Who will defend this government?
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Floor Pie
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Don't you mean you don't want a Government?
Floor Pie
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You and Dan26 must be furious at the idea that the Coalition is trying to bring in legislation, that allow them to monitor your internet usage then?Having a government is fine. But it shouldn't be a contest to see how many new laws you can pass in 3 years.
Pages of legislation by year:
Right?
If I asked you to identify each piece of legislation passed by the last Government, and how it negatively affected you, or made your life harder, or added restrictions in general. Do you think you could?
I wouldn't ask, but you both know you couldn't anyway.
Basically this stance on wanting a Government to repeal everything, and hating a Government that passes legislation, is just rhetoric.
And if dan26 keeps posting, I'm going to need a new word. Because I'm already sick of "rhetoric".
pokerspiv
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I could, but I'm certainly not going to do it for every single piece of legislation passed by the last government, as I would be here for weeks. I'll just give you 3 examples that directly affected me:
1. Live Export Ban - my family are in the live export business
2. Alcopop Tax - I used to drink Jim Beam and Coke premixed cans, now I can no longer afford to
3. Duty Free changes, now you can only bring 2 packs of smokes back into the country, makes it harder to get cheap smokes.
Could go on all day but won't.
None of these changes were necessary and all represent excessive government intrusions into the lives of regular people. Why can't governments stick to law and order and national defense? I don't need Kevin Rudd to tell me what kinds of booze I can drink.
Correct. I'm not happy about that. As I said, I'm a principle person. I don't choose a side. I know you really WANT me to be shallow "side chooser" like left wingers usually are, but I can assure you I'm not.
No.
Limited government.
The federal government should do less, and pass down much of its power to the states. The federal government is distant; the states are closer to the people, so a state government should better be able to serve the people of, say, Victoria, than the federal government would those same people. Much of the power the Commonwealth has should be given back to the states.
There is no reason to have a taxpayer funded tv station. I'd privatise the ABC. There is no reason to have taxpayer funded marriage counselling for that matter. That's just ridiculous. Federal Governments should stick mainly to defence and law and order.
Gough
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Every one of those issues you have mentioned you are shitty about because it directly effects you. I want cheap ****, I want cheap booze. Libertarians, just a bunch whinging kids.
Edit - If you can't afford to drink premix cans because of the tax hike, I highly doubt that this government will be your friend.
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Borry
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Whinging about big government from shrill conservatives and shrill progressives is a load of crock.
Floor Pie
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Hahaha...
You're kidding right?
- Aug 16, 2006
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Could go on all day but won't, or can't actually think of anything else, so can't go any further? I mean it's not an extensive list you have there, and from memory two of those items of legislation have more or less bipartisan support.
Your question presupposes that people vote for governments because of the polices they intend to implement. In fact, many people vote for governments because of the polices they do not intend to implement.
Whilst I do think the current government have done a few good things, on the whole I do not think their policies are very good. In fact, on balance I'd say they haven't even met the fairly low bar of expectation I had for them prior to the election. But they are not proving to be particularly ambitious or effectual either, which suits me relatively well.
- Aug 16, 2006
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I'm curious - what specifically would you say are the good things they have done? And what is wrong or displeasing about an ambitious government?
Their border protection policy appears to have been effective. Their fast-tracking of the second Sydney airport is something that should have been done 30 years ago. The details of implementing Medicare copays and changes to higher education funding reform are debatable, but in an overall policy sense they are long-overdue reforms to unsustainable systems that no previous governments have had the guts to take on. Cutting subsidies to unsustainable local manufacturing was at this point in time probably a good one. Foreign policy in general has not been too bad. Scrapping the ineffectual and ideologically-driven carbon and mining taxes was a decent move. Axing a bunch of quangos is a good thing. Reducing spending on public transport isn't a bad idea, given how ineffective it is in Australia (although shifting the money to metro roads is a bit stupid).
I have no problem with ambition per se in politics but there is a time and a place for it. Most of the ambition in politics in recent years, on both sides, has been fairly ill-advised. Climate policy is all about emotion until China and the US get serious about it. The NDIS makes people feel fuzzy, but nobody knows how to pay for it with a moribund economy and shrinking tax revenues. Paid parental leave is a joke. The medical research fund is a mess.
