Liberal or Labor and why?

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ACV

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Jan 15, 2002
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With an election for some of us in Victoria looming and one just gone in SA i was wondering who people vote for (liberal/labor/other/swinging voter) and more importantly why they vote for them.

Personally i vote liberal note because i particularly agree with their policies or actions but because at times i see the Australian Labor Party as virtually a euphamsim for the trade union movement. And i have serious problems with the ethos of Unions, both the actual and suppossed. And i could never bring myself to vote for a party like the democrates because their policies, most of the time, are so rediculous they defy belief




I realise that this has probably been done many times before and probably degenerates into a political debate but its not designed to be that i'm more interested in the reasons that people vote the way that they do.
 

Ruddeger

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Dec 14, 2001
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Liberal because they lowered the highest marginal income tax rate, which my dad falls into, and which I plan to be riding on the coattails of until 2006 at least.
 

1AD

Team Captain
May 16, 2001
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Don't forget any Government that takes $2.3 Billion out of the Health budget and gives just over half that backin the form of a rebate to the wealthiest 20% of the country (Australian 13/2/01) has my vote.;)

Three cheers for our Prime Miniture.....Hip Hip...Come on Fodo ...Louder
 

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RacerX

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Mar 25, 2001
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Originally posted by Bloodstained Angel
with regard to state elctions

I write ABOLISH THE STATES on my ballot paper every single time.

State Goverments are a complete and total waste of time and space.

cheers

Well thats all well and good if you live on the eastern seaboard. I don't think you would feel that way if you lived in WA
 
Jan 11, 2002
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Originally posted by RacerX


Well thats all well and good if you live on the eastern seaboard. I don't think you would feel that way if you lived in WA

Actually the idea is not as stupid as it sounds........check out the book by Rodney Hall called Abolish The States pucliched in 1998.

Rodney's essential thesis is that we are the most overgoverned Western Democracy. We have one politician for every 930 Electors whereas the United Kingdom has one politician for some 22,000 Electors.

We have 6 States, 2 Territories and 704 Local Government Areas.

Given that we have merely 11.5 million electors out of a general population of 18.5 million it prompts us to question just how we are presently governing ourselves AND just how we could begin to govern ourselves better.

Many respected observers, Rodney Hall et al, believe we could save up to $30 billion per annum if we amalgamated all 6 States, 2 Territories and 704 Local Government Areas and then divided the whole up into just 30 autonomous regions.


It is very interesting reading - one health system, one education system, one set of national laws etc etc........kind of makes sense so will probably never happen and I can't imagine too many pollies voting themselves out of a job. Maybe we will soon see in SA with the Alliance between Labor and the ex Liberal Independant who has made some demands that must be met.


another site with interesting links about abolishing the states is at [url]http://www.geocities.com/davidbofinger/asc.htm[/URL]


I'm not saying this system of government would be perfect - but then is our current one ????
 

barry

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Sep 7, 2001
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Originally posted by dreamkillers


Actually the idea is not as stupid as it sounds........check out the book by Rodney Hall called Abolish The States pucliched in 1998.

Rodney's essential thesis is that we are the most overgoverned Western Democracy. We have one politician for every 930 Electors whereas the United Kingdom has one politician for some 22,000 Electors.

We have 6 States, 2 Territories and 704 Local Government Areas.

Given that we have merely 11.5 million electors out of a general population of 18.5 million it prompts us to question just how we are presently governing ourselves AND just how we could begin to govern ourselves better.

Many respected observers, Rodney Hall et al, believe we could save up to $30 billion per annum if we amalgamated all 6 States, 2 Territories and 704 Local Government Areas and then divided the whole up into just 30 autonomous regions.


It is very interesting reading - one health system, one education system, one set of national laws etc etc........kind of makes sense so will probably never happen and I can't imagine too many pollies voting themselves out of a job. Maybe we will soon see in SA with the Alliance between Labor and the ex Liberal Independant who has made some demands that must be met.


another site with interesting links about abolishing the states is at [url]http://www.geocities.com/davidbofinger/asc.htm[/URL]


I'm not saying this system of government would be perfect - but then is our current one ????

