A bit like Labor's 'Mediscare' propaganda, eh Albo? I have no more interest in in Turnbull's blah than I have in yours. I - probably we - are not listening to any of you any longer. You have all had the richard. You are no longer relevant. You are a gang of tired old hacks running out of our money to spend. Turnbull and your own peculiar little head of nonsense, Shorten, are yesterday's men, both interested only being PM. On ya bike, the lot of you!

TTFN - nailed it. Realise Mr Albanese that your smarmy photo and fake concern for the rest of Australia whilst paying yourself well over the odds, claiming disgusting amounts of expenses and pensions that are even more disgusting. Your day is done, go and do something useful ask millionair's Hawke or Keating if need a PA.What about Ms Gillard? What is she up to? We know she is sucking up millions making herself out as another humanitarium.
Here is an idea make all commonwealth and state pensions taxable. This would get a few bob in and would not affect the lower end because they do not get enough to tax. Whilst you are about it apply the assett provisions to said pensions AND make yourselves wait until you reach the pensionable age you have set for the rest of us.
I bet you are sorry you wrote this junk now?

Dear Mr Albanese,

Welcome to the Forum Sir.

Thank You for the information. You as a Minister
for Infrastructure know what you're talking about
and of course what you say makes sense. Roads,
transport, et cetera are vital as are jobs. It
would be great if this government would tell us
the truth be it regarding asylum seekers, pensions,
or what cuts are coming up next.

Thank You for the article.

Anthony Albanese talking down to people about honesty - pffffffffftt!

What a joke.

Very sorry to you, and for you Foxy....

Gasp! Shock! Horror!

You mean pollies tell porkies just to get elected?

I can't begin to tell you how disappointed I am with that earth shattering, groundbreaking, beyond belief news!

My world and my simple expectations now lie in ruins around my feet!

[About here your holier than thou halo sits now?]

One supposes it might have a little something to do with vastly reduced revenue?

And one supposes your lot have plans to remedy that with new taxes? A wealth tax or death duties perhaps?

I can assure you all us oldies are "just dying" to contribute our utmost to the latter! With Hasbeen bouncing along at the helm and leading the charge!? Eh Has?

And while on the subject, three blokes have arrived simultaneously at the pearly gates, only to find bored out of his brain, Peter having a very slow bad hair day!

While Nick down below is being rushed off his feet!

Anyhow, Peter decides to loosen up the rules just a little for probationists.

Accordingly he reduces the entry requirements and tells the three fellas, an Englishman, an Aussie and an Irishman, if they can answer a simple question, he'll let them in at the basement level.

So he enquired of the Englishman, where's Piccadilly? To which he replied, ah, let me see, the last time I looked, it was in London Good, replied Peter, in you go.

Turning to the Aussie he asked, where's Bondi? Coastal NSW? replied the head scratching Aussie. In you go, replied Peter, and good enough.

Turning to the Irishman he wondered, You're Irish aren't you Paddy? OK, I'll make easy peasy, how many L's are there in can, can?

Paddy furrowed his brow counted all his fingers and toes twice, thrice and ten times more as a thoroughly bemused Peter stood tapping a foot. Finally he finished his counting and replied, 144.

Now how in heaven's name did you figure that? asked a thoroughly bewildered Peter.

Easy, replied Paddy, proceeding to sing, La,la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la etc/etc to the music of Can, can.
Alan B.

Dear Alan,

I've got another one for you:

While walking down the street one day a politician is
tragically hit by a truck and dies. His soul arrives in
heaven and is met by St Peter. "Welcome to heaven,
before you settle in, we have a small problem. I have my
order from above that you'll have to spend on day in hell
and one day in heaven, then you can choose where to spend
eternity."

"I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the
politician.

"I'm sorry but those are the rules."

With that, St Peter escorts him to the elevator and the
politician goes down, down, down to hell.

The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a
green golf course.In the distance is a clubhouse and standing
in front are all his friends and other politicians who had
worked with him. Everyone is very happy and in evening dress.
They're happy to see him, they play a friendly game of golf,
and then dine on lobster, caviar, and drink champagne.
The devil is also present. He's a friendly guy dancing,
cracking jokes - time flies. Before he realises it, it's
time to go back.

Everyone gives him a hearty farewell. The lift doors re-open
and St Peter's waiting for him. Next he gets sent to heaven.
Here he joins a group moving from cloud to cloud, playing
harps and singing. Again before he realises - time has
passed. St Peter returns.