If a government wants to be ambitious, be ambitious about slashing spending and fixing the structural deficit. About seriously reforming the tax system and slaying some sacred cows like negative gearing and middle class welfare. You know - the unglamourous, unpopular stuff that everyone knows has to be done but nobody wants the political flak that comes with it.
If nobody wants to do that then I'll settle for a government that doesn't really get a whole lot done. Which is mostly what we have now.
I have no problem with ambition per se in politics but there is a time and a place for it. Most of the ambition in politics in recent years, on both sides, has been fairly ill-advised. Climate policy is all about emotion until China and the US get serious about it. The NDIS makes people feel fuzzy, but nobody knows how to pay for it with a moribund economy and shrinking tax revenues. Paid parental leave is a joke. The medical research fund is a mess.
If a government wants to be ambitious, be ambitious about slashing spending and fixing the structural deficit. About seriously reforming the tax system and slaying some sacred cows like negative gearing and middle class welfare. You know - the unglamourous, unpopular stuff that everyone knows has to be done but nobody wants the political flak that comes with it.
If nobody wants to do that then I'll settle for a government that doesn't really get a whole lot done. Which is mostly what we have now.
I find your analogy to be utterly absurd. Libertarians are whingeing kids you say?
Libertarians and Conservatives advocate personal responsibility. We don't advocate handouts and a leg up being given to us from the government. Libertarians and conservatives believe in succeeding or failing based on your own choices, and not whingeing that it's somebody else's falt. Of course there is always the belief that government should help those that GENUINELY can't help themselves.
The real whingers are the lefties:
"awww, give me more handouts"
"awwww give me that childcare bonus I don't deserve that someone else is paying for"
" awwww pay my University education for me for free, so I can make a million dollars more over my working life than a non-university educated person"
"awww, you should apologise to minority group *X. *insert: women, aborigines, gay, muslim
"awww, you hurt someone else's feelings with your evil free speech. I'm insulted on their behalf, so you need to be silenced and charged by law"
"awww, give various companies taxpayer money, because the products they are making are things people don't want to buy. So, instead of going out of business and those people re-employed in other jobs that contribute to the economy, just giver those failing companies free money from taxpayers to save jobs that shouldn't exist in the first place. Waaaaa!"
"awwww, tax the rich more. It's not fair that the successful people who create all the jobs get to keep 53% of their money. They should only keep 40% of their money. Waaaa, it's not fair. I hate the rich. I'm so jealous!!! It's not fair!!! Waaaaaaaa!!!!"
"awww give me free health care. That $7 co-payment is too much. I can't afford $7. WAAAAAAAAA!!"
The whingers are always on the left, because they are the ones who complain whenever an entitlement (which should never have been given to them in the first place) is taken away. Look at the idiot socialists protesting about the proposed University changes as an example. Do you see right-wingers whingeing and protesting in the streets? No. IT'S ALWAYS THE LEFT.
I've never asked for a cash government entitlement in my life. And apart from Rudd's $900 stimulus, I've never received one, nor wanted one.
To suggest Libertarians are whingers is blatantly wrong, and shows a total lack of understanding of the left-right divide and and total lack of understanding of who the complainers "really" are.
The left ALWAYS whinge more because they are ALWAYS the ones asking for other people's money. Your analogy is insulting and blatantly wrong.
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- Aug 16, 2006
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The border protection policy I can no longer take seriously as it is clear that both sides are prepared to pander to the lowest common denominator on the issue and side step our obligations. If we were to be honest we would join countries like Nth Korea and Cuba and no longer be a signatory to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. That we spend a fortune on remaining a signatory while farming our obligation off to other countries is pathetic. If you want to be a politically honest whilst also being a true economic rationalist (or economic libertarian), you should just support taking our name from the list of signatories of this convention. This would be a truer reflection of the state of play.
Fast tracking a second Sydney airport is doodling in the margins. It is without any scale or original vision.
Whether you want to believe it or not, your opposition to the ‘ideological’ carbon and mining tax or funding structures for medicare and education, is itself ideological. Just as my entirely antithetical position to yours on the issue of such taxes is ideological. I suppose there is no point in us engaging in debate about it, as neither ideology is about to be swayed. I mean, your brand of neo-con, market driven libertarianism and my Libertarian Socialism are too ideologically different for us to waste the time.
