09-09-2013, 09:03 PM
Ok, finally have some time and a keyboard to type a decent reply..
The biggest problem in Australian politics is that both of the major parties (Labor and Liberal/Nationals) have shifted away from campaigning on policy and concentrated on winning votes with popularity. This wasn't an overnight shift, it's been slowly happening for the past twenty years. Personally I think it's a terrible shame and to the detriment of the country, but somewhere the party campaign managers picked up that there were more votes to be won with an image than a solid portfolio of policies, and we the voters only have ourselves to blame for that. As Loosey Loo mentioned here before; some of the previous prime minister, Julia Gillard, policies were very good and for the good of the country, but others weren't that popular which tended to polarise the voters and her popularity began to fade. That kind of snowballed until the Labor party was in disarray and Gillard was replaced by the previous prime minister, Kevin Rudd, that the Labor party threw out once before because he was so unpopular...go figure.
At the end of the day, the LNP won on the back of Labor's mistakes. And also on a very big spend on their advertising. The carbon tax was an issue, as was the mining tax and also a few other initiatives that Labor had massive failures with in the past six years. Labor squandered a very hefty surplus that was left by the previous coalition government. The stimulus payments at the height of the GFC was not a very popular scheme unless you were on the bottom of the socioeconomic foodchain and got a quick couple of grand. The majority of us are left with a debt that our kids will be paying off for a scheme that was put in place to protect us from a crisis that was predominantly focused on the Northern Hemisphere and that we were very heavily insulated from in the Asian market with our strength in mining at the time. I still believe if the Liberals (LNP) were in power, they wouldn't have spent a penny, nothing would have changed and we would still have our shiny AAA credit rating to wave around. The schools bonus was another fucking disaster rorted by dodgy contactors and the like. The insulation scheme was another debacle designed to appease the greens that wasted not only money but lives too.
The other major issue for a lot of traditional blue collar Labor voters was the fundamental shift by Labor from the protection and creation of blue collar manufacturing and mining jobs with the creation of the two earlier mentioned taxes. These taxes directly impacted a lot of job losses and as much as the government insisted it couldn't be directly attributed to the taxes (stating it was more to do with the global economy), the peoples perception was heard come election day.
All of that and the fact that Kevin Rudd was a micro managing, egotistical, self centred 'be everything to everyone' type of leader. The people had had enough of his showmanship. Even his concession speech was 24 minutes long ffs and read more like an Oscars acceptance speech and focused more on Kevin the Kevin (I would of typed Kevin the great, but he wasn't) than anything else. I guess in the end, the people couldn't swallow anymore..
Now we have Abbott. The country still seems significantly polarised. I'm happy we have a change, because we needed it. Sure, I don't know where exactly we're headed, but glad it happened. Labor need some time on the side to get back to their roots and form some solid policy. They also need to sort out their shit and quit their in fighting. Liberal will tighten the purse string which won't hurt us for a while either. Labor are spruiking that the libs will cut public sector jobs and education, but I think a fair dose of that is propaganda. A lot of the public sector jobs are more than likely assholes with a 'job for life' mentality sucking off the government tit, protected by the union. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I could write more, but blah blah, it's probably already tl;dr territory
The biggest problem in Australian politics is that both of the major parties (Labor and Liberal/Nationals) have shifted away from campaigning on policy and concentrated on winning votes with popularity. This wasn't an overnight shift, it's been slowly happening for the past twenty years. Personally I think it's a terrible shame and to the detriment of the country, but somewhere the party campaign managers picked up that there were more votes to be won with an image than a solid portfolio of policies, and we the voters only have ourselves to blame for that. As Loosey Loo mentioned here before; some of the previous prime minister, Julia Gillard, policies were very good and for the good of the country, but others weren't that popular which tended to polarise the voters and her popularity began to fade. That kind of snowballed until the Labor party was in disarray and Gillard was replaced by the previous prime minister, Kevin Rudd, that the Labor party threw out once before because he was so unpopular...go figure.
At the end of the day, the LNP won on the back of Labor's mistakes. And also on a very big spend on their advertising. The carbon tax was an issue, as was the mining tax and also a few other initiatives that Labor had massive failures with in the past six years. Labor squandered a very hefty surplus that was left by the previous coalition government. The stimulus payments at the height of the GFC was not a very popular scheme unless you were on the bottom of the socioeconomic foodchain and got a quick couple of grand. The majority of us are left with a debt that our kids will be paying off for a scheme that was put in place to protect us from a crisis that was predominantly focused on the Northern Hemisphere and that we were very heavily insulated from in the Asian market with our strength in mining at the time. I still believe if the Liberals (LNP) were in power, they wouldn't have spent a penny, nothing would have changed and we would still have our shiny AAA credit rating to wave around. The schools bonus was another fucking disaster rorted by dodgy contactors and the like. The insulation scheme was another debacle designed to appease the greens that wasted not only money but lives too.
The other major issue for a lot of traditional blue collar Labor voters was the fundamental shift by Labor from the protection and creation of blue collar manufacturing and mining jobs with the creation of the two earlier mentioned taxes. These taxes directly impacted a lot of job losses and as much as the government insisted it couldn't be directly attributed to the taxes (stating it was more to do with the global economy), the peoples perception was heard come election day.
All of that and the fact that Kevin Rudd was a micro managing, egotistical, self centred 'be everything to everyone' type of leader. The people had had enough of his showmanship. Even his concession speech was 24 minutes long ffs and read more like an Oscars acceptance speech and focused more on Kevin the Kevin (I would of typed Kevin the great, but he wasn't) than anything else. I guess in the end, the people couldn't swallow anymore..
Now we have Abbott. The country still seems significantly polarised. I'm happy we have a change, because we needed it. Sure, I don't know where exactly we're headed, but glad it happened. Labor need some time on the side to get back to their roots and form some solid policy. They also need to sort out their shit and quit their in fighting. Liberal will tighten the purse string which won't hurt us for a while either. Labor are spruiking that the libs will cut public sector jobs and education, but I think a fair dose of that is propaganda. A lot of the public sector jobs are more than likely assholes with a 'job for life' mentality sucking off the government tit, protected by the union. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I could write more, but blah blah, it's probably already tl;dr territory
“Two billion people will perish globally due to being vaccinated against Corona virus” - rothschild, August 2021