"Well, you've spent one day in hell and one in heaven.
Now choose your eternity."

"I choose hell." St Peter escorts him to the elevator that
takes him to hell.

This time the doors open and he's in the middle of a barren
land covered with waste and garbage. His friends are dressed
in rags picking up trash. The devil comes and puts his arms
around his shoulder.

"I don't understand - this is so different from yesterday.
What happened?"

The devil smiles and replies:

"Yesterday we were campaigning.
Today, you voted."

Thanks for that Foxy and the chuckle! On a less humorous note.

A recently deceased wakes up in a very strange place. Whereapon, a nondescript person pops into his room for "the guided tour". And so, he slips out of bed, into his slippers and dressing gown and proceeds down a very long hallway.

Halfway down the guide opens a vast door and shows him a monumental room with a table stretching beyond the horizon stacked with food. Around which thousands are gathered, standing up to their necks in warm excrement; and only able to select from the delicious abundant display, with very long spoons glued to their hands, they can't ever manage to negotiate into their mouths.

Consequently the monumentally enormous room is pure bedlam!

That my friend, remarked the guide, is hell!

Then they proceeded further down to an identical door opening into an identical room, where the only difference was the satisfied smacking of appreciative lips and smiling, laughing, contented beyond measure, folks rubbing rounded stuffed tummies and feeding each other!

And that my friend is heaven, remarked the guide!
Cheers Alan.

Dear Alan,

Thank You for that.

I guess each of us have our own versions of
heaven and hell. As Mark Twain stated -
You go to heaven for the climate, hell for
the company.

Ellen DeGeneres told the story - My grandmother
started walking 5 miles a day when she was sixty.
She's ninety-seven now and we don't know where
the hell she is.

I've come across an interesting link on the web
that may be of interest:

http://theconversation.com/election-2016-will-the-infrastructure-promises-meet-australias-needs-61140

Greetings Mr. AA,

Do you read the comments posted here ? If so please post an answer.
I have a few things to say but no point if you do not read what the plebs have to say.
Perhaps you are just stirring the pot. Yes?

Simple simon.

These arguments about government infrastructure spending virtually always focus on economic growth and jobs. This leads to heated discourse on whether or not it actually does or does not lead to economic growth or jobs. Various vested interests say yes or no, depending on whether it suits their profit agenda.

What is missing from the discourse is the concept that government infrastructure spending is a public service. People living in any country are entitled to use efficient, safe and largely free infrastructure in going about their daily lives. This not only applies to roads, dams and bridges, it also applies to libraries, universities, schools, hospitals, police and welfare services.

Thirty years of neo-liberalism has reduced public spending discourse to the assumption that anything that does not deliver a profit or create jobs is wasted money. The concept of improving the people's lives has been surgically removed from the discussion.

Killarney..

Maybe true to some degree, but more true is the damage done by clash of ideologies, and the resultant circus!
This clash under the heading of Democracy.
Something to be said for autocracy, and firm rule!

One of the prerequisites for democracy appears to
be advanced economic development.
Advanced economic development may not necessarily
lead to democracy but it is rare to find stable
democracy in societies that are not economically advanced.
Advanced industrialisation is often associated with
political democratisation. One reason for this relationship
is that an advanced economy usually contains an urbanised
literate and sophisticated population that expects some
participation in the political process. Another reason is that
these societies tend to be politically stable because their
large middle-class has a stake in the system and is
reluctant to support political upheavals of any kind.

These countries can afford to offer citizens political
alternatives without fearing that the society would be
torn apart in any resulting conflict. In societies with a
large, impoverished lower class such as nations of Africa, Asia,
Latin America - there is likely to be strong opposition
from the ruling class to any meaningful extension of
democratic rights.

Of course there are some exceptions in the general link
between economic development and democracy. In particular
the totalitarian nature of some societies which has made
them highly resistant to democracy no matter how
economically advanced they are.

Killarney,

Regarding your post, the sentiments of which I generally agree with and directing my comment to the last para in particular, it is the move to the corporatisation of federal agencies and deliberate political direction AWAY from community benefit (and the cooperation between public service agencies that went with the ideal) hat have thrown the baby out with the bathwater where identifying, providing and coordinating better public services are concerned.

