Re J. Bowyer: Howard and Costello plundered public assets by privatising them or otherwise flogging them off (even Australia's gold bullion reserves) and relabelling the proceeds as budget bottom line. This is the source of the pretend-surplus.

I could produce a domestic surplus by selling my house and waving the proceeds in the air, but nobody would then be fool enough to grant me a loan.

Julian note the Queensland Treasurer has plundered the Public Service superannuation fund to spend spend and spend.
You blokes keep going but the day is fast approaching when debt is finished. Go to History the big deflation in the 1700's that lasted 80 years. At the end goods were cheaper than at the start.
Never mind all part of life's rich tapestry.
I hope I see it starting as I know I will not see the finish of it.

Julian, the GFC had nothing to do with the bankers.
They were victims themselves as their bomb of subprime mortgages went
off in their face.
They had intended to get out with a nice big profit but the timing was wrong.
It was the oil prices that set it off.

I am an Islamaphobe, and do not take offence if someone calls me that.
I am surprised at how many people I speak to turn out to have the same
belief as I do in the risk we are running with Islamic immigration.

Afterall if you are not concerned then you do not understand what is going on.

Baz I have to take you to task on your description of yourself as an"Islamaphobe".
Phobia is an unreasonable fear. There is every reason to fear Islam. Just a look at the Koran, the history and whats going on in the islamic world gives you countless reasons to fear them.
Look at the Lebanon. It used to be fifty fifty muslim and christian. Now it is eighty twenty with oppression and killing of christians and non stop war and destruction. A rich successful society reduced to a third world crap hole.
I just hope it happens to Europe before us and then we can ram this down the throats of our resident Quislings!

Ahhh well JBpwer, maybe you are right, but at least it lumps me
together with people who do not understand the reasons for their concern.

I have never been to Lebanon but I remember the civil war they had there.
It thought it was total madness at the time but I did not know about
the damage to their genome which of course explains why they do such
things as they are incapable of reaching accommodation with other cultures.
We see it all happening again in Syria and Lakemba.

"Julian, the GFC had nothing to do with the bankers.
They were victims themselves as their bomb of subprime mortgages went
off in their face."

It went off in the world's face as well after they spread subprime mortgages in the hope of profiting at the expense of subprime mortgagors. But not the whole world. We had elected a government that governed for the people not for Mr Greed. An Abbott-Santamaria-Turnbull government would have governed for Mr Greed as its proposed $50 billion gift to corporate business shows. We would have been where Greece and Ireland and Spain and Portugal and the USA are now, with crushing mass poverty while their governments put banksters' demands above retention of public welfare. The cracks are showing in Britain also, with NHS in crisis and public housing, once sustainable, becoming unsustainable..

When the Global Financial Heist struck I withdrew everything I had from the bank. When the Rudd response became apparent I could safely put it back in the bank, relieved that nobody of the likes of Howard or Costello or Abbott or Turnbull was at the helm to throw Australia into mass chaos and poverty at Mr Greed's behest. Others I know responded the same way.