Labours core platitude “working families”

I thought the entire labour policy was a string of platitudes. Maybe the rest are non-core or maybe just classed as sentimentalist drivel.

Ah well, we will all find out tonight.

How a government can cry poor when it is sat on a $15 billion dollar annual surplus which it inherited from the previous liberal government (unlike the burgeoning debt which Keating left behind), is beyond me, they seem to be inventing the very cycle of events to ensure another “recession we had to have” occurs, maybe just to remind us all of how Keating did it. Next get rid of the Queen and the “banana republic” is with us.

Well when you see your social benefits shrivel and the socialist promises of the worker paradise wither, don’t blame me, I voted for the other side, not because I though they were much better, just they were more likely to leave me to make my own mistakes, instead of taxing me to fund the effort of making the mistakes for me.

Amen Col Rouge.This is Federal Labor is shaping up to be another NSW Iemma debacle.They have not a clue.

Communicat,

Having read M. Shepherds comments before, it didn't strike me that she was being louche enough to propose that the disabled BELONG on the scrapheap. I took her to mean that with the "working families" rhetoric the disabled (and consequently their needs/lives/contributions) were being overlooked?

Thanks to all for comments in response to this article. I am struck by the good faith reasons that some have given for defending that phrase -- I wish I could believe the ALP took the concept as seriously as you, but maybe I read them wrong.

Others are more critical of the concept than I am, and more critical of the government than I am too. Those who want this discussion to pay attention to the incessant clichés of the Howard government's years: I hear you loud and clear.

Meanwhile, a friend has forwarded me the transcript of Swan's Budget Address tonight. It seems he has mentioned the platitude 12 times in his 30 minutes, including an impressive 8 mentions in the first 10 minutes.

What's the big deal with political sloganeering? Everybody does it.

I remember "family values", "politics of envy", "Union Bosses" and "illegal immigrants". In fact I can remember back to the days of "Dole Bludgers".

It all depends on whether you're scapegoating somebody or creating an image. Either way they all have a product to sell.

Working families [read unionists] howards battles read the elites] its all about naming those you claim to be serving.

The working poor have long been oppressed by the howard neo con ,there is a party out there serving what the 700,000 organised lobby groups tell them to serve ,but none seem to want to serve the voiceless poor [dole blugers ,pensioners , druggies , and those on con-tracted work terms [the trolly pushers , cleaners etc]

Thing is the gst made everyone a tax payer ,everyone needs goods and services ,so the burden was thrust on everyone ,it has now been lightened on the working class [not contracted into unfair terms] as the load was taken from the ritch by howard and co.

But if your an underage drinker [or a smoker ] or need to by your drugs from terrosists needing a new porche ,you dont matter ,you are bound by the legal taxes that double your lifes tax burden ,

yet dont get measured in the statistics [and having no voice [read lobby] just grin and bare your burden ,coping all the blame as well as your own personal demons[then see yourself blamed and shamed by adverts you gross tax burden pays for ,by those elites hating you for trying to heal thyself , because there is no docter arround.

Going to a hospital you are told you are filth , smokers and drinkers cant get treatment ,nor jobs only get the blame , and ever more tax,noting legal perscribe and subsidised drugs killed 20,000 people last year [illegals 118] also that 1 in 100 hospitalisations are adverse reaction to perscribed drugs[1 in ten causing death]