor party wastes too much money, and in turn has resulted in our massive national debt (about $244 Billlion). From what I remember, when John Howard left his position as Prime Minister, the Australian National Debt was $0.

 

Sure I understand that the citizens get all of these benefits these days but I don't want our country to end up like Greece.

A lot of funding is given out to the worthless people who are alcoholics and drug addicts who refuse to get jobs of their own and instead are given housing  and an income wage, and all they have to do is turn up at centrelink once a fortnight or so.

 

I just don't like where Australia is heading.

Massive national debt? You obviously don't know The United States' national debt. lol

 

Edit: Just watched an Outback Steakhouse commercial. Found it ironic.

[Hoppa]

Its massive for us, we only have about 30 million people in this country.

[Guest]

Massive national debt? You obviously don't know The United States' national debt. lol

 

Edit: Just watched an Outback Steakhouse commercial. Found it ironic.

Considering we've had over a 300% increase in national debt since 2007, it's pretty huge.

[mr moose]

We have 23Million people. 

 

The debt can be measured many ways, I don't like the way people keep referring to it as a percentage of GDP, That makes it sound a lot less worse than it is. I say this because the simple fact of the matter is that if the debt was under control our budgets would not be in deficit. Out of control budget causes out of control debt. Regardless of GDP the tax revenue as a percentage of GDP has dropped and thus the ability to service a debt that is still in proportion to GDP is reduced. 

 

In short we are in financial trouble and the current government want to make it sound as insignificant as possible because when Australians worry about money they vote for the coalition.

[Geekazoid]

You know I really think, like the US, that voteing shouldn't be compulsery because you get people who don't give a crap about who they vote for and give dummy votes to whoever. This is one of the many reasons why we've had to put up with a money hungry Labor government who wants to create a whole heap of taxes to fix a debt that they created. If you think for ONE moment that Labor is going to do all the things they promised then you will be very disappointed because I can tell you one thing, Labor doesn't honour what they promise and are in no way whatsoever trustworthy.

As far as the NBN goes there is something that Labor have NOT told Australia about and that is that whilst we may get much faster internet with the NBN on Australian sites the speed is going to be no better when you go to a website or do anything internet related that is not in Australia. The ONLY way we would get a faster internet all round is for each country that we're linked to upgrade their connection to us with the same technology the NBN uses. I can bet a good amount of you didn't know that. And that's because Labor doesn't want you to know. The Liberal's version of the NBN is not only way cheaper but utilises the technology we already have and enhances it. I think this option is a better and more economically sensible than spending $40 billion on a new system that only will only benefit us locally not internationally.

Oh! And one more thing. How many boats have we seen come into Australian after Labor scraped John Howard's way of controlling the boats. His way was so much better and we had far less boats and Australia was a better place to live.

Hmm and I must remind you of one more thing...work choices. Labor have been criticising John Howard's (Liberals) work choices but the truth of the matter is employers abused it and in turn made the Liberals look bad. They're not responsible for employers that chose to abuse the system.

Whilst you may not agree with what I say it is all completely true. Any Liberal voter would know what I've just said is absolutely true.

[0s4x]

Hmm and I must remind you of one more thing...work choices. Labor have been criticising John Howard's (Liberals) work choices but the truth of the matter is employers abused it and in turn made the Liberals look bad. They're not responsible for employers that chose to abuse the system.

And it was the Libs bringing them that option that let them abuse it. Without the Libs in power those employers wouldn't have had the opportunity to abuse WC.

[mr moose]

The whole IR thing is poison at the moment.  With labour in the unions essentially blackmail employers into higher (in some cases indecently high) pay and conditions, with the coalition in the  workers get mistreated. It switches so fast between them that business is starting to flounder because after each election the rules change again.  They need to have a truly independent employment authority and they need to remove Union/board of director types from public offices. 

 

I feel we need employers to be held accountable and be punished when they mistreat staff and we need it to be illegal to strike while a payrise is a condition. 

[Hazy125]

At the current time Rudd is still actually the most favoured politician but I fear the actions of Labor as a whole have jeopardised their ability to win in the next election, which sadly means copper and nodes and slow internet for the next 10 years or so. As for the matter of whether Labor can be trusted, I was under the influence that Julia seized power so she could implement the Carbon Price Mechanism. "Carbon Tax" is an invention of Abott's writers and everyone has listened to that. Just like many people will listen to him about copper cabling. However, with Rudd at the head of the labor party again you can be certain that he'll stick to his promises as he did before the party overthrew him, also the party has realised their mistake when they overthrew Rudd initially as they can see how poorly the party has done compared to the coalition since then so I doubt that labor will try anything of the sort again. Also does anyone know an Australian English language setting or extension or something for chrome, I don't like how it tries to switch me to American spellings

[0s4x]

Also does anyone know an Australian English language setting or extension or something for chrome, I don't like how it tries to switch me to American spellings

Open your settings, click "show advanced settings", and scroll down to the languages section. Open "language and input settings" and add Aussie English to your list.

 

EDIT: You might wanna add UK English to the list as well, since Chrome cannot be displayed in Aussie English.

