Looks like this author too thinks economic success is an underclass of homeless, those on the poverty line and those who can't afford housing. Wages too have stopped in their tracks after a little burst of trading away entitlements earnt over a century. Wages breakout? No, the opposite in fact.

Howard is not a good economic manager. All he has really done is move the National debt to personal level through over taxing us. That's it. Income exceeds spending. Great, no services, no infrastructure, no water. Just a sneering rodent thrashing angrily as he exits by losing his seat. And it'll really hurt losing it to a woman. He will hate that big time.

Prasser has very clearly stated a significant problem faced by the Howard government. Through the Swan/Rudd hammering at the economic naivete of the general public that any idiot can run the country, the idiots may very well get the chance they want to prove that successfully running a national economy is much more difficult than handing the whole cookie jar to the labor unions. Then we, the general population, will once again be the victims of an ALP led national economic downturn - another one we have to have

With almost 40% of people saying they are worse off than when Howard was first elected surely this shows us something?

Maybe the traditional measures of a good economy don't apply to a vast number of people in our society.

Sixteen years! Howard and co have only had 11 years to do the corporate raiding by neglecting infrastructure, shifting costs, and selling of profitable bussiness.

Gee whiz. If you recall when JH was managing the economy as treasurer under Frazer, inflation was running at 11-12%. Interest on 90 day bank bonds was 22%. How is that good management?

I wonder what dastardly deals will be uncovered when the dust settles after the election. Already we have seen the bs on our foriegn aid. Some of it was used to retire Iraq wheat debt. Throwing sand on the flames of the AWB scandal

Japan's financial crisis began with a banking collapse after a phenomenal property bubble - does that sound like something that could happen here?

Howard has ridden the back of a couple of decades of almost uninterrupted international economic growth. The downturns we have weathered have been based on debt-driven consumer spending, not the remarkable strength of e.g. our exports (other than digging stuff out of the ground and selling it to China).

Wages have not broken out because the new IR laws make people fearful of losing their jobs if they ask for a raise and because massive imports of semi-skilled labour keep the lid on the wage inflation pot.

Yoo-hoo, hello there - has anyone noticed that petrol prices are rising again and that mortgagees are now spending more of their income servicing their loans than any time in Australian history? Could that be a problem?

Howard has been unpopular for a long time but Australian's have been waiting for someone like Rudd rather than the previous bozos Labor had to offer. How else could you get such a massive but stable popularity swing? Australians also realise that worrying about their job security is one thing (though the IR laws have increased that) but worrying about whether their children have a long-term future (climate change) is far more important! Australian's don't trust Howard - they only tolerate him. Now that they believe he will not be there at the end of the next term they are looking for a new leader they can trust. Who else but Rudd?

P.S. The Liberal's disingenuous reasoning behind the IR laws is that, with an ageing workforce, younger workers will always be in a strong bargaining position with respect to wages and conditions. But what happens an economic downturn occurs (as it undoubtedly will soon when the massively overbought Chinese stockmarket bubble pops)? Australians also are in a situation where they need to frequently change jobs (relative to previous decades) so the guarantee of no worse conditions when going over to an AWA means bugger all.

I won't bother to comment on the comments of the usual suspects re John Howard's economic performance, nor the crap about no-hopers who will still be no-hopers who can't handle money when/if the ALP gets in.

But, while I would not vote Labor to save my life, and while I know that the economy would hit the skids very soon after an ALP election win, I am, in a way, looking forward to a Rudd government so that I can have a jolly good laugh when the poor old workers, battlers and socialists really start to suffer and have their deluded ideas about the 'working man's party' shot to ribbons by the wealthy Mr. Rudd.