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so i herd you liek Ruddkipz

Shaman wrote:Vote goes to the Ranga.

Really? One of the people responsible for everything you just listed?

The liberals would happily do all those things aswell I believe + Abbott is repulsive. Therefore Ranga.

EDIT Just had a look at Bolts blog.. Its actually engaging I am shocked. Thanks for pointing it out.

Bolts blog also rips into the stupid decisions of the liberals.

he's always pointing out their bad moves and stupid decisions.

But he loathes Rudd with the burning fire of a million suns.

he's been saying for months he thinks Gillard would do a better job.

He also put up on his blog Rudd would be outed within 4 weeks, 3 weeks and 4 days before he stood down. He's chuffed at that.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Again agree 100%.

Independents can be swayed with negotiations on their pet projects (I'm talking senate here), like Xenaphon getting a heap of cash for SA when the national water negotiations were on.

Xenaphon is pretty cool. If I was in SA (god bless I'm not ) I'd vote for him. Sure he was out for his own voters when he angled to get the money for SA water negotiations, but it was money that needed to go there. He's provided a sane voice in a lot of other matters, going after the Scientologists was awesome.

But the greens are just plain nuts and refuse to vote on anything.

the reason the ETS failed is not the coalition didn't want it. It was because the greens refused to vote for it, even though it did what they wanted. But yet again it just wasn't far enough.

Yep. Well, the coup from the lunatic right of the Liberals didn't help, but ETS still could have passed if the Green's had supported it.

I forsee a blow to the Greens when Bob Brown goes, and they'll struggle to recover, he is the Greens.

Or possibly it'll allow the Greens to reform themselves as a genuine third party and left wing presence in the Senate, instead of the home of an idealistic protest vote that produces nothing but Senate dead weight.

People vote for them as a protest vs the 2 main parties. But all they do is give their vote to a party that will never be in power to do anything good for the country.

I miss the Democrats.


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H.B.M.C. wrote:Well... I hope the election is called soon so we can get this over and get the coalition back in power.

Well, sure, except that Abbott is a hypocrtical pratt, who offers nothing but an overtly aggressive opposition to Labor. Which is good and well for getting the conservative ideologues fired up, but really very bad when it comes to running the country.

So much of what's happening is of their own design and the Australian public would be downright foolish to assume that Gillard had nothing to do with the mistakes. They weren't called the 'Gang of 4' for the fun of it - Tanner, Swan, Russ and Gillard were the ones who created this mess. Her in charge may be a new coat of paint, but it's the same colour paint...

Maybe, it's been hard to tell how far reaching Rudd's control was. There's certainly a lot of media talk about how little say the various minister's had in the major policy decisions of their own departments - and evidence coming out of the education infrastructure spend and the pinkbats debacle supports this. The speed with which Rudd was ousted as soon as his polling numbers were down is more evidence.

Gillards got 3 to 6 months to establish that she is in fact a compentant administrator, and the problems were RUdd's making, not of Labor as a whole.


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H.B.M.C. wrote:A vote for Greens is a proxy vote for Labour (Labour are left wing, Greens are just more left-wing - same thing in the end, you just have to tilt your head a bit more).

Ummm, one of the most significant features of the Rudd government has been the inability to get Green support for Labor policies in the Senate. This is a whole other kind of problem, but very different to the one you're describing.

sebster wrote:it's been hard to tell how far reaching Rudd's control was.

The man never had a power base (made evident by how swiftly they killed him off), and thus needed the other three members of his gang to get things done. No amount of spin will take away from the fact that Gillard is responsible or involved in every failed/floundering/wasteful/useless initiative the government has attempted over the past two and a half years. The only one responsible? No, not at all, and it would be unfair to blame just her. In stead the blame should be shared between all involved - the gang of 4 specifically - and the others that went with them.

To say it again, this isn't meant at a dig at Gillard, or even at Rudd, as I think singling either of them out as a 'source of trouble' is idiotic because their parties are more than just single people. All of them share the responsibility for their failures, which is why Gillard's 'taking responsibility' in her speech was so galling. She cannot 'take' something she already had.

sebster wrote:Ummm, one of the most significant features of the Rudd government has been the inability to get Green support for Labor policies in the Senate. This is a whole other kind of problem, but very different to the one you're describing.

Yes, because, as I said, Labour is left, Green is more left. They're both left, but disagree on how far to lean, so while the Coalition doesn't support Labour because they're leaning in the opposite direction to them, the Greens don't support Labour because, to them, they're not leaning left far enough.

Why do people want this ETS thing.. Its just a tax that will raise prices.

Because people (collectively) are stupid, and will believe anything the media tells them. You go on about climate change long enough and everyone begins to believe you.

And that's not a judgement on climate change, more the fact that no debate is allowed ('Delay is denial', 'The science is settled') and how because of that we get impassioned emotional responses to climate change rather than reasoned debate and practical responses to it.