Paid Parental leave as an idea and as legislation isn’t a 'joke', it's a reality of our contemporary post-feminist world. Though under the Coalition's model it is certainly a joke, as it is little more than a sad (and expensive) attempt to win woman voters while flying in the face of the LNP’s core beliefs. So agreed there.
Schemes like the NDIS are excellent, overdue, and precisely what a government should aim to achieve – namely, supporting those who can’t support themselves, and judging the success of a society by the lives of those most vulnerable. It is certainly affordable if we did away with the Coalition’s now institutionalized pork barreling of middle class welfare, and actually made high-income earners carry a proportionate load. (It should also be mentioned that the NDIS was far from a 'glamorous' issue/piece of legislation, and that Gillard chose her battles and prioritized it over 'glamorous' issues like gay marriage).
You bring up the issue of deficit in an off-hand manner, yet this is a complicated economic issue. Saying, as the Coalition do, that we have a ‘budget emergency’ simply due to deficit is simplistic. The success of this line of persuasion depends on the ignorance of the electorate. This is ignorance the Coalition - to pay them their dues - always understand as a given characteristic of the Australian voting public. Labor, on the other hand, makes the mistake of over-estimating the electorate.
Doing something of actual value about climate change isn’t just ‘feel good’, wish-washy politics: it’s a major issue of the 21st century, and will continue to be so. It’s odd, IMO, that you give a pass mark to a government that has a reactionary policy in place that will cost us a fortune to do absolutely nothing to deal with the issue at hand. What did Shakespeare say about madness building its house? Why isn’t the Coalition honest on this? Why not simply say they will do nothing, as they don’t believe Climate Change to be an issue? Why are the government prepared to spend a small fortune for the simple reason they are hedging bets on a ‘hot issue’?
But in sum, a decided ‘yes’: if as a matter of principal you are happy with a government who doesn’t do or change much and who has no real vision, then you are a conservative by definition who would be happy with this government. Of course that is fine, and good for you.
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This has nothing to do with what I said. My feelings on refugee policy aside (and I have been extremely critical of Operation Sovereign Borders), the government's policy appears to be achieving what both sides have been trying to achieve for the better part of a decade.
Hugely ignorant statement coming from someone who lives in Sydney. It's one of the most significant, important and overdue economic projects for our most populous state in more than half a century.
Nope, merely practical. Regardless of your stance on stopping climate change and taxing mining companies, both were terrible and ineffectual policy. The former because it ignored the geopolitical environment and the latter because it was bastardised legislation.
It's a waste of public money that doesn't achieve any of its purported productivity outcomes. If anything, the money should be spent on the childcare sector.
Sauce?
I did not say that. I said that it is better to have a government that achieves little, to one that has many ill-advised achievements.
The last government had many good ideas and no real conception of how to implement them. The result was a lot of bad legislation being passed with wide-ranging effects. Whilst I do not buy into the hyperbole about them destroying the country, I would have preferred six years of nothing rather than the mess they ultimately foisted upon us.
If Labor had aimed for being a three term government, I think they would have done much better. Let Rudd have his full first term and hang himself, replace him uncontroversially after he decimated their majority in 2010, consolidate under Gillard for three years to recover from the GFC and right now, they might be in a position to pass some solid well-considered reforms. It always seemed to me that they always lacked the conviction they'd be around for long, and as such rushed into a bunch of half-baked policy. The result was inevitable.
The current government certainly lacks the grand vision that Labor had. But perhaps they are just more aware of their limitations? It's not particularly sexy, but to me it's preferable. Government isn't under-9s footy. When you're messing around with people's lives, you don't get points for effort - as the OP seems to imply.
A grown up re-enters the building. Quelle horreur.
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Apologies in advance for not breaking your post down into quotes, I find that method too fiddly for some reason....
Carbon emission dived under the Carbon Tax, which was essentially the goal, and this occurred without the predicted doom. I’d call that a success. As you know, The Coalition – ‘grown up’ party of measure and integrity that it is – supported the exact same policy until it was no longer politically expedient to do so. In government they have offered up a policy instead that will do nothing to reduce emissions and cost an estimated $40 billion by 2020.
I imagine scraping that red herring of a policy and banking the $40 billion would go a long way toward funding something like the NDIS, as would already mentioned changes to progressive income tax. So might have revenue from the RSPT, an excellent and perfectly reasonable tax IMO that sadly could never get passed the vested interests of a partisan media scare campaign. This left us with the MRRT, which I agree is a useless compromise.
