I've voted Labor in the past few election but I'd vote Liberal if Costello was PM. I dunno what that makes me.

My take is similar to those above but I'd add that every new election a new set of young voters roll up with their ipods to the polling place (and probably wonder why they can't vote on-line). These people have 'never had it so good' all their matureing lives and possibly presume it had always been thus. My father talked of rationing, 'so what' I always thought. New voters are concerned about the environment (in greater proprtion than older voters), soon peak oil will ping loudly on their radars and they have a far more sophisticated view of internal relations that we (I'm 52) probably give them credit for. When they regularly communicate with people anywhere from Iceland to Iran via Myspace the 'reds under the bed' type mantra doesn't wash.

On IR, again the bad old days of union power are history largely to the young turks in the union movement. New job seekers (and their parents) will look beyond the 'this creates more jobs' mantra to 'what will be the effect on my (or my kid's) job'. When Workchoices was introduced I always thought that this would be the sleeper. Howard's biggest mistake was to introduce it a year too early. It may not be enough to tip the govenment out yet (rememeber '69) but it'll begin the spill of seats

I think in general there is a move away from placing the economy as number 1 priority. I think this is partly because we've had it good for a while now, but also because philosophically the human race is beginning to question the mantra we have been fed for a long time now, that the secret to a happy life is excessive consumption and the acquisition of material wealth. The 80s saw the peak of this mentality and it plateaued in the 90s. Nowadays people are working extremely long hours, sacrificing time with family and leisure to climb the corporate ladder and maintain or increase their standards of living. I think people are sick of it, and are waking up to the realisation that happiness and money rarely have a positive correlation, but that free time is the ingredient they've been looking for.

Tim, in your article you differentiate between the attitudes of "It's the economy, stupid" and "It's the workplace, stupid". I think essentially they're both linked. Anyone with an ounce of understanding of economics can tell you that the WorkChoices legislation is fantastic for the economy, and will probably help it boom. But I think people are now questioning the social price we will have to pay for that. I think people are also questioning the environmental price we're paying for this trend of 'economy as number 1'.

I'd also go so far as to say that this isn't just an Australian phenomenon, but the philosophical shift is occurring all across the world.

Despite the many pontifications on the economy, environment etc the essential fact is almost always overlooked - and is that John Howard has never won an election. The last prime minister to actually 'win' an election was Bob Hawke. Labor has generally lost via a series of electoral disasters and leadership difficulties. The fact is that Labor always gets more votes than Liberal, and generally more votes than the coalition combined. The so-called 'massive' swings required for a Labor victory are really fairly small actual numbers of voters. The new IR laws simply disadvantage more people than they advantage, hence those small numbers could well be realised this time around, providing of course that Labor does not self destruct as it has so often in the past.

Good times as long as you don't look too closely at the downward trend pressure on real wages or the staggering growth in foreign debt and the "banana republic" level of our current account deficit, all this in a time when we have the best ever commodity prices, still over inflated asset prices, capacity constraints caused by systemic under investment in infrastructure, and declining school leaver numbers lowering unemployment.

Will it be John Howard leaving Labor with an economy in need of an overhaul again as he did in the early 1980s ?

As Keating would say Howard and Costello are all tip and no iceberg.

Westernred asks....."Will it be John Howard leaving Labor with an economy in need of an overhaul again as he did in the early 1980s ?"

In all probability the answer is yes! Despite his rhetoric and lies, John Howard is no better manager of the economy than is Labor. It all depends on how the world's economic credentials are traveling at any given time. At present, Australia is riding on the back of strong export wealth which in turn pushes up the stock market, but as history has repeatedly shown, this will not last. Were it not for the fact that computers now act to prevent fast falls on World stock markets, we would have seen a major correction just last week as investors began to bail on the US market, but that situation won't hold forever.

All that is needed to topple the economy of Australia or the world is anything from a meteor or thermo-nuclear strike, the realisiation of the end of cheap oil, or perhaps (in Australia) due to Workchoices, mums and dads simply having to pull out of the stock market for financial reasons and the whole economy ship will flounder. Some say it's well over due already.
My concern is that Labor will take the prize, the market will fall over due to the usual causes and Howard will scream at the Australian people......"See! I told you so! Labor can't run the economy!"

Might be better to let the lying little bugger back in, but without control of the Senate, until the excrement finally hits the fan.
Perhaps people are finally waking up to the fact that just because Howard makes statements about his credibility, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's true. His past record is testament to that fact!

Damn clever to sell off public assets under the guise of paying off foreign debt and saving money on interest payments, and then have the cash flow out of the country as dividends to foreign shareholders instead.
This is one farm that we will never be able to buy back.

I also see from todays newspaper that the number personal bankruptcies in Sydney this are almost double the annual rate they were when Howard came into power.

Likewise, the figures for unpaid overtime, homelessness and suicide are also having a "boom" time.

The old adage of "living in a society, not an economy" is coming true for an increasing number of people and those people who told us about kids overboard and WMDs are reaching their use-by date.

As for Costello being an alternative PM, he's trying to be a Keating clone when it comes to his performance in Parliament but stands for nothing in particular beyond his attempts at the personal denigration of his opponents. Politically gutless as well.