First and foremost what has to go is an elite committee deciding how others will vote.

If the party can't muster an absolutely compelling argument for any policy position it doesn't deserve to survive; let alone grow and proper!?

And it needs to stop the endless talk fest and just crack on selecting candidates from a far wider section of society and consequently become a less condescending, more inclusive organisation that attracts a much more diverse demographic; if only to capture the imagination of a nation and with it rekindle the light on the hill!

And with that accomplished it needs to embrace genuine nation building tax reform and simplification; instead of becoming a small target and a pale imitation of the coalition!

It needs to start to draw distinctions that set it up as the can do party the like of which gave us the visionary snowy mountains scheme.

The way we got through the GFC bordered on the miraculous; and demonstrated that new labor is the only party with a genuine understanding of how the economy works and what needs to be done to make it grow again!

Preferably before the contractionary policies of the coalition force us to follow Greece?

Nuclear energy needs to be on the table as would be the resumption of of the provision of low cost not for profit energy as public policy as the only strategy we have in the economic tool box to reawaken/regrow our manufacturing base!?

While we need foreign capital, we don't need foreign control or foreign ownership, or the fire sale of our economic sovereignty that seems to go with it!?

Why do we remain one of the few nations to not have embraced thirty year self terminating bonds, to at least give our own super industry a reason to remain and invest our funds here?

Even if that public power policy then compels government to compete with the private sector for the energy dollar!

To that end renewable policy or official terminology needs to be replaced with carbon free or carbon neutral alternatives!
Rhrosty.

Essentially this is all just tinkering round the edges. Labor should be challenging the government's narrative. Instead of trying to run a surplus, they should explain why doing so would currently be bad for the economy.

Most of the public are still under the impression that there's a limit to how much the government can borrow, and lazy Labor have done nothing to bust this myth.

Aidan,a surplus would be possible, if all welfare for the rich were wound back,i.e., negative gearing and super subsidies and so called family trusts along with the ending of all other tax avoidance!

Doable if only we could junk a fundamentally flawed system with more holes than Swiss cheese, in favor of something like a broad based single stand alone unavoidable tax.

Which if it were an unavoidable expenditure tax, would force the multinationals to pay s fair share and make most tax avoidance schemes more costly than simply paying a fair share?
Cheers, Rhrosty.

Aidan, you do understand, don't you, that in order for your food to arrive on your table, someone has to engage in actual productive activity? They have to tend the land, remove pests, plant crops, harvest, transport, process the food?

Your idea that we can make society wealthier by printing pieces of paper is flatly incorrect, and only displays economic illiteracy. It doesn't matter how much you've been brainwashed into reposing an open-ended credulity in government's monopoly control of money and credit, it's still an erroneous and infantile belief.

But if it's true, why not just print so much that everyone in the world is rich?

To understand the errors of you superstition, the following explain it in plain language:
“What Has Government Done to Our Money?” by Murray Rothbard
http://mises.org/books/whathasgovernmentdone.pdf

“The Mystery of Banking” by Murray Rothbard
http://mises.org/Books/mysteryofbanking.pdf

But if you're not interested in the truth, less said the better eh?

Tristan
You're contradicting yourself.

Ok JKJ I'll buy into it - how am I contradicting myself?

Jardine, of course I understand! I am not suggesting (and would NEVER EVER suggest) printing money as a substitute for productive activity. What I'm suggesting is printing money IN ORDER TO GET MORE actual productive activity. Currently far too many people are unemployed; not just the 6% claiming benefits, but the much larger proportion who don't have a job but would take one if they could get one. Until the economy improves enough for the private sector to be confident of being able to employ them profitably, it makes sense for the government to do so.

You do seem to waste an awful lot of effort chasing strawmen.