Its a very smart idea (30 regions) as what do Brisbane and Cairns have in common, or Alice Springs and Darwin.
There are some movements in this. Sydney councils are merging and becoming less, but bigger entities. And the ACT now has a "state" parliment, as does the NT.
Whether these are heading in the right direction, or making it worse is debatable. Probably worse.
 

Frodo

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Because it is a state election and I live a few thousand kilometres from Victoria I don't know the issues so it is difficult to comment. Over here in WA Labour had a good platform including 'one person one vote' which was good. Their negatives were trade union control. Liberals had done well as incumbents but were seen to be arrogant and out of touch.....time for a change.
Labour won and as predicted union power dominates WA. 'No ticket no start' is rife and industrial confontation is on the up. Labour broke many promises such as no new taxes or tax increases and has poured money into big issues like homosexual rights. In short, voting for Labour has meant voting for liars and duds.

But that doesn't mean that in Victoria they are different, it's all down to people.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For me I would prefer to WA to declare UDI. We are far to far away to be governed by Canberra.
 
Oct 17, 2000
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From my understanding, the federal government has NO power under the constitution to summarily abolish the states. Abolishing the states would require at least a plebisite in all states (that was approved by both Houses of State Parliament in some states) , plus a national referendum to change various sections of the Australian Constititution, in particular Sections 107 and 108.

As Australia is a Federation of states, in the same way as Canada and Switzerland are, I find it difficult to understand how a State Parliament and its people would vote themselves out of existance. Some state governments and their populations would prefer to leave the Federation!

Personally I'd prefer the removal of states and a two tier governmental system over Australia removing its current system of constitutional maonarchy and becoming a republic. UInfortunately in my opinion Australia is more likely to become a republic than change to a two tier domestic governmental system.
 

Sydneyfan

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Abolishing the States sounds like quite a sensible idea, I don't know if it will ever happen though. There always seems to be disquiet in some region or State in regards to the current setup. Queensland and Western Australia in the past have threatened to secede, North Queensland and the New England region of NSW have threatened to form new States, Broken Hill (about 1500kms from Sydney & only 400 or so from Adelaide) consider themselves South Australians and would much rather be part of SA, the rivalry between North and South Tasmania are just some examples of disharmony.

The link mentioned Albury-Wodonga and the merging of their respectively local councils which sounds like a sensible move, hopefully more moves like this will occur in the future.

Only question is if we abolished the States, how large and how many second tier councils would we have in Australia?
 

RoosLuver

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Jan 30, 2002
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Labor, cause i have never liked Johnnie and what he has done from the start of his "reign" to today. Another reason why I like Labor is because Simon Crean is our number 1 ticket holder!
 
Disillusioned former Labor voter. They have lost me with their 'touchy feely reconciliation hug a reffo hippy' style. Could never bring myself to vote Liberal, especially after Howard took our guns away. Make voting non-compulsory and see what kind of a roll out they get - give us someone/something worth voting for, for once.
 
Jan 11, 2002
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Originally posted by NakedDeadGuy
Disillusioned former Labor voter. They have lost me with their 'touchy feely reconciliation hug a reffo hippy' style. Could never bring myself to vote Liberal, especially after Howard took our guns away. Make voting non-compulsory and see what kind of a roll out they get - give us someone/something worth voting for, for once.

I could never support non-compulsory voting for the following 2 reasons:-

1. Look at the money spent by pollies in the US to convince you to vote for them......surely that money could be better spent elsewhere like on real issues

2. and more importantly with a largely apathetic population in this country it would mean more radical parties like One Nation & Nazi style groups would actually win more seats.......

Although I do believe it would also help the green vote in this country which isn't a bad thing it's the prospect of too many deals to be done between parties to actually govern the country.......
 

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Goldenblue

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Swinging Voter.

Always have been and I vote for the party with the best policies to suit me and my family.

