Weekly thought piece 4: Upcoming elections

Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:08 pm

So lets have a look at Saturdays results. Ha. I mean....

The results are :

ALP 52
LIB 20
NAT 13
IND 5
In doubt 3

So a resounding win. It should also be remembered that in penrith there was a swing towards the ALP of 6% which was a shock as we thought we might lose it. parramatta also picked up a +.6 swing when we thought we would lose about 2%. The people have spoken. They want ALP to govern.

I shall also add this random bit of information,

The Howard government continues to ride on the current wave of economic prosperity - with commodity prices at historic highs[1], company profits booming, share prices soaring, and labour input costs at an historic low. But Australia's current skills crisis is threatening to wipe us out. Teachers, nurses, doctors, and tradespeople are all in short supply.

These shortages will continue to be a drag on productivity and growth. Following average annual economic growth of 3.5% in the 1990s and productivity growth of over 2% per annum, GDP has fallen to around 2% in 2004-05 and productivity growth is in reverse at -0.8% for the year ended June 2005.

We are spending the extra national income generated from high commodity prices. Current account deficits have rocketed to over 6% of GDP and the Howard government's net foreign debt - at 50%t of GDP - is at record levels.

But what happens once commodity prices fall? The Howard government has turned Australia into a one-trick-pony economy

The IMF has warned Australia that it needs to regain its record productivity growth performance of the 1990s just to maintain, let alone increase, income per capita.[2] Without that, Australians will need to exert significantly more perspiration than inspiration in order to sustain growth.

In the face of Australia's ageing population, skills and education hold the key to future prosperity because they have the capacity to raise productivity and family incomes. In my recent address to the Sydney Institute, I said investment in education as human capital should be a key policy priority for every tier of government. Australia has been unique among advanced economies in allowing public education spending as a share of national income to fall. [3]

How do we raise Australia's skills and education performance? It is absolutely essential to know and understand the workforce. You cannot ignore those in the community who are in the business of service provision and who deliver skills in the economy. That means the States, unions, business, our schools and workplaces. They hold the keys to unlocking the productivity dividend.

The Howard government talks the rhetoric of a skills-based economy but engages in window dressing policy. It holds inquiries rather than taking decisions in Australia's longer term economic interest. The government's policy focus is politically driven and short term. It is self-absorbed, squarely election-focused and narrowly defined. Its preoccupation with industrial relations betrays this. Its economic agenda needs to be seen through this prism.

The Howard government has cut the States out of the policy process. The result is a mismatch in the supply of training with demand because the States differ in their current and projected skills shortages. For example, in WA, with its younger demographic, mining engineers are more urgently required than aged care workers. In South Australia and Tasmania, it is the reverse.[4] In Victoria, manufacturing skills are required. The policy challenge therefore is to address each skills shortage by supporting State-based initiatives that can be extrapolated across the country as best practice.

It is the interrelationships between governments, institutions, companies and unions, combined with lessons learned and a fresh approach that can lead to successful skills development. That, by and large, occurs at the decentralised and local level. From Peel in Western Australia to Blacktown in New South Wales, Northland in Victoria and Coorparoo in Queensland, there are real examples of secondary colleges offering vocational opportunities to students often in partnership with TAFE and Universities in cooperation with state authorities, business and the local community.

Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 10:54 pm

I could have told you two weeks ago that:
1. Labor would win
2. Most people are fucking idiots

However, interesting fact: Labor received less than 40% of the primary vote. So have the people really spoken? No.

And please quote the source of that empty biased bullshit. Some Labor supporting / representative dickhead no doubt made that one sided vague speech.

Do you know what foreign debt is or know what it is in comparison to national debt? Of course you don't (you'll probably go google it now), but all you have been told is "foreign debt = bad and under Howard, foreign debt is high".

Open your fucking eyes for christ sake. All this "we won" bullshit clearly shows you a blind Labor following peon that is a total sucker for their socialist propaganda. Foreign debt is engaged by private enterprise and happens as a result of a lack of domestic funding existing to fund projects such as the fucktard cross city tunnel that Labor built (yay, i can get from double bay to the fish markets in 6 mins instead of 12). Current economic thought in relation to this "problem" flows in a similar vain to the CAD. i.e. is it reallt the government's problem to fix?

The largets productivity gains we have seen in years occured in the mid to late 90's (under Howard) and were the result of de-unionisation and deregulation of the workplace. A perfect example of it was the Patrick's Stevedoring fiasco years ago, where "scabs" were hired who worked on a contract base and almost doubled productivity vs their unionised counterparts.

Labor can fuck off. Get a policy instead of complaining about everything and swinging the bat at the bleeding heart angle.

You are still yet to meet my challenge re: coming up with a single policy. Why? Because Labor just churns out shitbag speeches like the above that are all talk and no action (which is probably fortunate because the consequences of any of their actions would likely be disastorous).

