Gillard vs Abbott - Who will you vote for? POLL

[Eriny]

I voted on Friday. Yay for not being in the state! P.S. I filtered Conroy (somewhat - I still preferenced him above One Nation and Family First)

Vote below the line, kids. There's only 60 little squares to fill out and you avoid crazy party preferences that are sucky and difficult to find.

[Eriny]

Also:

"    Deficit fetishism never makes sense – the national debt is only one side of a country’s balance sheet. Cutting back on high-return investments (like education, infrastructure, and technology) just to reduce the deficit is truly foolish... Indeed, if one is concerned with a country’s long-run debt, as one should be, such deficit fetishism is particularly silly, since the higher growth resulting from these public investments will generate more tax revenues. ...

    Citizens should consider the legacy they leave to their children... It is two-faced to claim to care about the future and then fail to ... leave our children without adequate infrastructure and the other public investments needed to be competitive in the twenty-first century. "

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/08/stiglitz-the-crisis-down-under.html

[ninwa]

panda says Greens ftw

[TrueLight]

NBN
http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2010/08/11/broadband-innovation-and-the-nbn/

agree with this

and agree with Tim R comments in that blog

"Yeah you see this phenomena everywhere in political issues.
People seem to assume that the government is a metaphysically given and forget it’s man-made. People are unwilling to perform the abstract thinking necessary to even consider the proper role of government and to understand the need for scaling back government intrusion. To most people, it’s incomprehensible to think of privitising health or education for example. For most people, it’s perfectly OK for governments to be giving rebates left right and centre, stimulating packages, heavily regulating or owning infrastructure and messing up our internet! etc etc

Just today, I read another comment by some moron in the paper saying the last decade had proved that “capitalism has failed”!??!? Idiots like Rudd and the clowns at Per Capita push the same false argument. But note that they get away with it! Personally I’d be embarassed because saying capitalism has failed is the intellectual equivalent of tatooing “I’m an idiot” onto your forehead. I would bet the people who make these empty assertions couldn’t even define the concept capitalism. Many of these people are probably so intellectually stunted that they are beyond reasoning with, especially if they are too old to care about seriously examining their ideological beliefs.
This comment shows just how prevalent ignorance and inability to think are in our society, especially when it comes to politics.

What the world needs in politics, is a widespread discovery and acceptance of the principle of individual rights and the principle of non-initiation of force.
The Liberals certainly won’t help here. In terms of the long term battle, the Liberals may even be more damaging than the hopelessly incompetent and destructive Labor party. Because the Liberals try to masquerade as being business friendly and pretend to care about classical liberalism while throwing out the principles of freedom and accepting compromising and populist approaches to politics.

While certain commenters around the place may have sympathy for the Liberals compared to Labor, I think it’s important to keep in mind how bad both parties really are. The trend towards statism and the blind addiction to government force won’t be addressed by Australia’s major parties until it becomes popular to do so. ie: Politicians won’t initiate the significant changes modern government needs. Moves towards freedom will continue to be superficial and a case of 1 step forward 2 steps back. Politicians respond and follow the crowd.

Regarding this particular election, I’m not sure whether it’s slightly better to vote Liberal or Labor. I can’t even be stuffed thinking about it considering my total lack of respect for most politicians in this country and the fact that I have a life to live and get on with."

[wildareal]

It's the same propaganda Keating put forward to justify their wasteful policies: "The recession Australia had to have"

[littlebecc]

Ew, last week mum was listening to Abbott and shes like 'I am really enjoying him'
NO MUM, NO

[Eriny]

NBN
http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2010/08/11/broadband-innovation-and-the-nbn/

agree with this

and agree with Tim R comments in that blog

"Yeah you see this phenomena everywhere in political issues.
People seem to assume that the government is a metaphysically given and forget it’s man-made. People are unwilling to perform the abstract thinking necessary to even consider the proper role of government and to understand the need for scaling back government intrusion. To most people, it’s incomprehensible to think of privitising health or education for example. For most people, it’s perfectly OK for governments to be giving rebates left right and centre, stimulating packages, heavily regulating or owning infrastructure and messing up our internet! etc etc

Just today, I read another comment by some moron in the paper saying the last decade had proved that “capitalism has failed”!??!? Idiots like Rudd and the clowns at Per Capita push the same false argument. But note that they get away with it! Personally I’d be embarassed because saying capitalism has failed is the intellectual equivalent of tatooing “I’m an idiot” onto your forehead. I would bet the people who make these empty assertions couldn’t even define the concept capitalism. Many of these people are probably so intellectually stunted that they are beyond reasoning with, especially if they are too old to care about seriously examining their ideological beliefs.
This comment shows just how prevalent ignorance and inability to think are in our society, especially when it comes to politics.

