Just a few points in response:

Ludwig: you say I miss peak oil, population; sustainability.

This is true: but it's because I focus mainly on social wage and tax reform issues. A) I'd reached my word limit and B) I didn't want to spread myself too thinly. But of course I believe the issues you raise are incredibly important: and I have little doubt they will be raised by other people.

Shadow Minister: You say I 'make no attempt to rationally debate the issues'. I don't accept this is true. In the last paragraphs I make some quick 'punchy' points on the environment and Abbott 'running scared on the economy'.

But earlier I develop significant and detailed arguments about the ageing population, declining labour market participation, what this means for govt revenue and the social wage; and why this means progressive tax reform is a must. (a must that few people are facing, inc the major parties) This is the main thrust of my essay. Anyone who hasn't read right through might therefore like to look again.

Chris: You urge me to consider Abbott's rationale. Fair enough; but I had the matter of a word limit. I have dealt with this in great detail elsewhere, though. Go through some of my earlier OLO posts and see my Review of Abbott's book 'Battlelines'. And feel welcome to discuss that here too.

Good at least to have provoked some debate.

sincerely,

Tristan

I'll be voting for the Greens but the real conundrum is the sorry task of trying to sort out who is the best of a bad lot in the Lib/Lab department.It's a close run thing,Tristan, for those of us who are not ideologically blind.

Tristan,

I am not convinced with your criticism of Abbott, which reads more like propaganda for anti-Coalition parties.

I think if you going to be so critical of Abbott you need to discuss some of the rationale behind Abbott's thinking. To suggest he is not compassionate is simply an insult. For instance, he opposes super clinics on the basis that they also override small family clinics.

Abbott may be right or incorrect, but you should at least discuss his rationale.

And you talk about Abbott making cuts elsewhere, although he offers more on mental health. Fact is that Australia has a low proportion of its health budget spent on mental services. Also, is not Labor also masking cuts elsewhere by constantly favouring health as its big picture policy option?

I think Aust has two major parties that do differ over their degree of govt intervention, but that they are both mainly centrist parties. Any analysis that portrays Labor and the Greens as the good guys, and the Coalition as mean-spirited, is being simplistic and again merely preaching to the converted.

If I saw that one side of politics was deliberately trying to destroy the social fabric of aust, i would join the club of savage critics. But what i see is both major parties doing little about housing, arguably the most important issue given the costs involved. I also see both struggling with the issues.

That is why i am not impressed with arguments that simply make out that Labor is the answer, especially after its recent perfomance.

This is a party political broadcast.

There is no attempt what so ever to actually rationally debate or assess the issues.

Tristan Ewins has simply become an echo of Julia Gillard. As a member of the socialist left it would appear that he like most of his peers is economically illiterate.

The main thing with Abbott is that he isnt true to himself.
His book and his past actions make it clear what his beliefs are. Yet he has supposedly refuted every one of them to get elected. Who can seriously consider such a blatant and disingenuous flip flopper.

Either he is a liar intending to reveal his true self after he has won the election or he is prepared to do anything to win while not actually believing anything he says he does.

Either way it would be a huge RISK to vote for this man and bring back all the worst policies of the last coalition government.
Dont forget the mean tricky government Abbott was a vital part of.

The racist government that introduced the NT intervention. The dog whistling and the vilification of immigrants. The treatment of David Hicks and Mamdou Habib. Not to mention the vile incarceration and deportation of Dr Haneef. The lack of infrastructure spending while giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy. The rorted spending in marginal electorates. The AWB selling grain to Saddam Hussein. The constant fights with state governments. The never ever GST.

Dont forget that the mad monks cabinet will contain his political womb Bronwyn Bishop, Julie the mexican staring frog Bishop, sloppy Joe Hockey, backdoor Barnaby Joyce, Kevin bloody Andrews, Phillip the cadaver Rudock, Christopher spiv Pyne, Turnbull, Tuckey, Truss.

Hell if you vote for Abbot the only one you wont get back is Howard!
Nuff said I think.

<< There are many reasons to vote against Abbott in the coming election… >>

There certainly are. But the same is true for Gillard.

