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The Forum > Article Comments > Kevin, we need to talk about you > Comments

Kevin, we need to talk about you : Comments

By Gary Johns, published 11/3/2010

If the first term of a Labor government is not to be a complete waste of time then serious conversations have to take place.

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Gee am I reading this right, you want work choices back? If you had spent more time saying what the problem is and how the government can fix it, then this may have been a worth while read. Right now I want my 5 mins back.
Posted by Kenny, Thursday, 11 March 2010 9:46:29 AM
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Sounds like Gary wants to dictate rather than talk.
Posted by Daviy, Thursday, 11 March 2010 10:03:22 AM
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Rudd certainly “lives on another planet” and perhaps the only step that needs to be taken is for Labor to dump him as leader. No matter what people think of Tony Abbott, most admit he is an action man; Rudd is a gobbledegook man, looking more inept and silly every day.

On the matter of our undoubted richness in natural resources, Rudd seems intent on leaving them in the ground in order to comply with green world government and its carbon scam. That he is so different in every way from Howard, Hawke and Keating in everything (there was a similarity of approach to the economy and industrial relations from those three, despite different ideologies) indicates that he is not particularly driven by any political tenets, but by his own eccentric beliefs that he has something to offer as Rudd the individual. He has nothing but crap!

The author’s:” The Rudd government has no language and no insight into economics” overlooks the fact that there are a couple of Ministers in the Rudd Government who might have such insights; it is Rudd himself who has no language or economic insights. Were he to go, or at least stop his micro-managerial meddling in things he is ignorant of, some expertise might be released. However, Rudd being Never-wrong Rudd, kicking him out would be the best bet if Labor is to convince us that they can repair what the man has done, and start doing what a government is supposed to do.
Posted by Leigh, Thursday, 11 March 2010 11:31:17 AM
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Gary Johns wrote, "The significance of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating in this industrial relations agenda was to turn Australia from the land of the long weekend into the land of the engaged worker."

Thank you for reminding us who to largely thank for the fact that Australian workers work longer hours, including unpaid overtime than anyone else in the developed world.

Instead of achieving the promise held out in the 1960's and 1970's of greater leisure hours, we instead have arrived at circumstances where not one, but two bread-winners often find it necessary to work evenings and weekends, in order to pay rent, the mortgage and, in general, to make ends meet.

The article is seems to argue for the resurrection in some form of John Howard's odious "Work Choices".

It laments the failure of the Rudd Government to implement further 'reforms' in the interests of Australia's corporations, but fails to take account of the fact that Rudd was elected in the first place, because people had had a gutfull of Howard's 'reforms'.

I think Australians should rightly be appalled at the record of the Rudd Government. They have elevated incompetence to a fine art form. Huge amounts of taxpayer's funds have been squandered and we now find ourselves indebted again, all to supposedly 'stimulate' Australia's moribund economy dependent upon property speculation, digging massive holes in the ground and changing beds of foreign guests in hotels.

Rudd and Swan crow about how they have supposedly saved Australia from the worst ravages of the GFC by giving us all back some of our own money to buy plasma TV's and throwing away more of our money on so many incompetently managed government programs, but all they really did was buy us a small amount of time whilst avoiding confronting the problem at its source.

And to buy that small amount of time, they have taken away from us a range of choices that we might otherwise have had.

(tobecontinued)
Posted by daggett, Thursday, 11 March 2010 11:33:46 AM
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(continuedfromabove)

The first that come to mind was when Queensland Premier Bligh announced the $15 billion fire sale in May 2009 and the Federal Government said they had no spare money to help Queensland out of its financial difficulties.

Last Sunday, Joe Hockey brazenly resurrected his dream to privatise Medibank Private, citing the need to raise $3.5 billion to pay for Rudd's debt. Paying off debt is also going to be (once again) a convenient ready-made excuse for more slash-and-burn budgets should the coalition win office this year.

Wouldn't Australian's have rather had those choices put to them before the Rudd Government threw away all our money?

I get the sense now, whether or not that is Rudd's conscious intention, we are being set up by this Government to be savagely punished by the next Government in the a way were set up by Keating, prior to the 1996 elections, after which Howard 'discovered' a big budgetary black hole that could only possibly be fixed by the budgetary axe and fire sales of assets.

The fact that, this time, Hockey feels confident enough to state his intention more openly than Howard did prior to the 1996 elections should be cause for great concern.

On top of all this, Rudd has of course, compounded our problems by maintaining record high immigration for no coherent logical reason that he has been prepared to divulge to the Australian public.

--

James Sinnamon
Brisbane Independent
for Truth, Democracy,
the Environment and
Economic Justice

Australian Federal Elections, 2010
Posted by daggett, Thursday, 11 March 2010 11:35:11 AM
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No worries Kev has it all sorted with progamatic specificity,or is it sper-sper-specifmissity.Oh I give up! Miss a somethinks or sumthing.Kev has me all confused.I feel I'm being used.

