"an ideology that will destroy the Australian economy built by the Coalition."
Well done Coalition....must be hard building an economy that has ridden on the back on one of the biggest resource booms in history.

"Labor is eager to shelve industrial relations reforms implemented by the Howard Government. It will remove WorkChoices or radically scale back the reforms the legislation introduced."
This is where John Howard has lost it, the most heinous piece of policy ever drafted. This has cost him the election and rightly so....

I don't have nearly such a clear sense of what the ALP would destroy as our learned contributors do. With any luck, and if this Government finally receives the defeat it deserves (after so many attempts to lose), something or other may get broken. Destroying AWAs would be nice. So would a bit of cut and run on military adventurism.

Anyway, Mr Deane and Ms McMahon may be relieved to receive assurances that the ALP is not the "unrepentantly socialist Party" they fear. Labor is not really unrepentant about anything. On the one hand, that might be why its MPs and state governments were so willing to rally in support of a national apology to the stolen generations. On the other hand, it makes them very reluctant to stand for much at all.

The optimists among us hope that Rudd is minimising his commitments, picking his battles selectively, reasoning that electoral victory will free him up to do whatever it is he really stands for. After all, that worked for Howard in 1996. Sadly, I think Howard had a clearer idea of what he stood for -- unrepentantly so.

By the way, I keep asking, but nobody has offered me a satisfactory answer yet: WHAT IS A WORKING FAMILY? (One sentence will do fine, as long as it is a nice clear one.)

I believe a working family is one where people in the family work.

So Tom due to labor being unrepentant this must be why this is going on and why the labor party does not want the full picture out there or even tell the truth.

One would also have to question the ethics of the labor party due to the number of people going to court as pedophiles.

Thats right a labor party president who had resigned.

But this has to question the relationship between labor and the church. This makes one wonder how rife this problem is within the labor party as they like keeping their little secrets.

If the papers and parties want to keep this hidden, i am quite happy to bring it out as I have a special needs daughter and do not need this from a party who says they are there to represent the people.

Keep your children safe.

Stuart Ulrich
Independent Candidate for Charlton
swulrich@bigpond.net.au

A “socialist” Labor Party “dominated by a fear of progress”? I can’t see that, even with an electron microscope. I guess that is why the people of Australia have elected Labor to govern their states and territories in 21 consecutive elections. They look at the real achievements of Labor Governments, and they just want more.

If we choose Kevin Rudd, we will have fast broadband, improvements to education, improvements to our working lives via the end of WorknotcalledChoicesanymore, one of the worst pieces of legislation to be inflicted on the Australian people, a denial of the essence of Australian life built up over a century ago.

“Kevin Rudd is no John Howard.” That’s why he will win.

Thank you for responding, James. Should that mean Rudd is ignoring those families where nobody has a job? Or those selfish workers who lack families to go home to? Or would it mean children and the elderly need to pull their weight?

I know am a pedant -- unrepentantly so, Alexander and Felicity! -- but this term is a rhetorical centrepiece. If Labor wins, it looks set to become the litmus test of every policy and funding scheme imaginable. A bit like Steve Fielding reborn as a union organiser. (That might make him a Catholic, but bear with me.)

Anyway, that is why I want to know what it means actually, specifically, and concretely.