Andrew, yes I can actually agree with you almost entirely on this occasion.

So it begs the question: what is Labor going to do to make sure that they win the next election and set things right?

Abbott has put himself and his government totally on the nose with the Australian people. However, Labor is also still highly on the nose after the Rudd/Gillard era.

This massive disillusionment really does set the scene for a third party to rise right up and steal the show at the next election. PUP perhaps? Or something that has not yet even appeared.

And it gives Labor an enormous opportunity to get their act together and regain power. But given how terrible they have been, they will need to do it very soon, to give themselves maximum prospects of convincing the populace that they are genuine.

So then, is Labor going to do the following:

1. Instigate some form of legally binding system to make sure that when pollies promise something, they keep their promises or get booted out of office, if not into a jail cell!

2. Tackle the cosy relationship between politicians and the big end of town head-on, by abolishing donations and making the funding of political parties as neutral as possible and by substantially increasing taxes and the overall contribution of the wealthy to fixing the budget, our infrastructure woes and everything else that the public purse supports.

3. To this end, reinstate the carbon and mining taxes, and boost them into something substantial rather than just token efforts.

4. Slash immigration and consequently slash the enormous ongoing demand for new infrastructure and services. This is a huge factor concerning the budget, which no one seems to even consider at all!

5. Embrace Gillard’s desire for us to achieve a sustainable Australia, not a big Australia.

That’s just a few things off the top of my head.

continued

So Andrew, what are the chances of Labor doing anything like this?

Zero?

Unfortunately, as much as I agree with you regarding Abbott and Hockey and the budget, I can’t see that Labor is in ANY position to criticise… as there is just no indication that they would do anything substantially different!

All they are likely to do tinker around the edges, rearrange the deck-chairs…. and continue to take us down a totally unsustainable path, where the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen.

Well Andrew;
One simply can't continue to live off of an already maxed credit card, and broken promises are not exclusive to the coalition!
One can remember L.A.W tax breaks, and there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead!
Having said that, let me say this, the govt could have kept all the pre-election commitments, and created a surplus, with the following.
Jettisoning health insurance subsidies=3 billion.
Repealing negative gearing=5 billion.
Winding back tax breaks on the wealthiest's super=30 billions, and defensible if the, (shoveled by the shipload) age of entitlement is truly over!?
Further, reducing the GST share to all state governments by around 15 billions, (we've all gotta tighten the belt) would leave them with no other choice, but to means test state welfare, on incomes above $80,000.00; i.e., totally free health care and largely free schooling?
Now 3+5+30 + 15= 53 billion, or around 13 billions more than the current deficit?
However, the real debt crisis may well be domestic debt, (higher than the super fund) and or foreign debt, already at record levels and reportedly now roughly equal to China's foreign reserve?
We need something more imaginative, besides selling the family farm or sell the family silver, or our national sovereignty, to keep the economy growing!
I mean, what the far king good does it do for us, if it essentially belongs to someone else somewhere else; particularly, when we could garner all the foreign capital we need, with self terminating govt guaranteed 30 year bonds!
If there were to be a double dissolution tomorrow, just what would Labor do differently?
More of the same old same old, fire sale of public assets?
I mean, the CBA,, telecom the airlines and the power delivery schemes in public hands, used to earn enough to pay the pensions of those folks, whose lifelong sacrifices, gave those assets to the nation in the first place!
And now we moan about a shrinking taxpayer demographic!
Rhrosty.

