Howard has form on one thing only. Copying what has worked politically for others. Nothing to do with being clever, a good financial manager or being good for the people. Nothing at all.

You've all heard Howard's claim that the Keating Government left a record $9 billion plus deficit for him to deal with.

Well, check out this video of Bob Hawke saying exactly the same about the Fraser Government before Hawke swept to power. And who was Treasurer during at least some of Fraser's time in office?

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=kNZLCuFpAjM&mode=related&search

J Howard, fund raiser of Kirribilli, occasionally of Canberra.

Isn't it interesting that Hawke destroyed the Coalition for a decade with exactly what Howard has used to destroy Labor for over a decade?

Even to the point of using the same figures. There's nothing new in politics and Howard has never had an original thought.

Most of his "policies" are direct copies of what Bush or Blair have done and they both copied.... And so it goes.

RobP. It can be done and we are attempting to do it. The first is a scheme that I have spoken about elsewhere called Water Rewards - which is likely to get a limited trial over the next few months in Canberra.

The government sets an objective to "achieve a 40% reduction in household use of water"

This is achieved by putting a surcharge on current high per head users of water, distributing the money collected to low per head users, but requiring them to spend the money on the objective we wish to achieve. In this case it is investing in ways to save water, or into bonds for a new dam, or in smart metering etc.

This way we involve people AND we give them the resources to achieve the objective.

You can do the same thing with just about any "social objective". I am putting together a proposal for Energy Rewards which will work the same as Water Rewards. That is we want to reduce greenhouse gases by 100% in 20 years - we estimate how much to spend on average. We collect this amount from existing consumers and give it back to them to spend in the sustainable energy and energy savings market.

With a bit of imagination you can do the same for just about anything.

Note that there is no need to have ANY regulations or laws to achieve these things. There are rules in the operation of the system but these are covered by common law contracts. To make these things work we have to get rid of a few laws and regulations but we do not need any new ones. We then let the economic market do its work.