Labor may have the trade unionists as a problem, but the Liberals do pander to big business too. Apart from that, both parties are similar, full of liars and deceits and only out there to hold onto the power they abuse (IE: Libs lies about boat people).

Liberals may be better for the economy, but they are not good for my personal economy. Since Howard has come in, its been more of a struggle to pay the bills thanks to his GST. The GST is good for goods, but its services that kills it. Think of the amount of GST paid on phone, electricity per year, it adds up.

Labor I think are too busy pandering to minority groups that dont mean much to us as a country. For example, the new homosexual bill that is here in WA is eager to be passed because Labor want the one vote, one value system in and need the support of the greens to get it through. Of course, a senior member of the greens is a lesbian, and wants those reforms, so its scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

Liberals want to sell the rest of Telstra and I think thats bad news to the country. Telstra is the king of greed and imagine having to pay for timed calls if it is sold off completely. While it is still partly owned by the people of Australia (Not the govt) we still have a voice about Telstra in the ballot box.

The Democrats are a lost plot, they have not a clue. The greens are single minded and have no other policies.

Personally, I think all pollies are not worth pi**ing on.
 

Collo

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Nov 10, 2001
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1984

How appropriate, DCFC's post number for that post writing off capatalism as a sham was his 1984th post. I wont undermine your collective intelligence by ranting and raving about what a good book 1984 is. ;)
 

Bloodstained Angel

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Mar 21, 2000
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Well once upon a time there was sufficent differences between Labor and Liberal to make the thinking voter consider their choices according to what one believed was best for the country as a whole at that particular time.

Vote Liberal to get the books back into the black and to keep your income taxes down.

Vote ALP for reform, social justice and warm fuzzy rhetoric.

For example - 1972 was a shoe-in for the ALP because Australian society and culture had badly atrophied after 23 years of conservative rule and a social, economic and political reform agenda was badly overdue. The electorate recognised that the ALP were the party to deliver those reforms.

Like wise a Liberal Victory in 1996 was another shoe-in. The Keating ALP government had run the budget badly into debt and many of its spending programs were seen as wasteful and indulgent. Despite misgivings about John Howard, the Liberals won easily on a promise to wind back spending, balance the budget and stop throwing money at vocal minority groups.

But now its all gone topsy turvey

This present Liberal Government is in fact the biggest taxing and biggest spending government in Australian history (yep- even more fiscally irresponsible than Whitlam was )

... and the ALP has comprehensively failed to articulate any kind of coherent social-democratic policy platform at all. All they seem to be saying these days is "we are tougher on boat people than the government is" (read it another way - "we are more conservative than the conservatives') - big deal, I'm waiting for the Light on the Hill, not a bunch spineless political whores.

cheers
 

Grendel

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Jan 23, 2000
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Originally posted by Bloodstained Angel
with regard to state elctions

I write ABOLISH THE STATES on my ballot paper every single time.

State Goverments are a complete and total waste of time and space.

cheers

Now we know why your not in politics. You make to much damn good sense! :)
 
Originally posted by NakedDeadGuy
Disillusioned former Labor voter. They have lost me with their 'touchy feely reconciliation hug a reffo hippy' style. Could never bring myself to vote Liberal, especially after Howard took our guns away.

I'm a disillusioned Liberal voter. Howard lost me with his social conservatism and, to a lesser extent, the GST (not so much the philosophy, but the implementation, the ridiculous marginal tax rates, and the lack of indexation of those marginal ratesm :mad: ). But I could never bring myself to vote ALP under Kim Beazley because I was never sure of what he actually stood for. The jury is still out on Crean.
 

Maggie Greg

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Originally posted by Bloodstained Angel


This present Liberal Government is in fact the biggest taxing and biggest spending government in Australian history (yep- even more fiscally irresponsible than Whitlam was )

cheers

I was a Whitlam fan but the Libs havent created a 17% inflation rate nor have did they ruin the textile industry by cutting tariff rates 25% in one massive hit. Nor do they have such fiscal luminaries such as Jim Cairns Rex Connor Frank Crean and Lance Bernard.
 

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