That was and remains the policy choice on BOTH sides of the federal Parliament, make no mistake about that.

The major players in the federal parliament and including the blackmailing Greens are damned lazy, more often than not slavishly following policy 'initiatives' from overseas, the UK in particular, even where the practical lessons learned should advise a different choice, or no action at all.

The other issue I would concentrate on is eternal vigilance to protect freedom of speech. That is the only available back-stop to protect democracy.

"However, even in established democracies, there are pressures that threaten various democratic foundations. A democratic system’s openness also allows it to attract those with vested interests to use the democratic process as a means to attain power and influence, even if they do not hold democratic principles dear. This may also signal a weakness in the way some democracies are set up. In principle, there may be various ways to address this, but in reality once power is attained by those who are not genuinely support democracy, rarely is it easily given up."

http://www.globalissues.org/article/761/democracy

I've got a question. Can any government really
be held responsible for the failure of infrastructure
investment projects? From my reading on the
subject - there seems to be quite a few issues involved
and things are not as clear cut as they at first appear
particularly considering that there are more than just
one tier of government involved and new governments also
inherit programs from previous ones. Here is a link that
dealt with the issue during the last election which shows
the complexities that can come up:

http://theconversation.com/election-factcheck-has-public-infrastructure-investment-fallen-20-under-the-coalition-59533

Anthony
Have a close look at what is being done to Sydney.
As someone is arguing today in the Herald, much too much traffic is being jammed onto our roads: cars, 4 wheel drives, B-doubles, huge cranes, and truckloads of containers. It was no surprise that a smash occurred this week and locked up the M1.
Railways are there for a reason: to carry heavy traffic long distances. Every trainload of goods or people is one not on our roads. Where is the investment in more railways and better trains? (Compared with huge building programs e.g. in London)

All very well to build more and more sports stadiums (funded by gambling houses and so on) and expect people to get there by road. Or dream that lots of people can be carried on this nonsensical light rail which has already made a mess of Randwick and Kingsford and George Street. Someone made a lot of money out of that construction- but does it help move people efficiently? No.

We can't keep cramming more and more people onto roads, building more tollways and so on. Sydney traffic is a nightmare now on the weekend as well as at peak hour. And they want to bring more migrants to Sydney?

Albanese,

Coming from a government that wasted $16bn building school halls that were worth a fraction of that, and contribute close to bugger all to the economy, Turnbull and Abbott are doing 100% better than you.

You forgot to include the $50bn subs project in SA that Labor ignored for nearly a decade.

Dear Shadow Minister,

It is pointless finger-pointing and blaming the other
side for one's own failings. Both sides of politics
of course do that. That seems to be the way the game
is played. However the following link gives us a
partial insight into why this is so. Kindly don't brush it
aside as a "Left-wing whinge." Do try to keep an open
mind if you can.

http://theconversation.com/election-2016-will-the-infrastructure-promises-meet-australias-needs-61140

Dear Shadow Minister,

You wrote;

“Coming from a government that wasted $16bn building school halls that were worth a fraction of that.”

Absolute tosh. More 'alternative' facts, unless of course you can back any of it up.

Rudd was at the top of the tree of world leaders who saw the GFC coming and took concrete and highly effective steps to mitigate the damage.

Now that your hero Trump is setting about dismantling the protections Obama put in place to prevent another collapse we may well experience it all over again.

“President Trump on Friday moved to chisel away at the Obama administration’s legacy on financial regulation, announcing steps to revisit the rules enacted after the 2008 financial crisis and to back away from a measure intended to protect consumers from bad investment advice.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/business/dealbook/trump-congress-financial-regulations.html

For all his other faults there is not a single person in the Liberal party who would have the intelligence or the imagination to do what Rudd did. God help us.

Here we are arguing about exactly how much money we are spending
that we haven't got.

All that money that has been spent on solar & wind that will have to be written off !

Foxy,

Considering that it was Albanese who was pointing the bone, I simply thought that I should point out his own party's fiscal incompetence.

SR,

A little rich coming from the chief purveyor of Labor lies.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/gfc-stimulus-harmed-economy-report-says/news-story/b9fe23ae1e512d3e2befe64c56fffc19

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/school-billions-miss-their-target-in-rush-to-spend-rudd-stimulus-money-20100214-nzkp.html

And there are many more...

