rstuart

Gee good to see you've such a good memory but haven't you forgotten about ... what was his name?... oh that's right Macgerald and his witch hunt.

Have plenty of sleepless nights Rainier John's coming back for 'three more years' well nearly three more years

Both my wife and I have been feeling confuse about who to pass our first preference to. We knew that the Nationals candidate would be above Liberal but would they be placed ahead of Labor?

After watching the 7:30 Report on the ABC(Monday, 15 Oct.) where Howard was gunned down by dishonest journalism by Kerry O'Brien. Howard dealt with this journo and gunned him down amazingly.

When Kerry O'Brien interviewed Kevin Rudd, he was reading from a script that one can only ponder if it were handed to him by Rudd's minders. If Rudd cannot cope with cold questions, he won't cope as Prime Minister.

Rudd helped my wife make her decision in leaving the ALP down the bottom of her vote when he directly accused Johh Howard for giving Saddam Hussein money to buy weapons to kill Australian soldiers. This is dirty politics at its best.

Rudd's interview was appauling with many lies which he was never picked up on. Not that a biased journo would have picked on Rudd's deceit when he was reading from the Labor script.

This Ruddy Boy cries like a 4 year old at the slightest hint of criticism. Such people could not cope with the pressure placed on governments by the National Farmers Federation, Chamber of Commerce, other nations, etc. This walk in the park for Rudd is no way to test his abilities to handle stress, or would he cry to mummy each time?

The interviewing process during the lead-up to an election is pretty straightforward, when you think about it, Spider.

The incumbent party's set of questions would concentrate on the events of the past eleven years.

Promises made and broken. Things that were done badly, things that didn't go to plan, things that the public became upset about. The material available to the journalist is pretty much factual - it would be a pretty sloppy journo who pretended that the last eleven years didn't happen, when setting questions for the guy who had been Prime Minister for all that time.

The opposition's questions, on the other hand, wouldn't get very far if they concentrated on the past eleven years - and going back further is only of slight interest, since things have changed significantly in the world since 1996. So it is not entirely surprising that the questions, which could only deal with Rudd's intentions, sounded as though they had come from the party play-book. After all, they would be pretty much the only possible set of questions to ask, would they not?

It's just one of the challenges of being the man on the spot. You are assessed on your track record, while your opponent - who doesn't have one - gets pretty much a free hit. It has nothing to do with bias. I remember Keating getting similarly roasted when he was in the same position.

But I do understand the frustration. It's pretty much the same when I'm watching football, I invariably see things differently to the umpires - as do the rest of the crowd as they bellow "Ba-a-a-a-a-all" every time one of the opposition hangs onto it in a tackle for more than a nanosecond.

keith,

No, I haven't forgotten about Fitzgerald. But neither have I forgotten that one of the major planks under the Goss campaign for Queensland was to put a stop to Wolfdene. Its probable he would of won without it, but having it increased his chances of winning. But then of course made it impossible for him to push for new dams later on.

Yes, it was a bad decision, although the magnitude of the error wasn't apparent at the time. But I find attacking a politician for making a promise before the election and then keeping it a perverse think to do.

As for Fitzgerald being a witch hunt, I guess it was. It was a rather unusual witch hunt though, as it was instigated by the witches themselves. Perhaps even more surprisingly, it found real witches and burnt them - an atypical outcome for witch hunts that are usually more about finding "someone to blame other than me" rather than "finding the real witches".

Johnj

If you vote 1,2,2,2,2, your vote is null. You are required to number boxes sequentially. Yes, you could register a protest vote in this way. But it would be just the same as marking only one box or submitting a blank paper. It wouldn’t be noted as a protest vote, just as a vote for no one.

“There are plenty of alternatives to avoid letting the major parties get your vote. You just need to get creative.”

Really? Please explain (:>\

It makes sense that John Howard is doing poorly in NSW since the electorate don't have the nous to distinguish State and Federal issues.NSW is reeling under the State Govt taxes and bloated Govt bureaucracies created by the Iemma/Carr debacles and Kevin'07 is trying to cash in on the pain felt by those who are victims of a Labor philosophy.

This is where the Coalition must drive home the reality of a Labor philosophy that encourages people to under achieve and let mediocrity reign supreme.

Kevin is going to pour another $2 billion into a health system that is basicly flawed and this will be another Labor distaster.Kevin presided over a health system in QLD that absorbed 60% of the health budget just in bureaucrats,rather than providing front line health services.We have a similar sham happening in NSW at this moment.

As the electorate becomes more focused on the reality,the Labor margins will diminish and this will be a very close election.

There is something not quite right about Kevin who talks at an accelaterated pace to gloss over the detail and the reality.He pretends to presume that all his logic and facts are self evident,yet is short on detail.

I would trust Kim Beasley by a country mile than this pretender to the throne.