[Hazy125]

Open your settings, click "show advanced settings", and scroll down to the languages section. Open "language and input settings" and add Aussie English to your list.

 

EDIT: You might wanna add UK English to the list as well, since Chrome cannot be displayed in Aussie English.

Cheers, I don't know how many times I've told my computer that 'realise' is spelt with an 's'

[mr moose]

At the current time Rudd is still actually the most favoured politician but I fear the actions of Labor as a whole have jeopardised their ability to win in the next election, which sadly means copper and nodes and slow internet for the next 10 years or so. As for the matter of whether Labor can be trusted, I was under the influence that Julia seized power so she could implement the Carbon Price Mechanism. "Carbon Tax" is an invention of Abott's writers and everyone has listened to that. Just like many people will listen to him about copper cabling. However, with Rudd at the head of the labor party again you can be certain that he'll stick to his promises as he did before the party overthrew him, also the party has realised their mistake when they overthrew Rudd initially as they can see how poorly the party has done compared to the coalition since then so I doubt that labor will try anything of the sort again. Also does anyone know an Australian English language setting or extension or something for chrome, I don't like how it tries to switch me to American spellings

 

Do you really believe all that?  Nobody believes what Abbot says.  Most of what Julia said is actually recorded as audio or recorded in Hansard as with everything Tony Abbot has said. You can check the facts for yourself.  Julia specifically said "no carbon tax" it was not something Tony Abbot made up, there are plenty of records of this. 

 

As far as the NBN goes, a promise from one party is just as good as a promise from another.  DO not believe for one minute that the Labor policies are any better or worse than the Liberal parties. At least regardless of which party gets in the backbone of Australias network will be upgraded and we will get either FTTH eventually or a better technology if that comes first. 

 

The only difference between the two parties at the moment is track record and if you look into it properly it doesn't look to good for Labor. 

[Hazy125]

Do you really believe all that?  Nobody believes what Abbot says.  Most of what Julia said is actually recorded as audio or recorded in Hansard as with everything Tony Abbot has said. You can check the facts for yourself.  Julia specifically said "no carbon tax" it was not something Tony Abbot made up, there are plenty of records of this. 

 

As far as the NBN goes, a promise from one party is just as good as a promise from another.  DO not believe for one minute that the Labor policies are any better or worse than the Liberal parties. At least regardless of which party gets in the backbone of Australias network will be upgraded and we will get either FTTH eventually or a better technology if that comes first. 

 

The only difference between the two parties at the moment is track record and if you look into it properly it doesn't look to good for Labor. 

I know a number of people who 100% agree with Abbot. I grew up in Cessnock, 40 minutes or so west of Newcastle where there are a lot of dumb people and from  speaking with them I can say that there definitely are a lot of people believing Abbot. As far as policies are concerned, I really don't know that much. I'm 17, not even old enough to vote yet. But from what I have seen from looking at policies, Liberal policies actually agree more with me and my current situation. However, based on NBN alone I would still vote for Labor if I could. Also, while no matter which party wins the election there will be an upgrade, wouldn't it be better to upgrade to fibre? The copper solution that the coalition proposes still isn't wonderful and there are already many people in Australia who's current internet speeds exceed the maximum speeds expected by the coalitions plans which is still slower than 39 other countries in the world as of 17 days ago. As an Australian who already pays well in excess of what should be paid for nearly everything, I would like to for once have that money go towards something that is genuinely better than much of the rest of the world

[ofr057]

this thread seems as bad as the politics themselves ... repeating the same old same old

 

how about people list 3 things that they would liked addressed by the new government

 mine are

 

. The environment  (Mainly CSG)

. Transport

. Education - Including higher education

 

that way we can see how things are being addressed by the political party in the issues your concerned about, this could be a good reference for other people

 

*EDIT . will expand on the weekend

[michaeldeve]

I don't really want either of them in charge of our country but I do prefer Kevin Rudd because what they have put forward for the NBN is much better than what the liberals have proposed.

[Christian]

You know I really think, like the US, that voteing shouldn't be compulsery because you get people who don't give a crap about who they vote for and give dummy votes to whoever. This is one of the many reasons why we've had to put up with a money hungry Labor government who wants to create a whole heap of taxes to fix a debt that they created. If you think for ONE moment that Labor is going to do all the things they promised then you will be very disappointed because I can tell you one thing, Labor doesn't honour what they promise and are in no way whatsoever trustworthy.

As far as the NBN goes there is something that Labor have NOT told Australia about and that is that whilst we may get much faster internet with the NBN on Australian sites the speed is going to be no better when you go to a website or do anything internet related that is not in Australia. The ONLY way we would get a faster internet all round is for each country that we're linked to upgrade their connection to us with the same technology the NBN uses. I can bet a good amount of you didn't know that. And that's because Labor doesn't want you to know. The Liberal's version of the NBN is not only way cheaper but utilises the technology we already have and enhances it. I think this option is a better and more economically sensible than spending $40 billion on a new system that only will only benefit us locally not internationally.