If we are the largest this and that in terms of minerals and energy,then why are so many,working long,hard hours for so little?
Posted by Arjay, Thursday, 11 March 2010 12:33:34 PM
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Of course Johns is also a clone and propaganda hack for the IPA (the institute of hollow men). And associates with the CIS too.
The CIS is of course a propaganda factory for the Chicago boyz world-view, the applied politics of which is described in The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

The brutal politics of the Shock Doctrine was also given support by right wing "catholics", especially by Opus Dei. I wonder therefore if the Public Policy Institute is also an Opus Dei propaganda outfit, modeled after the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the USA.

For the relation between the Shock Doctrine, Opus Dei and the EPPC why not read this essay.

http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_3.2/hammer_kellner.htm
Posted by Ho Hum, Thursday, 11 March 2010 12:35:49 PM
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Don't you love it when people start talking about disincentives to hire.

There were no disincentives to hire prior to Work Choices in fact the level of industrial dispute was at an all time low. The only industries that increased labour were in growth sectors like mining and IT. A number of Libs have openly stated (incl. Joe Hockey) that WC went too far.

If a business owner hires three retail shop assistants in a small country clothing store he/she is not going to hire another shop assistant on the basis of changes to legislation if that person is not needed.

Does the ALP need a new leader? Well maybe but that is a different question and has nothing to to do with anachronistic labour policy.
Posted by pelican, Thursday, 11 March 2010 2:07:01 PM
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The thrust of this article is simply "Bad Kevin!" without saying anything much. Pretty much sums up the state of economic "argument".
Not one "Conservative" commenter will admit that the Howard decade was a lost one: the obscenely rich got richer, the poor increased and got poorer and the middle class shrunk. All "financed" by overseas debt. Oh, suicides and crime increased dramatically (not that humans matter to these people). What's their magic bullet? More population and more lending.
A murder adds about A$1M to GDP. The profits of oil cleanup companies also add to GDP. We all know GDP growth is the Holy Grail of conservatives ("its the economy, stupid")...So more murders and oil spills are not just OK, but actually good? Quality of life is *much* more important but "conservatives" being a radical blinkered bunch only see profits. I say again: A society that allows the parasitic corporations to take control of 30%+ of the economy like ours is, is going down...Both sides of politics are currently incompetent.
We need to be working less hours and make corporations efficient instead of the large scale adult daycare that makes up most employment. Investment in public infrastructure is now embarrassing: Third world countries are passing us in quality of life while we go backwards.
The IPA and it's ilk are just scoundrels muddying the waters for their filthy, greedy masters.
Posted by Ozandy, Thursday, 11 March 2010 3:25:52 PM
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Ozandy
They can't even instal pink batts without killing people, burning down houses, and wasting billions of dollars. What makes you think they can "make corporations more efficient"?
Posted by Peter Hume, Thursday, 11 March 2010 3:29:43 PM
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People have short memories.

At the same point in Howard's first term, things were not much better for him.

Massive cutbacks, Telstra part-privatisation, Wik, several ministers sacked plus the first stages of Industrial Reform and of course, the Waterfront dispute.

Howard spent the first term desperately grasping at issues and symbols to try and give his government a sense of purpose and political authority. Flags, the waterfront, the GST, illegal immigrants were all crises made up out of thin air to make the government look decisive and with purpose. Costello was also in on the game and their first Budget was designed to give a sense of reform, which it didn’t have, and so later, the cuts were largely reversed.

Beazley actually got more primary votes in the following election - but in the seats he already held.

Perspective?

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/like-for-like-coalition-has-little-to-gloat-about-20100221-onu1.html
Posted by rache, Friday, 12 March 2010 1:35:24 AM
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Until politicians dump self interest in favour or good governance nothing will change. Rudd, Hockey, whatever the name of the current opposition leader, Howard, Vanstone, Ruddock et al on both sides. Can anyone really make and argument for a fundamental difference between any of them? It is all just Power, Power and more Power.
Posted by Daviy, Friday, 12 March 2010 11:25:53 AM
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The leader of the Liberal opposition is Tony Abbott.

Is it significant you couldn't name one minister, apart from he P>M> Rjudd in the current Labor government?
Posted by keith, Friday, 12 March 2010 12:07:01 PM
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Gary Johns, one of the most rightwing of the Keating crew, even worse than Keating, is offering advice to an equally rightwing Rudd, and his dodgy government.

Praising Ferguson for his foresight? Hardly.

And whatever the role of trade unions in moving Rudd into power, as always, those from the unions in positions of power within caucus go strangely silent when it comes to standing up for the people who helped get them in.

The ACTU would be better served if it did not hand power to anyone from the AEU or their affiliates, since these people have a long track record of conservatism.

One only has to look at our debased education system to see that teachers are on a par with the Garrett insulation teams when it comes to knowing how to 'educate' children.

There is only one message for Rudd as far as I am concerned... 'roll yer swag, and f@#* off'.

But who next?

Gillard?

Her 'education revolution' failed before it got off the drawing board. Why would we want her?
Posted by The Blue Cross, Monday, 15 March 2010 8:34:11 AM
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