It is a matter of record that the stimulus packages were poorly designed, largely ineffective, left the country with virtually no productive infrastructure, and is a text book example of how not to respond.

Dear Shadow Minister,

That is precisely the kind of reaction that
Australian voters are getting sick and tired
of politicians doing. Don't fall into the same
trap.

cont'd ...

Here is a link that totally disagrees with your
cited perspectives:

http://www.onlineopinion.com/view.asp?article=15380&page=0

cont'd ...

I'll try again:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15380&page=0

Foxy,

There you go again.

Alan Austin has little to no economic qualifications, and whose grasp on the subject is at best superficial. He spent his early years writing for a church magazine and now writes deeply flawed polemics for the left by cherry picking information.

Perhaps you should try a reputable source.

Dear Shadow Minister,

There you go again.
Why not critique what the
man wrote instead of the man himself? How
many journalists who write for newspapers have
economic qualifications?

As for the man being
"left-wing?" I have no knowledge of his personal
political leanings - and I suspect, neither do
you. And as for "cherry-picking?" it appears
that you don't do so badly at that yourself.

This Alan Austin?
https://independentaustralia.net/profile-on/alan-austin,67

Very funny. Cafe society and 'Do as we say and not as we do'?

In a moment of frankness, Wayne Swan paid tribute to his LNP predecessor, Peter Costello and to John Howard who as Treasurer first set the economic reforms in progress back in the 1980s. [SMH]

Foxy,

At the time I did criticise AA. His analysis of comparing Australia's economy who started with zero debts, strong banks with minimal exposure to junk debt, and a rapidly expanding mining exports against others who started off with substantial debt, weaker banking sectors and relatively small mining industries was deeply flawed and would have got a Uni student a F.

He also happily skipped over the school halls debacle, which delivered vastly over priced buildings that mostly weren't necessary, and delivered stimulus mostly after the main crisis passed, the $9bn cash splash that was almost entirely spent on white goods made in other countries, or the pink batts disaster that killed 4 people and burnt down hundreds of houses.

Dear Shadow Minister,

I fully understand that you as a Coalition supporter
remember the Rudd Government through the prism of
debt and dysfunction (despite the Coalition's own
belated acknowledgement in its costings that
return to surplus is no easy task in a time of
falling government revenue). By contrast Labor
supporters will remember the Rudd and Gillard
governments as ones that did attempt to deal with
key challenges of the 21st century.

We now have to wait and see how successful the
Coalition will be in governing in such difficult
and challenging times (with not only internal
party problems but with a debt that has more than
doubled or is it tripled? under its watch).

Foxy,

You forgot Labor's massive waste and incompetence, and the border control disaster. As government you don't get judged on effort or intentions, but on results.

So far the results under the coalition have been far better than under Labor.

Dear Shadow Minister,

I beg to differ. Labor did have a substantial record of
reforming legislation and did attempt to sustain growth
with fairness in immensely challenging economic times.
We have yet to wait and see how the Coalition will be
in governing in such difficult and challenging times.

Foxy,

I challenge you to point out one policy that Labor put in place to facilitate long term growth. In fact quite the opposite, the carbon taxes, mining taxes, wildly regressive labour laws, and tens of thousands of pointless bureaucratic regulations all added massive costs to doing business in Aus.

Juliar during her regime put in place a plethora of huge spending programs, and to balance this put in place savings measures (read new taxes) that only covered a tiny portion of this new expenditure. Then to top this off Labor and the Greens are doing their best to stop the repeal of any of these spending measures, even the ones they pledged to remove prior to the elections.

So by any measure, labor's economic record is shocking.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Labor's economic record is shocking you say.

Really?

What utter BS!

Of course mistakes were made. I agree that
Rudd government's stimulus
package failed to regulate adequately either private
sector builders of school halls or installers of insulation.
And unfortunately - the resulting excessive costs
and tragic deaths overshadowed
memories of the thousands who had been successfully employed
under the programmes at a time of economic crisis.
However Rudd's stimulus worked. Australia had the shortest
and shallowest of recessions of any advanced industrial
country.

Despite the problems selling the message (And Wayne Swan's
poor communication skills combined with virulent opposition
from the Murdoch press - didn't help) the Rudd/Gillard
governments could claim to have left the Australian
economy in a relatively good state compared to most Western
Economies.

The very favourable IMF and OECD figures and Australia's
AAA credit rating were evidence of this.

