Vox Unius: You may well be right that $190 billion was "wasted" although that is debatable. What you ignore is that 6 of the past 10 years were under a Coalition government and the report you quote lays the blame squarely at the Coalition's door for policy failures in dealing with the mining boom windfall.

Julianutter: your argument might be more convincing if you applied your critical eye to the bloviating of Abbott, Bishop, Hockey and Morrison just to quote four of the more conspicuous purveyors of half truths and downright lies of recent times.

The reality is that since labor got into power, productivity has decreased, debt has soared, unemployment has increased, and government regulations are strangling small business.

This government is a flop.

There are far more lies in AAs post that in Abbotts.

Some really poor reasoning from Mr Austin.

He can't wake up to the fact that we were saved from the GFC by the mining boom. His pedantic and trivial nitpicking reinterpretation of Abbotts speech is bizarre. Really, do you need to draw a distinction between the mining boom and the "china resources boom". That is simply nuts.

FACT: Australia did reasonably well DESPITE Labor's wasteful spending because of the miners,not Wayne Swan.

FACT: Labor spent the savings.

If you want lies just look at Gillard and Rudd's statements on record.

FACT: Lots of jobs have been lost because of the carbon tax.

Aaaaw, Alan. You forgot to mention the superlative efforts of the world's certified best treasurer, none other than Wayne got-the-sack- Swan. He was just such a champion in delivering all those dozen things you found wrong with some speech that we now pay enough interest each year on his debt to fund the entire Gonski increases, half a dozen new hospitals and we could throw in an entirely new ABC so you could spout your biased rubbish amongst friends. Get ready for some post election improvements that will really get your blood pressure pumping.

Let’s fact check the fact checker.

1. “Golden age of prosperity that has been lost”. This is a value judgement, hard to either prove or disprove. Per capita GDP is higher than in 2007, but growth is slower, government debt is higher, and the unemployment rate has risen significantly since 2007.

3 “GDP growth per head has been just one third of the Howard era" On this, Abbott is right and Alan wrong. Alan’s reference includes an annual average growth level including an implausibly high growth forecast rate of 4.3% for 2013. Abbott quotes per capita growth, which Alan does not. Annualised per capital growth has been 0.8% under Labor compared to 2.3% under Howard (real seasonally adjusted data from ABS Cat. 5206.0).

Table 1:
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/5206.0Mar%202013?OpenDocument

4. “Australia's fundamental strengths owe far more to the reforms of previous governments than to the spending spree of the current one”. Another value judgement. Some independent analysts questioned the benefits of the stimulus., e.g. http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=australia%27s+response+to+the+GFC&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&ved=0CH4QFjAK&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.business.uwa.edu.au%2F__data%2Fassets%2Fpdf_file%2F0018%2F2254050%2F12-28-Australia-and-the-GFC%2C-Saved-by-Astute-Fiscal-Policy.pdf&ei=DiL2UdaVKMPCkwWou4GAAg&usg=AFQjCNEcEDBb1Mvy0KdZwG8mTwFYmFFCMg).

Australia entered the GFC with surpluses and small debt by international standards, giving it scope for aggressive fiscal stimulus.

5 “Australia's debt position is better … because we started better”. Abbott is right here, and Alan is misrepresenting the argument. Countries with comparatively low debt before the GFC mostly emerged with relatively low debt.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2006&ey=2013&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=193%2C542%2C122%2C137%2C124%2C181%2C156%2C138%2C423%2C196%2C935%2C142%2C128%2C182%2C939%2C135%2C172%2C576%2C132%2C936%2C134%2C961%2C174%2C184%2C532%2C144%2C176%2C146%2C178%2C528%2C436%2C112%2C136%2C111%2C158&s=GGXWDN_NGDP&grp=0&a=&pr1.x=38&pr1.y=13

6. Alan’s claim that “Australia is in fact doing better than every economy” is wrong. Our growth rate between 2006 and 2013 ranks 7th of the Advanced Economies – pretty good, but not better than everyone else:

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2006&ey=2013&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=193%2C542%2C122%2C137%2C124%2C181%2C156%2C138%2C423%2C196%2C935%2C142%2C128%2C182%2C939%2C135%2C172%2C576%2C132%2C936%2C134%2C961%2C174%2C184%2C532%2C144%2C176%2C146%2C178%2C528%2C436%2C112%2C136%2C111%2C158&s=NGDPRPC&grp=0&a=&pr.x=29&pr.y=15#download

7. Productivity is volatile and cyclical – the most common cause of a short-term increase in productivity is an economic slowdown, when employment slows faster than output. Latching on to one or two quarters doesn’t make sense.

Comparing productivity over the Howard and Rudd/Gillard governments, labour productivity growth was about half a percentage point higher under Howard. There are reasons for this unrelated to policy, but that’s another argument. Anyway, the speech was making a point about policy initiatives, not data

Kevin Rudd “There are no circumstances under which I will return to the leadership of the Australian Labor Party in the future”."

Anybody really believe he meant that one at the time?

Now about that fact checking.

R0bert