Agreed also that the second airport is needed, but it’s an obvious, vaguely populist idea – hardly visionary.
I don’t agree that the last Labor government had no real conception on how implement its ideas, or that a lot of bad legislation was passed. The latter especially is really a matter of perception and personal politics. I basically agree with legislation like the NDIS, Gonski Reforms, the Carbon Tax, Paid Parental Leave, NBN, etc,. You don’t, I guess. Fair enough.
It is true that the last Labor government had a ‘rushed air’ about it. Like past Labor governments – I suspect most reform Parties in power – there seems to be a sense of haste, borne perhaps from a back-log of desired changes and a sense the clock is ticking. I imagine this is because it’s harder and riskier to reform than to conserve. Haste seems to have characterized the Whitlam government also. Less so Hawke/Keating, though they enjoyed bipartisan support on some key pieces of (economic) reform. Agree also that a more long-term game plan – with Rudd getting the axe after the 10 election – would have been better.
You say you don’t buy into the hyperbole about Labor destroying the country, but then say that they have foisted a mess upon us, and compare their time in government to playing under 9s football. Sounds to me like you have actually bought into the hyperbole.
FWIW, this government has broken more election promises – or ‘pledges’, as they like to call them – in a year than Labor did in two terms. It has foisted on to Australian’s an unexpected and completely ideological budget. It’s worth mentioning too that it’s performance in foreign affairs has been middling, while Labors was actually very good (though needless to say it was rarely, if ever, given credit for that). The government is now, it seems, trying to milk international concerns over IS to sure up bad polls. I'd say reasons such as these are what makes this government difficult to defend, not the lack of a sexy vision innate to a conservative political stance.
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Are you really claiming causation between carbon emissions decreases and the carbon tax?
NDIS unfunded, Gonski unfunded, carbon tax ignored the economics of globalisation, paid parental leave a waste of money that achieved nothing, NBN a logistical disaster. All nice ideas that completely fell over in the implementation, resulting in the aforementioned mess.
My point about the under nines reference was with reference to the thread topic - governments don't get points for trying really hard and having good intentions. There's more to judging a government than how attractive their polices are, and sometimes the parties with the best policies are the worst governments.
NDIS unfunded, Gonski unfunded, carbon tax ignored the economics of globalisation, paid parental leave a waste of money that achieved nothing, NBN a logistical disaster. All nice ideas that completely fell over in the implementation, resulting in the aforementioned mess.
My point about the under nines reference was with reference to the thread topic - governments don't get points for trying really hard and having good intentions. There's more to judging a government than how attractive their polices are, and sometimes the parties with the best policies are the worst governments.
- Aug 16, 2006
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Well emissions from the power sector fell each quarter since the Carbon tax was introduced. Yet we will never get the full picture, will we, as it was prematurely scrapped. And yes, best not take the initiative on pricing carbon or an emissions trading scheme until all the industrialized world has come to a consensus and decided in unison to move to a low carbon economy. Why be an industry leader? FWIW If you think the issue of carbon pricing is dead to global politics then I'd say you are sorely wrong.
I'd agree that things like the Gonski Reforms, the NDIS, and PPL are expensive items that would certainly widen structural deficit. Not all may be fundable. However, it comes back to the fairly simple issue of either fewer or less ambitious social/government services or higher taxes. I support the latter (both higher company and personal income tax). That we can view all of these schemes as unfundable, yet casually watch 'miners' blow a cool 22 million in 6 weeks on a campaign to thwart the RSPT (which would have funded numerous social services and increase quality of later life via super increase) is just pathetic. But best be off and leave you too our 'budget emergency'.
I'd agree that things like the Gonski Reforms, the NDIS, and PPL are expensive items that would certainly widen structural deficit. Not all may be fundable. However, it comes back to the fairly simple issue of either fewer or less ambitious social/government services or higher taxes. I support the latter (both higher company and personal income tax). That we can view all of these schemes as unfundable, yet casually watch 'miners' blow a cool 22 million in 6 weeks on a campaign to thwart the RSPT (which would have funded numerous social services and increase quality of later life via super increase) is just pathetic. But best be off and leave you too our 'budget emergency'.
So, in summary, the best that we can hope for from this government is...
NOTHING.
NOTHING.
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