The ‘logic’ hasn’t hit Bill Shorten. He is still blaming the Abbott government for all the problems and loss of the motor manufacturing industry.

The Abbot government must be pretty powerful if it can have the effect Shorten claims for it in only 5 or 6 months in the job. Shorten forgets, too, that Holden and Ford had already made up their minds to leave Australia while Labor was still ruining the country.

I heard 14 months ago, car companies were going. Relative told me through a source in industry.

If Shorten did not know, then maybe it tells you something about him.

If he did know, this also tells you something about him.

Sometimes it appears the debates are merely for show, a bit like the community cabinets I also wrote about. Shorten was one of Labor's best spinners then too.

Chris Lewis,

My apologies. Just as I sent off the comment, I thought, "Wonder if he is going to right it as they do it". It's very hot here this morning and the brain is slow. Good luck with the book. I will read it if I'm still around when it's published.

NTPoliticians (your post 11:12 am) Well said that man!

No need to be quite so petulant, Chris Lewis.

>>oh yeah, I am somehow being selective by putting up link so people can read same thing you did by clicking every aspect of debate. Good one. I must be evil.<<

You were simply using the lazy-journalist technique of selecting a generalization as your headline, without acknowledging a major qualification to the signal it was giving.

Totally understandable. After all, the number of people who would actually click on the piece in question would be minuscule.

I expect your "book" will use none of these tricks.

The real problem here is that no politician of any political persuasion is able to take leadership on the problem. Which is understandable, because it is a difficult one, and no politician likes to face difficult problems - it makes them look weak and indecisive, and they hate that.

Releasing ourselves from uncompetitive and unprofitable industries is a necessary step for our economy. Working out what we are actually good at is the hard part. Sadly, every government believes that their intervention will help, when in fact the best thing they could do would be to get out of the way. Which once again has the side-effect that they could be seen as weak and indecisive.

Good luck with the book, Chris Lewis. If it runs true to the form you show on this Forum, it will just be another "Labour bad, Liberal good" pamphlet, and we know how much the world will be looking forward to that.

*Australia needs to plan for the next phase of our economic story, when we can no longer rely upon the cushion of primary industry.*

How soon before the Chinese boom goes bust?
When it does we will be left with a huge workforce that is trained to dig stuff out of the ground and ship it away and nowhere to ship it to.
When the "level playing field" was introduced it was never level at all.
If wages and conditions in the third world countries had been raised to a level close to the first world levels there would have been some degree of fairness.
Now it is an inducement for businesses to move to Asia and gain the extra profits of low wages and costs and in no way raising living standards in the host countries.