One contends that returning the fair go is only doable by growing the economy!
If you make a bigger cake Andrew, you can then distribute larger slices to everyone!
Doing what you've always done, will only get you what you've always got!
Thinking within limited traditional (socialist) circles, (them and us) will limit the questions, and by definition all the available answers.
Growing the economy is just not that hard!
Removing all the parasitical practices, [the entire convoluted collection methodology,] and replacing all that, with a single stand alone unavoidable expenditure tax, will finally end the need for Australian based companies to shell out around 7% of the bottom line, just to comply with entirely unnecessary complexity!
In a 1.6 trillion dollar economy, an 18% expenditure tax, will raise some 380 billions!
And also result in significant saving, due to the fact, we can make around 5,000 public servants redundant!
No problem, in a growing economy, with plenty of new jobs for number crunchers!
The second part of the equation, after creating the lowest effective tax system of around 11%, [if you factor in the new savings created by unavoidable transparency,] is the roll out of cheaper than coal thorium power stations, as new public assets.
Which given that latter, would be not only self funding, but placed adjacent to the new industrial estates, more than halve current industrial energy costs!
Couple the world's cheapest tax system to the world's cheapest energy supply, and, you have the energy dependent companies of the world queuing to relocate here, along with the 95% of Australian companies, who have off-shored just to lower tax and or, production costs.
Plus a bunch of seriously self funded retirees, and cashed up entrepreneurs.
If you also, roll out self funding rapid rail and commit to nuclear power, very fast roll on roll off ferries, as a new national fleet, I dare say, no nation on earth would be better placed, to compete on a global market, and without saddling the nation to serious costly subsidies!
Don't just stand there duck shoving responsibilities, do something!
Rhrosty.

Sure the coalition will struggle to sell its tough message, but all Labor will do is hope that public dissent will continue and give them a victory.

I mean where are their policy options? They will merely allow the coalition to do much of the dirty work for them, and then come in and tinker at the edges before telling us how progressive Labor is.

Andrew
It is more than appropriate that you as a labor member of rudd gillard rudd greens coalition governments express your understanding of budgets in the terms you use and the anology of budgets being like toilets.
While The Libs budget might have a whiff your labor ones were full of it.

Mind you Andrew it is good to see you've stopped trying to corrupt the meaning of our egalitarianism.

Well done. Credit where it is due.

Labor supporters are in a massive panic to portray Abbott in the light they do. They believe by singleing out Abbott they can stir up the rest of the Coalition against him & thus breaking up this Government. It really is a sickening display of total lack of integrity. They really are the stuff that goes down the toilet.
Andrew could you please explain why Labor didn't implement the economic strategies they're waffling on about now, whilst they were still in government ?

Andrew, by the way it was Labor who did the flushing of the fair go many years ago when they created the hangers-on brigade within the left. There's nothing fair about the working class having to support the bureaucrats.
Perhaps this will ring a bell ?
fair go Austral./NZ informal used for emphasis or to request someone to be reasonable or fair: Fair go! How can I ask a thing like that?
A thing like asking us to support so many useless & incomptent people for nothing whatsoever in return, not even basic gratitude.
Now that this Government is asking people to pull at least some of their weight the lefties are screaming blue murder. What integrity devoid moronic creeps.

To be inherently fair, when bagging someone else's ideas, the truly ethical or Labor, would enunciate their alternatives.
If the opposition thinks that their ideas are just too brilliant to share, then they do have the option to block supply, and then put them to the people?
Always providing it isn't more of the same incompetent rubbish that led to the landslide against them initially!
For mine, it really is past time we stopped playing the blame game, and or, the divide and rule philosophy, that sets Australian against Australian, at the time, we should be standing shoulder to shoulder against the world!
We need to stop selling our "economic sovereignty", and just cease importing 91% of our oil requirements at a cost to the economy of 26+ billions per. If we weren't so dumb, we would at the very least access our own oil and keep this money onshore.
And then allow it to percolate through and around our domestic economy, where given the usual multiplier factors and leveraging, it could do as much as 175 billions worth of economic work inside the domestic economy!
I also believe, Labor can drag back all that it lost to the greens support and more, if they once again embraced work friendly policies, even if that meant, mining the reef!
Economies work at their very best, when our still very finite money supply, passes through as many Australian hands as possible!
I am really very tired of our so called leaders, inventing myriad and quite fallacious reasons, that that just can't be done.
Moreover, the traditional fuels we can recover here, produce four times less carbon than that which we import!
That being so, makes a complete nonsense out of really dumb green inspired objections, against mining the reef, or even dumber ones, coming from the other side, that say the government has no business in business!
What's the only other alternative?
Our remaining economic sovereignty sold at bargain basement prices; and another four trillions of foreign debt, and we Australians beggars in our own, sold down the river, country?
Rhrosty.

