James O'Neill,

yeah yeah yeah we've heard all your labor mantra before. Nobodies listening to it anymore.

Many people are completely disengaged. You are wasting your time.

'In the coming months Abbott will re-inforce the coalition strategy. Positive policy, spending cuts and reduction of Canberra workforce.'

You'll see the positive detail then.

Add to that the messes created by NSW Labor, Williamsen, Slipper, Thompson and Gillard's AWU, that the coalition won't have to raise because the police, courts and other enquries will highlight ...
well you get the idea. There's no need for Abbott to raise any negatives. Those sagas are there for all to see.

There should be hung all around parliament:

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance." - Cicero, 55 BC.

So, evidently we've learned nothing in the past 2,067 years

Fair point, M007.

>>...evidently we've learned nothing in the past 2,067 years<<

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a magnificent orator, no doubt about that. But he was not an economist. The closest he came to the complexities of finance was as quaestor in Western Sicily, an administrative, rather than fiscally-oriented post.

Quoting him as an authority on government debt is about as convincing as a relying upon the financial musings of Julie Bishop.

Oh, right.

Barnaby Joyce, then?

Well at least Barnaby Joyce is an accountant.
I think we more of accountancy than economists.

Bazz very true. Me too.

I had a good laugh when a while back a leading CEO of a major bank in Australia was heard to comment: "The only time we only make money is when I take the opposite view to my economists." Give us good accountants any day to help repay the debt burden on future generations.

@julianutter:"labor mantra"? Once again confirmation that you occupy a parallel universe. I actually agreed with Pericles that the present government were one of our worst ever.

Do you actually read what people write or is the fact of a comment other than your own sufficient for you to leap into ill-informed blathering of your own viewpoint, entirely free of facts or reason?