Oh! And one more thing. How many boats have we seen come into Australian after Labor scraped John Howard's way of controlling the boats. His way was so much better and we had far less boats and Australia was a better place to live.

Hmm and I must remind you of one more thing...work choices. Labor have been criticising John Howard's (Liberals) work choices but the truth of the matter is employers abused it and in turn made the Liberals look bad. They're not responsible for employers that chose to abuse the system.

Whilst you may not agree with what I say it is all completely true. Any Liberal voter would know what I've just said is absolutely true.

Typical Lib. The NBN is a crucial upgrade for the future. What you're saying about overseas is utter crap. Of course there are things that aren't going to be faster due to server locations. However a lot of servers are extremely fast and hooked up to the world with extremely fast fibre links. They are not the bottleneck, the end user connection is. Take this site: http://howfastisthenbn.com.au/ and have a look at the speed difference. All those place being uploaded and downloaded to are capable of those speeds.They are not some ghetto little servers tucked away in a mountain in Thailand, they are extremely high end specialised equipment processing millions of users and downloads and uploads. FYI: that site was not made by anyone officially associated with Labor or Liberal. 

 

Why is there this mad rush to stop the boats? Sure, they need to be controlled, but they shouldn't necessarily be stopped. These people are fleeing from war, slavery, imprisonment, etc. They turn up here and we say- "nah piss off back to your country and get blown up during the night". I do not want to be known as an Australian if that's what the world sees. The boat issue is a lovely disguise of sheer racism for the white, conservative Libs.

 

 

 

Liberal's plan for the NBN is an utter joke. They are telling people these numbers "25Mbps", yet a lot of people simply have no idea what these means. It's all a way to disagree with Labor. The Libs don't want slow internet, they want to say that they are "saving tax payers money" and making themselves look great compared to Labor because they are blowing our money on something useless. Liberal could have just as well come up with 1Gbps internet, except Labor got in first. I don't want a government that does that. i want a government that cares about me, not about making the other party look bad so they can get into power. 

I believe the carbon tax is a great initiative, as it aims to reduce the carbon emissions. I strongly believe the beautiful environment we live in should be dutifully looked after, and it's nice to see Labor trying to do that. Sure, Gillard lied about it, and that's a reason i never liked her, but i was still quite happy when she introduced it. 

And all this talk about the debt. Yes, being out of debt gives the country more power and whatnot with the world. But really, who cares? A debt means the government is spending more. And if the government is spending more, it generally means my standard of living and the Australian economy is being helped. Why would i possibly not want this. To say "my country isn't in debt"? Piss off.

 

I'm happy to hear what others think, and i don't care if you disagree. I do care if you don't provide a valid reason why.

[Geekazoid]

Typical Lib. The NBN is a crucial upgrade for the future. What you're saying about overseas is utter crap. Of course there are things that aren't going to be faster due to server locations. However a lot of servers are extremely fast and hooked up to the world with extremely fast fibre links. They are not the bottleneck, the end user connection is. Take this site: http://howfastisthenbn.com.au/ and have a look at the speed difference. All those place being uploaded and downloaded to are capable of those speeds.They are not some ghetto little servers tucked away in a mountain in Thailand, they are extremely high end specialised equipment processing millions of users and downloads and uploads. FYI: that site was not made by anyone officially associated with Labor or Liberal.

Why is there this mad rush to stop the boats? Sure, they need to be controlled, but they shouldn't necessarily be stopped. These people are fleeing from war, slavery, imprisonment, etc. They turn up here and we say- "nah piss off back to your country and get blown up during the night". I do not want to be known as an Australian if that's what the world sees. The boat issue is a lovely disguise of sheer racism for the white, conservative Libs.

Liberal's plan for the NBN is an utter joke. They are telling people these numbers "25Mbps", yet a lot of people simply have no idea what these means. It's all a way to disagree with Labor. The Libs don't want slow internet, they want to say that they are "saving tax payers money" and making themselves look great compared to Labor because they are blowing our money on something useless. Liberal could have just as well come up with 1Gbps internet, except Labor got in first. I don't want a government that does that. i want a government that cares about me, not about making the other party look bad so they can get into power.

I believe the carbon tax is a great initiative, as it aims to reduce the carbon emissions. I strongly believe the beautiful environment we live in should be dutifully looked after, and it's nice to see Labor trying to do that. Sure, Gillard lied about it, and that's a reason i never liked her, but i was still quite happy when she introduced it.

And all this talk about the debt. Yes, being out of debt gives the country more power and whatnot with the world. But really, who cares? A debt means the government is spending more. And if the government is spending more, it generally means my standard of living and the Australian economy is being helped. Why would i possibly not want this. To say "my country isn't in debt"? Piss off.

I'm happy to hear what others think, and i don't care if you disagree. I do care if you don't provide a valid reason why.

Well it's blatantly obvious who you vote for and as such there is no point in getting in a debate. We shall have to agree to disagree.

[Guest]

-snip-

So Australia is spending money it doesn't have, when exactly are we going to pay that back and where is it going to come from?