Tristan, under your heading: < The “bigger picture” - what’s really at stake? >, you list Abbot’s shortcomings. Fair enough. But if you were to espouse Gillard’s purported progressive policies in this area, we’d find that she and Labor are just as critically flawed.

As is nearly always the case with political articles on OLO, you completely miss the all-important really big picture issues of a sustainable society, population policy and our dependence on oil.

Despite her initial rhetoric against a big Australia and in favour of a sustainable Australia, Gillard has not developed policies that would genuinely take us in this direction….at all. She continues to prop up the rapid-continuous-growth-with-no-end-in-sight crazy and utterly anti-sustainability-oriented paradigm…and the consequent rush towards the cliff of economic and social collapse!

<< Vote 1 for Labor, or the Greens: but for Australia’s sake put the Liberals and Nationals last. >>

For Australia’s sake, vote for NO ONE! Neither of the major parties deserves the vote of any thinking person. They would both take us horribly in the wrong direction, strongly away from a sustainable future. And you can’t vote for anyone else without your vote very likely filtering down and counting for either Lab or Lib, such is the disgusting nature of our compulsory preferential system.

Mikk,

Which Julia will you be voting for?

<<Which Julia will you be voting for?>>

Who said was voting for Julia?
Who said I was voting?

http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionJ2#secj22

This article reads like an undergraduate rant.
But then, as David Burchell pointed out so aptly http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/student-politicians-running-for-pm/story-e6frgd0x-1225902743487
our politics are really the sad reflection of the university campus days that so many of our career politicians (and their 'faceless men') earn their first political stripes.

If only playing in the sandpit wasn't so expensive for you and I!
Australia, in terms of both individuals and corporations, sorely needs tax relief, we surely have one of the more inefficiently governed societies on the planet.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/corporate-tax-burden-spurs-call-for-action/story-e6frg6nf-1225800970317

I am opposed to Abbott and his conservative social and economic views. But that is because I am opposed to conservative social and economic views, which is why I am also opposed to Labor. The ALP rules in the interests of capital. It does so sometimes moderated through the agency of trade union bureaucrats, but often against their wishes.

I think the alternative is to build a party committed to a socialist society of democracy and production organised to satisfy human need. The degeneration of the ALP into a party of the right confirms the critique of social democracy that revolutionaries make and means for me not building a more radical version of the ALP but a party that wants to tear down capitalism. I'd say to those still in the ALP or still with hope in a new social democracy to at least consider the alternative - revolutionary socialism - and to join with us in the struggles of the day - for same sex marriage, against the ABCC and jailing Ark Tribe, against the NT invasion, against the war in Afghanistan and so on.

Tristan tries to argue there is a contradiction between the ALP and the Liberals. But there is a real continuity too. In part that continuity is because of the acceptance of neoliberalism as the answer to all the problems of the world. Hawke and Keating laid the groundwork for Howard who laid the groundwork for Rudd who in turn has left a fertile field for reaction in Abbott or Gillard.

My blog makes these points in various articles, including a recent one called Labor's death agonies. http://enpassant.com.au/?p=785

John;

re: your comments - Howard paving the way for Rudd etc. As much as I would have liked to have seen deeper reform, Rudd did try and revive something akin to traditional social democracy as against neo-liberalism - which he condemned widely, including his essays in The Monthly. The NBN as a public project; stimulus payments to our poorest; partial rolling back of Workchoices; and finally attempting to take the miners on in the first place...

I understand there were critical failures elsewhere: failure to abolish the ABCC or restore rights to pattern bargaining; failure to compromise with the Greens to put a price on carbon one way or the other...

But in many ways Labor was trying to stem the tide; and tentatively challenge what had become 'the neo-liberal paradigm' - including the efforts of past Labor governments. And being a party that needs to form a majority, this is difficult stuff; carefully and strategically challenging the prevalant neo-liberal ideology - which let's face even a lot of ordinary workers have been conditioned to support.

So - it's a complex situation - but keeping the Liberals out of power still counts - for all the reasons I raise in the article...

sincerely,

Tristan

Tristan,

Is your photograph a true depiction? It has two eyes??

Oh and seemingly, but perhaps more deceptively, they are both open.