then they do have the option to block supply,
Rhrosty,
Yes if the concern is that a policy is detrimental to the scheme of things but in the case of Labor intending to block literally everything is nothing short of treason. It has nothing to do with genuine concern but has everything to do with plain moronic vindictiveness & spite. School kids act like that on occasions just like Billy the Kid does now.

Don't worry individual, nobody on Labor's side, has the testicular fortitude to actually block supply, any more than Tony Abbott is going to bring on a double dissolution!
One needs courage of conviction to choose either path, and that is in seriously short supply right now, when the aim is to just occupy the treasury benches, and far queue.
Labor learned a huge lesson from Dr Noooo, during its last term of government, and it is using it against the coalition.
All you need to do is continually remind the people that the leader is a wriggling worm, who has broken core promises!
The hate message just works too well, and consequently, Tony Abbott's political career is already in it's last days?
Everyone has parents and or grandparents, and too many of them, including Clive Palmer's mum, are being unfairly and harshly targeted by the coalition's very first budget.
And given that is so, we can all of us see it, and happening to our own!
Therefore the negative campaign is working big time!
And even more pain is flagged, if the coalition wins the next election!
Every successful business man can tell you, they are targeting the wrong demographic and in so doing, have seriously harmed discretionary spending, which in turn can only ever result in economic contraction; which hurts the employer class far more than the average worker, who arguably has no fat to cut!
There were other options, which included REAL tax reform and growing the economy!
To in effect trade out of difficulty!
This is what every successful business will resort to as the first choice, but particularly, when good staff are more or less an extended and loyal family!
Everyone needs to share the pain?
Yeah sure they do!
Problem is, those with the least are being asked to carry the lions share, and every fair-minded person among us knows it, hence the huge backlash against the Coalition!
Rhrosty.

Rhrostry, what on earth are you rabbiting on about with regard pensioners? I'm an aged pensioner and I can assure you there are going to be no cuts to my pension. The only financial change in my life will be the $7 co payment to my GP, which is capped at $70 /year.
As for the increase in pension age which doesn't take effect for 21 years, well no one will be forced to work until they are 70, that is just the age they can apply for their pension. People who are unable or unwilling to wait until they are 70 can retire on their super. After all, that is what they having been making payments for every payday for 40/50 years.
From reading around the blogs and Facebook it appears we have turned into a nation of whingers, bludgers and spoilt brats, a description previously reserved for the poms.

"Budgets are like plumbing. If everything works as it should, then no-one takes much notice. But get it wrong, and things start to smell bad fast."

Yup,

That's why all of Labor's budgets stank like week old dead fish.

With Labor's budgets spending 10% more than it gets in revenue, any attempt to claim economic competence is laughable.

Until the first Coalition budget is passed the country is still running on the laws and budget from Labor. The complete stuff up of the economy is squarely 100% Labor's fault.

a description previously reserved for the poms.
Big Nana,
precisely & look how Pommieland ended up. With a few thousand tonnes of luck Australia may just be salvageable.

No negative gearing.
No superannuation lurks for the well off.
No pollie super till 70.
No pollie super above 9%.
No salary packaging.
No private health insurance rebate.
No money to private schools.
No giving money to carbon polluters, take money off them.
No trust funds.
No offshoring.
No fuel tax exemptions.
More GST on fatty foods, soft drink, takeaway etc.
Proper alcohol volume tax.
Increase capital gains tax.
Inheritance tax.
Land tax, especially unused land.
Financial transactions tax.
80-90% tax rate for income above $1 million per annum.

Budget surplus in minutes.

mikk,
I'm with you on that one.

