So an unnecessary tax, designed to solve an imaginary problem, most of which is (purportedly) to be returned to the payers minus the ATO's commission for collecting it, and which is spruiked to the battlers by a glamorous non-resident millionaire at the taxpayer's expense, is not polling well?

Who would have thought it?

Why Labor can win the next election, but probably won't: talk about hedging your bets.

However the article makes the widely accepted point that democratic governments generally rise and fall on the economic state of the country. Australia has been in very benign times: Low unemployment (4.8%), good growth (3%) and very favourable terms of trade. Unfortunately the Labor Government has been a woeful economic manager. In 2006 in similar economic conditions the Federal Government achieved a $16 billion surplus. Now it is running at a predicted $49 billion deficit.

Also Australia has been running on an investment boom. However the policies of this government such as the introduction of a mining and carbon taxes are already causing this to unravel. In two years Australia has slipped from first to fifth place as a target for Chinese investment. See the article Is Australia in danger of biting the Chinese hand that feeds it?
John Garnaut May 31, 2011 in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Besides the promise not to introduce a carbon tax, there is another critical promise made by the Gillard Government which is return the budget to surplus by 2013. There is fat chance that will happen. As Wyatt Roy said Labor has never produced a surplus in his lifetime and it never will. As the good economic fortunes of Australia begin to unravel (it is already happening) wait for the Labor excuses that it is extraneous factors. Abbott is going a have a field day.

If Labor gets re-elected then the proof that most voters in Australia only think for themselves is in the bag.

Interesting Kieran, but you missed a couple of points many voters have not.

How, in such good times, can this government get us into so much debt, & how can we have such a huge welfare bill?

God help us if this incompetent lot are still there when things get a bit difficult financially.

Dear Kieran, it is a pleasure to host visitors from outer space to our humble planet OLO.

Our observations might be a little different to yours but we do understand your trauma.

Our government is of course, deeply flawed. It is a composite that was assembled by gluing a number of “opposite components” together. Politically, attraction of these components works exactly the reverse to magnetic attraction. Our politically different “poles” actually “repel”.

As the glue that holds them together weakens with age and stress, we are seeing significant structural failures emerge. Of further concern is the “cross contamination” of the component parts as ideological molecules migrate across from component to component. This is causing cracks to also appear within each of the component parts as political heat is generated.

The resources consumed by this political entity just to hold it together are preventing it from performing to specification, which in turn generates even more political heat.

Our prognosis is for catastrophic structural failure and visitors from other perspectives are cautioned to maintain safe distances. Predictions are supported by similar, if not identical failures in the entity know as ALP NSW, which resulted in heavy casualties.

We trust you enjoy you visit to our reality

Thanks Spindoc:

... I think you have what is missing in Government, imagination.