Intelligent Australians; rather a pack of over credentialed under educated crypto-bullies who's logic extends no further than what earns points with their "Public Service" mates. This self serving "noblesse" has no "oblige" which requires thinking the next step or three of any argument. Oh goody, lets smack those naughty consumers with a huge carbon tax but do they care that kids are not getting washed daily any more? Hot water too expensive and rising fast. Of course he spewed tonnes of CO2 so he could be "...sitting on a bed halfway across the world...", what a fake.

What is clear is that these noblesse never have to pay the expense for their "Virtue", no boarding hoses are filled with economic migrants in Newtown (St. Kilda?) and their faux jobs are protected by Medieval Guild type rules.

There goes someone spouting the labor party spin ... again.

The liberal party has continually presented it's policy to the people of Australia over the past three years. It is not reported by the biased media in this country. What is continuslly reported is the labor party spin, that only the rusted on labor barnacles lap up. The claim Tony Abbott has no policy. The latest liberal policy document, unreported in the media, is a 35 page booklet stating their policy.

Of course the labor spin swallower who wrote the rubbish in this article has never seen nor even known about that or the liberals policy he does know
about he derides, even though there is ample evidence the liberals, including Tony Abbott, effectively employed those policies in the past.

What the author does ignore is the inability of both Gillard and Rudd and their cohorts are just hopeless at governing. The media has reported their failures. Make no mistake had Abbott had similar failures the media in Australia, where the author doesn't live, would have shredded him. It hasn't because he has been so effective and he will grow into a great Australian PM.

I may be missing something here. It wouldn't be the first time, after all. But Matt Large (that's Large, not Page, LEGO. Just shows how closely you were reading, eh?) seems to me to be excoriating our decrepit and wide-open-to-exploitation political system. Not the individuals, not the Parties, but the system that gives rise to them. With a quick side-swipe along the way at our print media, who are far too concerned about their business models and financial survival to actually report (deep breath) News.

Seems to me the lad has a point.

Thanks for setting the pace, LEGO.

>>Matt is FOR Julia Gillard, and he is FOR the idea that Australia should end world poverty by allowing the entire third world to immediately set sail for Australia and let the Aussie taxpayer finance their upkeep.<<

Verballed. Nice.

And a great follow-up, Philip S.

>>Asylum seekers arriving by boat, 1 July 1975 to to 31.12.2012. 48,856 That is a difference of 17,856 so you blatantly underestimated the real figure by more than 50%<<

This in response to Matt's statement that...

"At the end of 2011 it was revealed that Australia had an estimated total of almost 60,000 illegal immigrants living within its borders (and remember it's the British and Americans we should be most worried about here), while the total number of asylum seekers that have arrived on our shores since 1975 is just over 31,000."

Spot the difference? At the end of 2011 you'd need a time machine to report the figures for the end of 2012. And to the best of my knowledge, they didn't exist then.

Incidentally, Philip S, underestimating a figure of 48,856 by 50% will give you 24,428. Just saying.

But that did not stop this self-righteous attack on Suseonline

>>It tells a lot about you that you believed him and his FALSE figures. You have lost the little credibility you had.<<

And it says a lot about you, Philip S, that you deliberately use a different baseline for your numbers, then call someone else a liar.

That's just a little untidy, don't you think.

[Deleted for abuse.]

Thank you Pericles for actually focusing on Mr Large's arguments. Sadly, most of the responses are simply those trying to make some obscure point reflecting their own prejudices or focusing on something trivial.

Hi Pericles.

Matt (picky picky) Large is anguished by the fact that his Socialist Labor government is going to get tossed onto the dustbin of history by the electorate at the next election, and he blames the news media for that.

The news media did not create the stench of corruption surrounding Craig Thompson, Mark Arbib, Ian McDonald, Peter Slipper, Eddie Obeid, or Michael Williamson. Nor did the news media create the situation where Julia Gillard broke a solemn election promise to the electorate when she declared that she would not institute a carbon tax if elected. And the media is not responsible for the farcical situation where the whole Third World is waking up to the fact that Labor will not control our borders, and anyone who makes it to Australia with a sob story is set for life, courtesy of the Australian taxpayer.

I myself have issues with the political system. Specifically that in which political parties use "divide and rule" tactics to pork barrel ethnic minorities and thereby gain the "Greek vote", the "Muslim vote", the Lebanese vote", and the "Chinese vote". The only vote that they don't care about is the "Australian vote" and they wonder why the Australian people are disgusted with the lot of them and vote for Pauline.

Political parties beg migrants to become citizens right before every Federal election so that the major parties can formulate vote catching social policies that appeal to the self interest of the individual ethnic voting blocs. Giving away Australian citizenship as a way of influencing elections can be seen as a corruption of the democratic process, but Matt Page is never going to object to that.

Unlike Matt Page, I don't think that the answer is to man the barricades and make a nuisance of myself. Unlike Matt Page, I would like to have an Australian government which looked after the interests of its own people instead of screwing their own people with ever higher taxes, to look after any rogue who destroys his ID and barges into my country with his hand out.