While saying 'capitalism has failed' is a little extreme, its certainly true that capitalism has yet to redeem itself in the face of environmental degradation and other negative things that have come about due to its presence. While capitalism can also provide an answer to many of these problems, it hasn't yet.

In fact, this piece is generally fairly poorly written, attacking people holding certain views rather than the view itself. I don't get a sense of why this writer believes whatever it is they believe, but it seems close minded to me to simply dismiss other people like that.

[TrueLight]

in regards to capitalism and the industrial revolution and the rise of factories and the impacts to the environment... yes we could have affected the environment in some way but without this progression and the living standards rising due to this, we would not have all the good technologies etc we have now... and anyway im sure and ive read good arguments that a market based aproach is appropriate to deal with this issue... like if we respect private property no one has the right to pollute the surrounding property and you know as the demand for increasing energy efficiency and reducing fuel based pollution increases, there would no doubt pop up industries for this that develop these new technologies without the government coming in and regulating everything and imposing restrictions etc...
i like these policies http://www.ldp.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1154:global-warming&catid=101:policies&Itemid=290
http://ldp.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1226:environment&catid=101:policies&Itemid=290
ill try find those articles ive read
hm well its pretty much these points
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_environmentalism
"Free-market environmentalism is a position that argues that the free market, property rights, and tort law provide the best tools to preserve the health and sustainability of the environment."

[ninwa]

Former Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser has launched a scathing attack on the Coalition's economic management credentials.

Also, http://www.factsondebt.com. Obviously biased and selective since it's run by Labor, but the facts are backed up by external sources.

[ninwa]

A confidential Treasury analysis has revealed an $800 million hole in the Coalition budget costings Tony Abbott has promised will add up to a bigger surplus in three years than that promised by Labor.

A new Coalition ad promising to ''stop the boats'' shows a defective immigration vessel responsible for the deaths of five Australians including a five-year-old girl.

The Malu Sara sank five years ago and led to a coronial inquiry and litigation claims against the federal government.

...

An ad broadcast at the Coalition's campaign launch on Sunday showed a still image of a group of immigration boats that were removed from service within weeks of their launch in 2005, because of the Malu Sara tragedy.

...

Mark Green, a barrister who represented the families of victims at the inquest, was shocked that the image was used.

''It is extremely insensitive, given that it was the Liberal government that presided over the circumstances that led to the tragedy,'' he said.

''To use the image is not only insensitive, it's offensive.''

[ninwa]

Quote from Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey: "Don't expect me to deliver a super policy today. We have already launched a tax policy and that is enough" according to http://www.investordaily.com/cps/rde/xchg/id/style/9874.htm?rdeCOQ=SID-0A3D9633-A4E88C25. I would find the actual speech transcript but I can't, because the liberal party website isn't even loading.

It's just over a week until the election and they haven't even got a policy for a pool of funds worth $1.177 trillion.

So much for better economic management - look what you'd be getting for a treasurer if the liberals win the election.

Yeah Labor aren't much better but look at what the alternative (realistically) is =\

[Noblesse]

Here is something I never thought I would read in New Limited owned papers:

Therefore, the Sunday Herald Sun believes that, on balance, the best interests of Australians are served by the re-election of Labor and Julia Gillard.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/editorials/australia-has-been-let-down/story-e6frfhqo-1225905277135

[Eriny]

Here is something I never thought I would read in New Limited owned papers:

Therefore, the Sunday Herald Sun believes that, on balance, the best interests of Australians are served by the re-election of Labor and Julia Gillard.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/editorials/australia-has-been-let-down/story-e6frfhqo-1225905277135

Wow.

[TrueLight]

Is the NBN a good use of taxpayer funds?

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2983739.htm

[Yitzi_K]

Just filled out my postal vote. Made me feel so... dirty. I honestly didn't care who I put first, I spent ages deciding who I wanted to be last though. I wish I could've put them all last.