Despite your continued perception that the Labor
governments under Rudd/Gillard were dysfunctional the
legislative and policy record of the Labor governments is
in fact extensive. The minority Gillard government alone
successfully passed over 500 pieces of legislation.
Great credit needs to be given to Gillard's negotiating
skills.

Anyway, enough said.

See you on another discussion.

Foxy,

Unable to find a single piece of Labor legislation that supports jobs. Don't worry no one else can either.

Juliar passed 500 pieces of legislation with the greens? That put her on par with Trump.

The media was nasty to labor? The truth hurts.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Try the following link - it may be more successful
in explaining things to you. Although I somehow
doubt it. I shall have to leave you with your
misguided beliefs. You seem to prefer not to deal
with reality and rather than developing understanding
of the times and the context in which they occurred
you would rather fester division and negativity.
Things that a truly open mind would seek to avoid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudd_Goverment_(2007-10)

Foxy,

My reality is based on the science of economics, and the reports of respected economists, unlike your mindless repetition from the propaganda songsheet of the Labor party.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Thank You for that.

One cannot argue with your logic.

Cheers.

cont'd ...

Though heaven knows I did try!

SM & Foxy;
The real problem is that both Labour & Liberal are trying to run
policies that engender growth.
They will fail because the time of growth is ending as can be seen in
China and Europe. The rising cost of energy development has brought an
end to increasing amounts of energy.
Demand for energy is declining slightly so far, and without increasing
amounts of energy there will be no growth.

It is the failure by the parties to recognise this fundamental truth
that is at the heart of our political/industrial/commercial problems.\
2017 is said to be a watershed year, I suspect it may be a year or two later.
The electrical problem we are experiencing are just a symptom of the whole malaise.

Dear Bazz,

Thank You for your wise words.

I am so pleased that you also see that
the problems we face in the future will
be difficult to solve for any government.

Foxy,

It is difficult to argue against facts:

http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/gfc-stimulus-harmed-economy-report-says/news-story/b9fe23ae1e512d3e2befe64c56fffc19

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/school-billions-miss-their-target-in-rush-to-spend-rudd-stimulus-money-20100214-nzkp.html

Foxy, yes it is a shame that the political class do not understand the
relationship of energy vs growth.
Some greens seem to understand it but they seem powerless to shift
the green energy policies into realistic areas and seem to be locked
into the myth of solar and wind being all that is needed.
Nuclear is of course beyond the pale.
In all the cofuffle about energy when you ask the question then
what will we use when the sun sets and the wind doe not blow ?
The greens inevitably waffle.

We need a real decision to be made because we have already run out of time.

Foxy cont:
Here is an example of the promotion of solar as the answer to all our problems.

http://tinyurl.com/gqk4wg5

It is true that solar electricity is cheap, but that is only if you not
take into costs that they are only working 33% of the day and you have
to have something capable of carrying the total load for the rest of
the day, such as a fleet of coal fired or nuclear power stations.

Until the political classes accept that we will have increasing
difficulties with our electricity supply.

Dear Shadow Minister,

If you agree that it is difficult to argue against
facts why do you persist in doing it.

Dear Bazz,

I fully agree with what you've posted.

Foxy,

You have yet to present any.

Personally I think there is no "Energy crisis" there is any amount available and China and India will be ramping it up for all they are worth. This will keep the CO2 increasing nicely.
We have two problems. The first are the fools who want to destroy our country by throwing us into a recession and the second is the dishonesty of the media reporting.
The ABC's Chris Uhlman said tonight the answer is "A price on carbon". Aha a tax will fix it? If it was not so serious it would be laughable.
I agree with Bazz though we are reaching the end of growth here. I think debt will overwhelm us. Read some history. What happened to France when it started fiat money. Things went from absolutely fabulous darling to Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! The resultant recession went on for approx 100 years.
My prayers are with you all and as I have been atheist since I was five you can see where I am coming from.

JBOWER, you are right there is no energy crisis in that there is enough
available. Where the problem stands at the moment is the cost op
getting it out of the ground.
There are really serious signals being received at present.
Shell Oil is preparing to leave the oil industry over some years.
Exxon, Mobil, and some other majors are reporting lower profits that
are not covering their search & development costs.

World peak coal is just happening now due to low gas prices and
extraction costs rising above sales prices. Not everywhere at once of course, and Australia is in a really good position re coal.