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 3:29 pm

Actually the speech is from one of my friends. He is a union official and an ALP branch president. He is more than happy to discuss the finer point of your diatribe so he can get a better understanding of the liberal economic model. Perhaps you can also explain why we have to trample workers rights and slash wages so company CEO's can walk away with multi-million dollar paychecks. Or why the economic model has created a working poor where people although employed are too poor to meet any other financial responsibilities other than their mortgages. Perhaps you can explain that if AWA's are so good why has the government conceded that nurses should not be subjected to them as they would have an adverse affect on there employment conditions. perhaps you can explain why the federal workplace relations minister orders the owner of tri-star to sack staff and put them on AWA's so they will be easier to get rid of in the future. Perhaps he can also explain why in a recent poll 79% of Australians think they are worse off under work choices, or that if current polls are correct the ALP will win in a federal landslide. Or perhaps he can elaborate that although the ALP only got a little over 40% of the primary vote the liberals received less than 30% why do we not deserve to be in government. And if the argument is that people are stupid then it truly shows what utter contempt that liberals have for the people who contribute to this great nation. They include doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and the police, are they stupid because there relevant unions have fought hard to fight work choices. Sooner or later the commodities boom will end. We need to begin nation building for the future. We don't need to cut education funding by 38% as the liberals have done. Cuts in TAFE, cuts in infrastructure, cuts in defense and the list goes on. The coalition ship is sinking fast. We are the natural government, we don't need to form coalitions to survive. We will be in government before the end of the year.

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 12:15 am

Yeah like i said - biased ALP propaganda.

Get him to sign up here, I'm happy to argue with the guy, because he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Firstly, under a Labor govt, CEO's will still earn what they earn - they arent on collective agreements anyway, you idiot. The extremely high wealth individuals of this country are only marginally affected by change of government. The reason why they support Liberal governments is generally due to the fact that Liberal governments support deregulation, which facilitates free market economy, which is BETTER for business growth. The people hit hardest by changes in government are the middle class. The working class is always tax advantaged - its just a matter of to what extent they are. Middle class Australians cop full force of the tax rates (consdering how fucking low the high tax rates kick in) and have the least flexibility to minimise tax through financial planning and tax efficient investment.

As for the "working poor", fuck off. We don't have "working poor". "Working poor" is defined as minimum wages not being sufficient to meet acceptable living standards. I don't have the details of what is classified as minimum standards of living, but it is based on an index of what is required for minimum living standards (i.e. cost per wk etc). It is a FACT that we don't have a "working poor" - we have poor people, sure, but that's entirely different.

The point is not what the Liberal government got in primary vote either - Labor got LESS than 40% (not more). My argument was against you saying "the people have spoken" - and they had - less than 40% wanted to see Labor in power. Argument over.

I've never met anyone so completely ignorant to absolutely everything about politics as you, that continues to argue about it so poorly and as if you prove something every time you lay finger to keyboard. The government DID NOT admit that the AWA's would disadvantage nurses. Now you are just making shit up. What I assume you are referring to is the "contradiction" that pin-head Jillian Gillard tried to pick up in Victoria.

FYI: The Liberal opposiiton in Victoria said they would not force nurses onto AWA's and gave them the option of having a collective agreement. Apparently this was a contradiction between State and Federal Liberal policy, per the red-headed dickwad Jillian Gillard.

However, it was just her being entirely ignorant to the fact that AWA's are optional. People still have the choice to negotiate collectively. However if people choose to negotiate individually, then they can under work choices. That is, there is an option to be on an AWA. So the fact that the Liberal government has introduced Work Choices, INCREASES employee options.

The only argument against it is for those less efficeint and less capable employees who are in a workplace whereby the majority of individuals decide to go for AWAs. But if you are so shit as to not be able to command your job, then why should the rest of the workplace suffer? Other blue collar workers should be on a less favourable collective agreement just so you can be an inefficient drain on the company? Ok, go tell the machinists and factory workers that their already "underpaid" "working poor" status is going to get worse, because even if they are good at their jobs, such that a few fat sloths who dont contribute to productivity can keep their jobs, all of them are going on a pretty average collective agreement.

79% of Australians (probably more) are just as ignorant as you. Labor caters towards arguing for the "working class" - i.e. the less educated, the masses etc. They spin shit at people who want to believe and people like you just blindly follow their crap because they dont even have the most basic knowledge of politics or what is happening at all.

Finally re: spending cuts, education funding cuts of 39% sound remarkably high, and i dont know the details on this (but if we continue to argue it, ill look it up). But given State governments (which are all Labor) look after the majority of education responsibilities, what the fuck have they done to compensate for this?? Stop whinging about the Liberals for a second, and have a think about what good Labor has actually done. I expect you will be hopelessly silent on this matter. It's the same for infrastructure. I've already told you what the State government's are responsible for and where I think the biggest infrastructure gaps are in this country ... perhaps you'd be kind enough to do the same re: what the Liberal's are doing wrong exactly, rather than making basless sweeping comments like "err, ahh, derrr, there are, errrr, derrrr, ahhh, gaps, ummmm.... in infrastructure funding!!!"