Big Nana.
You are wrong! i.e., pensions are currently indexed to average male wages!
Starting with Abbott's next term, pensions will be indexed to lower rate inflation, something you seemed to have missed?
It's only a matter of time before you pay the GST on everything; and sooner rather than later, at a higher rate?
But, you are well off B.N., with regard to struggling families!
It's made doubly harder with rising costs and lower subsidies.
And this while welfare for the rich remains largely untouched!
In 3-5 years, tax breaks on rich super, will cost more than the aged pension!
The Granny killing GST was introduced to make up for the tax we were no longer getting, from Australian corporations, who had off-shored their operations!
And we now import 91%+ of our oil, at a cost to the consumer, of 26 billions per.
And the more we pay for fully imported energy, the less there is for discretionary spending.
Ditto, with increasingly unaffordable housing, the more we pay for mortgages/rent, the less there is for discretionary spending; and indeed, in regard to Sydney based pensioners, a shoe sized bedsit, now costs more than the single pension!
But then Big Nana, there are pensioners and pensioners!
Not all pensions are government pensions, and some of these folk, when they take a sleep break away from the pokies or other equally expensive pastimes; can go home to a veritable mansion on five acres?
And are able to afford, private health cover, tourist medicine, a full solar array and bore water, shade/glass houses, chooks, a couple of Dexters, a very large very comprehensive vege garden, rotary hoes and what have you; virtually self sufficiency, a couple of beamers and what have you!
Sorry Big Nana, I don't believe you are the real deal, but rather, someone more like Big Gina, and just getting by on twenty or thirty billions of inherited wealth, or a generous and fully indexed to your salary level, public service pension?
It must be a struggle, eh?
Mk for PM!
Rhrosty.

Incidentally, Big Nana? One or two sentences specific to the aged, is hardly rabbiting on!
And just where in any of my, [previous to your rabbiting on remark,] posts have I mentioned pensioners?
Well?
Perhaps if you replaced the verbal or skimming with actual reading?
Shakespeare would've mused, methinks thou dost protest too much!
Or to use the colloquial. Nudge nudge, wink, wink, say no more, a wink is as good a a nod to a blind horse!
Or in the words of another more Australian poet word smith, maybe you're just another big winker?
Rhrosty.

Was that lemon a bit sour Rhrosty? If so your last post reflects it.

Please explain just when a reduction in the increase of something became a cut. Most of these so called cuts that the lefties are screaming about, are just that.

The totally necessary winding back of all the unfunded forward spending Gillard/Rudd locked in to future budgets are not cuts. Spending on all these things will still continue to increase, but at an more affordable rate.

So Big Nana was right.

Oh, & show me where an increase in GST is shown in the budget. Blaming Abbott for something others suggest is a bit rich, even for the left.

Rather than attacking them, you should be pleased that some people have pensions from industry, funded by industry, it takes a load off the taxpayer. Of course you perhaps were talking about unfunded public service pensions. If so I could agree with that.

Then you go on to attack "Big Gina", for inherited wealth. I suppose you think her father should have given you his wealth, earned by hard work & savvy. Like most inheritors of great wealth, I'm sure you could have spent it quickly. Gina on the other hand turned a nice fortune into a huge fortune, also by hard work & savvy.

She provided plenty of jobs & enriched the country as she did so. I am under no false impression she did it for the country, but I am not GREEN with envy because she did, & I didn't.

So mate, that last post, dripping with envy as it is, is way beneath you. Get rid of that chip you have put on your shoulder, throw out those very sour lemons, & go back to talking your usual sense. The only people your last post will appeal to is those filled with hate for anyone who has done better than them. Not a nice look

