The next election, like the last couple won't be won by the ALP, it will be lost by the Libs. All the points they win are purely because they're not Coalition, not because they've done anything smart or good. That's a very dangerous strategy - it hasn't worked yet...
It's nice to hear from some new voices here; not that there was anything wrong with the old voices.
Politicians everywhere, particularly entrenched politicians, all agree that tax policy might need to be reformed to make it more fair. Their solution always is, it seems, to "study the issue."
An A2K Oz tax reform committee! :wink:
hingehead wrote:The next election, like the last couple won't be won by the ALP, it will be lost by the Libs. All the points they win are purely because they're not Coalition, not because they've done anything smart or good. That's a very dangerous strategy - it hasn't worked yet...
hinge
But isn't it conventional wisdom that oppositions don't win government, but governments lose it? :wink:
Sorry Olga , I'm not conventional or wise.
Can't say I am either, hinge.
A few really excellent ALP policies would definitely be a bonus at election time!
Even a paragraph on what they actually believe in or stand for.
Editorial from today's AGE:
Poll message is this: perform or perish
March 16, 2005
Voters can and do change their minds. That simple fact demands results from parties and their policies.
No honeymoon lasts forever and it's unlikely to last long the fourth time around. For the Howard Government, the deja vu is heightened by the latest AgePoll, in which Labor leads by four percentage points in two-party preferred terms five months after its heavy election loss. It took Labor six months to gain a poll lead after its 2001 defeat and, as Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday, these polls don't tell us much about the next election. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said polls "come and go", but both leaders and their colleagues spent some time putting a spin on the results. For Mr Beazley, the poll offers a free kick that helps stabilise his party after the chaos of Mark Latham's exit (in the two months since, the primary vote gap has been cut from 18 points to two).
For Mr Howard, whose policies are continually subject to the tests of government, the potential impact is more complex. At this stage it is not so much voters but his own MPs that he must reassure if the Coalition is to implement its agenda, its most ambitious in four terms of government. The AgePoll follows a run of "bad news" stories for the Government: an interest rate rise, a slowing economy, record foreign debt, labour shortages and, in the background, persistently high petrol prices. Mr Howard said "bad economic numbers" had hurt, as had committing an extra 450 troops to Iraq - barely one in three Agepoll respondents endorse that decision. Opinion is divided on the Government's move to take in 20,000 more skilled migrants this year, which might dent its "strong on immigration" image. The Coalition already faces the challenge of persuading voters within the next 2½ years to accept unpopular policy, such as the sale of Telstra (even the Nationals are not fully persuaded), urgent but "dry" economic reforms and a historic shake-up of industrial relations. How much more of a test of nerve does this agenda become if the Coalition is challenged on economic management and national security, the foundations of its electoral success?
An unexpected Senate majority is already generating noisy anticipation in Government ranks and testing its renowned discipline. If bad polls persist, internal pressure will build for a retreat to populist policies, even though last year's blatant vote buying has regrettably set budget constraints on more far-sighted and productive options. Mr Howard is hinting he might yield to calls for tax cuts. (Disincentives for people who shift from welfare to work are another matter.) If leadership tension builds, the contest for MPs' support could further undermine essential but electorally difficult policy.
This early in its term, the Government ought to focus on productive long-term reforms and overdue investments in infrastructure, education and training. The only consistent message from opinion polls is that voters continually reassess performance and policy results, and the Coalition's latest results have been poor. Neither the Coalition nor Labor can take voters' support for granted, nor can anyone assume the last election set an immutable template for the politics of this term or the next one.
He should be sacked from the Libs. Fancy only making $4000 on an insider trading deal....
And I'd imagine that Howard is mightily relieved that there's a parliamentary recess just in time! Boy, is Senator Lightfoot on the nose!
Crikey! on Lightfoot:
Why can't Ross Lightfoot get his story straight?
By Crikey's political correspondent Christian Kerr
Someone is lying. And as the varying accounts stack up today, it's clear that either that someone is Senator Ross Lightfoot - or otherwise everyone else is lying.
Ross Lightfoot is "a walking disaster," according to a comment made by a Liberal colleague to the Sydney Morning Herald's Louise Dodson today. He says he's "a decent person" and has "done nothing wrong". That, presumably, is why he's given some of the most comprehensive answers to media questions since Senator Bill Heffernan ran down the corridor of the Press Gallery making chicken noises when pressed for details over his Michael Kirby allegations.
Just like Crikey's very own Noel Crichton-Brown, the Liberal Senator is a right wing death beast from the Wild West who made a motza in minerals and then devoted his life to public service - and branch stacking. Western Australian right wing Liberal death beasts were also involved in all the sleaze of the Wanneroo Council and mortgage broking scandals. Lightfoot has made his statement to the Senate (although he didn't do it in person and it was only tabled), so any contradictions in his media statements or today's newspaper reports, particularly about the money, must be errors.
Or are they? The prime minister told parliament yesterday "My party is composed of honourable men and women, and if those honourable men and women deny things, I don't intend to assume that those denials are untrue, Mr Speaker." He says Lightfoot's story is "credible".
That's a little different from "true". A century and a bit ago, Rudyard Kipling fictionalised the cloak and dagger activities on the fringes of the Raj and Araby, the intrigues between the British and the Tsar's agents, as 'The Great Game'. Lightfoot's playing games. He's either making up yarns as good as Kipling's or telling lies.
Here's Lightfoot on AM yesterday:The Herald Sun's Nick Butterly is little blunter in his account today: This is what Lightfoot's statement to the Senate said yesterday:
"I did not take US$20,000 in cash with me to Iraq. The only money I took with me was US$1,000 of my own money for personal expenses. I have a receipt. At no stage have I ever received nor have I carried, nor have I given to the Kurdish Regional Government or the PUK or any agent or officer thereof US$20,000."
When did we last have Senate shenanigans like this? Someone's either lying or someone's got things very wrong. It's such a pity that the story broke on the last sitting day of the autumn session - and that very few witnesses will probably ever make the trip from Kurdistan to Canberra for the inevitable Senate committee inquiry, as there are so many questions.
hingehead wrote:Ay - one of my great unsung heroes was the senior Canadian official who had to fall on their sword after calling Bush a F***ing moron in public. Everyone thinks it but precious few say it.
I might be wrong because it could be that a public (civil) servant had to stand down due to those comments but I believe former Liberal MP (now Independent) Carolyn Parrish got some heat from PM Paul Martin a couple of times before she quit when she had a say on Bush. In years to come those who have been pilloried for telling the truth will be admired. In the meantime they have to suffer calumny.
http://www.carolynparrish.parl.gc.ca/
As for our lot here in Oz. Give me a break. This Lightfoot story is just another example of how bereft our Government - and dare I say it - our federal Parliament - is of decency. I am close to despair at their behaviour. They are a threat to democracy because if democracy gives us clowns like this we should be looking for an alternative.
