Honey moon? it will go long after the wedding mid first term Rudd will be as well liked as he is now.
Can we take the blinkers off? Howard who had worse interest rates while Treasurer rides an international wave of prosperity.
Rudd will too , like him or not Keiting and Hawk set some of the conditions in place that sees Australia ride high in the water.
The idiot view Labor will waste this chance is not unlike the sign on the side of the road today, remember Witlams 17%interest rates, wrong and foolish.
We will see a share market crash, maybe soon, it is coming and nothing to do with Rudd or ;Labor.
Can the author or some who post here rather than credit Howard with the mining boom talk about the issues that have turned him into the under dog?
In one term from hero to zero all his own work.

I still say that Howard has moved too far to the right of where people want to be and that Rudd has skilfully positioned himself as the Nice John Howard.

"Aspirational nationalism" is biting Howard on the backside, if you tell people to want ever more they will expect it and you may doom yourself.

Having said that 16 seats is a big ask and people are inherently conservative..but Ilive in hope!

Kevin07!

I likes MrSmith point.

"Peter Costello told The Age’s Tim Colebatch during questions after Treasurer’s debate - that ‘private banks’ needed foreign borrowings to fund productive investment.

What Mr Costello didn’t tell us was that in recent years, a huge proportion of that investment has been poured into a (non-productive) speculative boom in housing that has contributed little to construction, inflated the price of established homes and undermined the prospects of younger generations."

Add those renters who, YES, aspire to become home owners. Together with them a million families with more than 30% of income to pay on mortgage is what will sink the Coalition. About 3 million Aussies directly and a further 1-3 million indirectly (concerned extended family who now need to chip in above weight) affected. For them the "historically low" interest rates real value at the till is obscenely high compared to the real value of much higher interest rates under Keating for 2-3 times LESS house prices.

2 million aspirational voters were the winning base of the Coalition. THEY will be the ones who will sink them now.

The fact the Costello is not willing to disclose the figures on just how many used the so called "first home buyer" grant for investment property for needy family (some with the ripe old age of 1, obviously needing this generous support) seems to corroborate the point.

The Coalition knows this. There simply is no substance that can lift them from this. Fear tactics alone won't. Remember, antics like the Tampa were just a charade. 2 million WERE aspiring on their or their family's behalf. That's a staggering 20-30% of those who eligible to vote! No tricky partisan preference here.

It is simply beyond comprehension how could the Coalition neglect such a large aspirational base. If they fall, it will be their own doing.

Howard is a good politician. But the secrecy and suppression of information he built made him ultimately believe that only his version of the truth exists. He could walk out without pants on and we applauded him. Now, it will be a costly mistake.

What a wonderful economy we could have if only its potential glories could be embraced by these pesky clouds of humanity.

How can they not realise the sublime joy of being seduced into immersive in debt whilst being relieved of the burden of secure employment?

Idiots!

What's Howard doing about this one?

Iraq War turned Turtle?

A war now needing philosophers more than soldiers
We who have followed the war so close, now have visions of a Saddam sardonically smiling in his coffin, and of a fully alive bin-Laden joyously chuckling in his beard.

All because George Bush has now set his sights on Iran, believing those Shias whom he had shown sympathy to for so long, Bush now has his generals casting them aside.

Simply because those same Iraqi born Shias are related to Iran, now just so much more fodder for the shock and awe diplomatic missile massage White House offsider Cheney has had in his sights against Iran for making fools of the Americans every time they tried to put it over the Iranians.

Certainly many of us had clapped our hands when the Iranians had held the US Embassy captive for over a year, and again when after eight years on from 1981, the Iranians had defeated Saddam’s not so gallant Iraqis, even after Donald Rumsfeld had been advising them for years.

All America's own fault, are now the genral feelings, because the US could not make up its mind whether it was fighting a Cold War battle, or just the same old Anglophilic imperial one for contraband and hegemon - now so much about oil.

Fact is, that none of us liked Saddam and even far less like bin Laden, but the Americans had and have been so pompuous and sure of themselves since WW2, even though they were virtually forced into that war with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, we might wonder whether a smidge of humility might make us like them a little better.

But now we are fed with a madcap report from the New York Times about American troops near Baghdad calling in helicopter gunships preventing Iraqi national Shiite soldiers from rounding up Sunni insurgents, formerly called terrorists.

Reckon might be a good time for Rudd to ask Howard what plans he has to help his great mate Bush with WW3?

The Australian Government is thinking about setting up a 'consultation blog' to give the public a chance to comment on policy and proposed legislation.

If you'd like to help shape this blog then take this quick survey at

www.openforum.com.au/Survey

It could lead to something really worthwhille,

Thanks.