Before we even start Joe, what are the odds that you will read and engage us right here OLO?

Are we just talking amongst ourselves - or will you make yourself available?

Please reply -

Obvious and pathetic scaremongering from a business lackey.

I wonder who wrote this editorial for JH?

The idea that the current Australian Gov't is standing up for small business and families is contradicted by its approach to climate change. It is advocating nuclear electricity as a key component of the answer.

Nuclear electricity cannot go ahead without massive taxpayer subsidy and increase in community risk acceptance. Who is going to pay the tax? I do not expect any significant proportion of the underwriting to be made by the proponents of nuclear reactor construction projects. It will be the usual taxpayers, small businesses and families.

Returning to the issue of risk acceptance, we have the difficulties of insuring against radioactive contamination. How is the insurance risk going to be underwritten? Are we expected to leave our lawnmowers in the front yard and flee to Wollongong when our local reactor burps? (I'm hoping there won't be a reactor in Wollongong)

Nuclear electricity, which I wouldn't expect JH to mention in "his" opinion piece, exemplifies the farcical nature of the current Government. They talk about moving into the future, but they offer "black-and-white-TV" ideas like nuclear electricity, that have been discounted as sustainable energy sources since the 1970's. They carry on about how union bosses rule the ALP, while remaining blind to the fact that the large corporations, which stand to gain profits from nuclear electricity deployment projects (for example), appear to be the de-facto bosses of the Howard Ministry.

I wonder if Joe Hockey and his advisors, reaearchers, speechwriters and minders have the subtlety to understand Liberal critics like Malcom Fraser? Nothing in "Joe's" opinion piece suggests it.

So what do we have, an industrial relations policy which is based on what the small minority of mining companies wants, which relates to a miniscule portion of Australian workers and pits individal workre against the might of large corporations when negotiating work conditions or do we have one where the minority in the mining industry are somewhat discomforted but the bulk of Australian workers do not have to face the large corporations alone when negotiating work condition? Sure, there would be disadvantages to Labor's policy but there is no way that it is as one sided or elitist as the Howard policy. Are we an economy or a society/community of people who have some regard for all Australians?
Credibility is not an issue for Hockey. Either that, he has no idea of what real life is like for the bulk of Australians or he just does not care. He certainly refuses to deal with these issues but merely repeats his dogma every time he speaks on the issues.
The Hockey/Howard philosophy is similar to that of Bush's America - that the only people who count are big business.

Joe has left Sunrise for a stint at the Karl Rove Scool of Base Politics.

This sort of drivel obviously plays well with the blue rinsers on the Gold Coast and the "I'm not sure who I'll vote for this time" brigade of swinging voters who really always vote Liberal but want to look like they have thought about it.

I would be concerned if I was Joe that I was having to shore up the base this close to an election because the current line of nonsense being spouted won't mean much to the real swinging voters out there.

Couldn't agree more with the first four posters. As a nurse, I talk to dozens of people a week on the matter of IR and Workchoices and haven't heard one good word said about it, however I have heard more than one of my colleagues state that while these unfair IR laws are in place, they'll never vote again for the Coalition Government, suggesting that they are Coalition voters who have been sadly disillusioned.
Face facts Joe (and Henry Thornton), John Howard is a tired old man whose political ambitions are stuck in the Menzies era. Every policy he introduces, especially Workchoices, is done with a certain dogma that Australian people are getting very much sick and tired of. In many respects, he's followed Menzies political role to the letter. Both even spent time on the back bench only to come back as "champion leaders" but that time has passed. While Menzies was "British to his bootstraps," Howard is "USA to his bootstraps" and that's proven to be a very bad choice.
Howard's race to nuclear is a race to disaster. A race to sustainable energy would have melded him to the hearts of the majority of Australians, but no! Once again, he has to follow out-dated ideas that, as one poster suggested, will prove to be a further burden on tax payers.
I'm sick of proping up Howard and his "big business" cronies and in relation to Global warming (yes, his "mates" have even softened that idea by calling it "climate change"), there's a groundswell of recognition in Australia that realises that sitting on one's hands while our environment fries around us and telling us nuclear power is the answer, is not simply going to save the future of our kids and their offspring. It only goes to show how out of touch Howard really is, but I suppose you have to give the man a break. Dementia, even in it's early form is a terrible affliction.
Wildcat.