There is a 12 billion dollar shortfall in the Govt's budget?
It occurs to me, if we still owned Telstra And the CBA, we would be able to fund that shortfall and a two billion dollar plus surplus.
It also occurs to me, that if Howard hadn't given away the rivers of gold that flowed from mining boom mark one, and instead invested in a sovereign fund, we may well be now developing our offshore resources ourselves, and generating quite massive returns for the fund!
At the time we gave away Telstra, we could have acquired Woodside and her assets, for around ten billion.
We can ram home the blame for the structural deficit on economic illiterate, [Quote unquote,] Howard's welfare for the rich and buy votes/pork barrel strategies.
It wouldn't have mattered who the treasurer was, he would have still inherited this very outcome sooner or later.
The current treasurer/Ken Henry's stimulation priorities, kept us out of the GFC!
We still have the world's best performing economy!
Those that don't think so, remain free to migrate to Britain, Spain, Italy, or France.
If the treasurer is in a pickle, then it was as a direct consequence of a highly flawed economic recipe already in the oven and cooking, well before he took over the allegorical kitchen!
I believe, only the intellectually challenged and those with serious memory loss issues; or, who could put their brains in a thimble, and still hear them rattle, would think otherwise?
Or allow the incredibly negative and disingenuous opposition, to convince them otherwise.
Contrary, to some popular local opinion/patently partisan shock jocks, the Labour Party did not create the Global GFC, nor any part of the economic slow down that flowed from that.
They are however, riddled with corruption and a criminal element, and for that reason and some democratisation issues, still left undone, need to spend considerable time in the political wilderness!
Time to find and put back in, traditional core values!
And time to finally and at long last, completely and unreservedly, accept true grass roots democracy!
Rhrosty.

The 'pickle' was created by Gillard trying to copy Whitlam.

Both of them, lawyers, had no clue about money or sensible concepts such as living within your means.

They both worked on the premise that, if they came up with an idea, then it was brilliant and to implement it, money was no object!

Gillard has taken it a step further and has future spending continuing years down the track when she will be little more than a bad dream.

LABOR, brought back into favour by Hawke and Keating, has again lost the plot!

Who will save it?

Gillard is simultaneously living in two worlds at once. In one, she is handing out money to the "disadvantaged" who the Labor Party can find anywhere they wish to look while at the same time admitting theres no money left. Massive social "reform" schemes such as the NBN,NDIS and the Gonski reforms will suck the economy dry with the NBN and Gonski likely to result in no real improvements in productivity.

This woman seems to be obsessed with leaving a legacy for herself to admire in the future, regardless of the cost to the community. She clearly doesn't understand economics and is still mired in class war politics of the 1970's and hoping to be held up as a hero. But who is she fighting? Unfortunately its most of the population.

Labour is a lower taxing Govt than Howard's and spends less as a total percentage of the GNP.
Before he became PM, Howard was the treasurer, and left office having created a 10 billion dollar black hole.
Treasurer Costello described him as an economic illiterate! Quote unquote.
The Howard Govt, gave away the rivers of gold from mining boom mark one, as vote buying largesse, pork barrelling and welfare for the rich!
And in so doing, created the very structural deficit, which is now bedevilling us.
Moreover, their economic success had nothing to do with them, any more than they were responsible for the remarkable Chinese growth, which improved our economy, our mining sector and terms of trade, that alone produced the better results!
To critique the Govt for their stimulus spending response to the GFC, is to display an unusual level of economic illiteracy.
From an economic perspective, it mattered not that the money went to pink batts of overly expensive school halls, just that it was put out there as rapidly as possible.
In case you haven't noticed, there is a virtual world wide recession, which appears to be progressively worsening, despite all that Govt and central banks do!
It also affects our terms of trade, and our dollar, which remains stubbornly high, despite all that we have done thus far, by way of interest rate reductions/monetary policy.
And that along with worsening terms of trade have quite dramatically reduced Govt revenue.
Govt has cut the budget to the bone, in defence spending and is overburdened with refugees, in spite of the fact that they caved in to the opposition and reinstated their Pacific solution!
All that said, Labour is destined for a train wreck landslide at the election, and maybe the coalition may even control the senate once again in its own right, or give you exactly the Govt you deserve.
Maybe then you really will have something actually real to complain, carp on and generally whine about, rather than the clearly manufactured political propaganda, the weak-minded can't see past.
Rhrosty.

To critique the Govt for their stimulus spending response to the GFC, is to display an unusual level of economic illiteracy.
Rhrosty,
A stimulus is created by making money work & do what it's designed for. Throwing it ad hoc at a mindless scheme is not stimulating an economy, it's ruining it as is now so clearly evident. To do what Labor did is an unusual level of economic illiteracy at our expense & mortgaging our future.
Labor can not manage, simple ! Labor has build the longest gravy train in history & Now they're trying to make the rail system longer. That there are people out there still supporting Labor is just beyond belief.

Since when was Wayne Swan 'World's Best Treasurer'? Treasurer of world's best performing economy at one stage, perhaps, but that's a very different thing.