Rhostry,I am sorry to disappoint you but I am not in the Gina class of pensioners. My sole income is my aged pension plus the family tax benefit I receive for the two grandchildren in my care. However, I live within my means. We have enough to feed and cloth us, to cover the costs for the roof over my head and the occasional treat. A reduction in a future increase may mean our treats become even more occasional, especially once I lose Family TX Benefit B, but compared to people in some other countries, we are rich.
I have never expected tax payers to keep me in wealth in my retirement. The aged pension, especially for people in public housing, is totally adequate to provide a reasonably comfortable life style, unless you have expensive habits, like smoking, drinking, gambling or fine dining etc.
People tend to forget that welfare, health and education costs are born by taxpayers. As one who paid taxes for 50 years, I can totally understand how today's workers would resent having to pay more and more tax on a welfare bill that increases daily. Especially when they see the way some welfare recipients spend that money.
Australia has the fastest growing debt of any developed country. We all need to tighten our belts a bit, and looking at the general population, losing some weight would be extremely beneficial.

Hasbeen:
I don't envy anyone, a complete waste of time!
I do however, call it as I see it, and that doesn't always please everyone?
Nobody likes having to look at themselves, as seen through the eyes of others; rather than the usual, often superior self delusion?
Nor do they always like frank and fearless advice!
I can remember reading somewhere. If you and your employee share the same view on almost everything, then one of you is clearly redundant!
And of the best lessons that management teaches; is, there is always a better way!
Almost all human progresses, has been achieved through, (sometimes robust) debate and the exchange of ideas!
I admire self made Lance Hancock tremendously, but not his daughter Gina, particularly, given her reported shameful treatment of her own family.
And thank you very much, for saying I usually make good sense!
High praise indeed, coming from your good self!

B.N. I thought tax a and b were tax breaks?
Meaning, one would have had to pay some income tax to get it back?
[We never had it when I was raising my own!]
Although I could be wrong and stand to be corrected?
My mother raised four of us, then made a home for two grandkids!
Not always that easy!
And those dear souls that take on that thankless task, particularly when they should be enjoying their retirement, have my undying admiration!
Incidentally, the only smokes I use these days, are those few cigars, that I receive at Christmas or on my B'day.
The only drink is a very occasional red wine for medicinal purposes, or a couple of very low alcohol beers at the one or two bar-b-ques I'm still invited to, along with a couple of million flies.
I don't mind the little peppery ones, but the bigger ones taste S.H.
The only cure for that, is a couple of fingers of single malt! That'll sanitize anything?
I bear no malice to anyone, nor do I envy those who have more wealth.
Life's just too short!
You'll have a nice day now, y'hear.
Rhrosty.

For once a good article followed largely with comments that offer and discuss, rightly or wrongly ideas and solutions. This has been a refreshing change from the monotonous drone of the political toadies, god botherer’s, narcissists and the ramblings of OUG. I particularly dip’s my lid to Rhrosty and also mikk.

I believe there is a building mood in the general population to do something; the problem is that there is no, ideological vehicle to carry the mood. Recent events I believe have made the red and blue team virtually redundant. The green and yellow team’s inherent baggage would not endear them to many looking for an alternative. Perhaps Ludwig observation “or something that has not even appeared” has merit?

The other major issue is the complex nature of the message represented in this thread. If a battle is fought on many fronts is allows the ability of those opposing to pick on the front that offers the least resistance. By doing so the whole message is distorted and confused and loses credibility.

Is there on thing, the irrevocable aspiration that the majority could hold on to in order to salvage “the fair go”?

Andrew

The sickening stench emanating from your mob attacking and bullying the Abbott women is far worse than the it your budgets flushed.

At the next election quite appropriarely many more of your mob will be flushed away.

These tactics of bullying and denigrating are typical of the juvenile antics of your average undergraduate rabble rouser and union thug.

Dung doesn't rise it just sits and festers.

Andrew
In your next article would you like to explain your policy backflips as highlighted in 'Cut and Paste' in todays Australian.

You are openly being portrayed as a populist policy gymnast. Perhaps they should be censored. What do you think?

In the days of your former views the Labor Party under Your mate Ruddy was trying to portry itself as John Howard lite.

Now you no longer subscribe to those views and are trying to portray his views and Abbotts policies as hardhearted.

What are your honest views? Do you care? Are you merely the bastard offspring of Richo and his 'whatever it takes?'