A very good article, David; difficult to find anything with which to disagree.

Alan Ramsey, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on the Monday after the Liberals' electoral annihilation in 2007, described the Howard government thus:

" ... the nastiest, meanest, most miserable, self-absorbed Commonwealth government to blight Australia in living memory"

http://tinyurl.com/2ltu5e

Again, difficult to dispute that summation.

What 'did' it for me was WorkChoices. Before the 2004 election, Howard did not mention a word about WorkChoices. Then as soon as practically possible AFTER the election, he set about imposing his own Industrial Revolution, with the most draconian IR laws in 100 years, among the most radical in the Western world.

This IR extremist, Howard, never had a 'real' job in his life, or employed anyone in private enterprise. Yet he sought to impose his ideological will on millions of unsuspecting, innocent employees just because ... well, just because he could.

Giving us no "choice" in WorkChoices makes Howard the IR Coward.

I have no doubt whatsoever that if the Liberals had gotten away with it (been re-elected, that is), they would have gone much much further down the same road.

I also have no doubt that radical IR 'reform' remains squarely centrepiece to the Liberals' agenda even now. Though they will never tell you this, in the same way they never told us about WorkChoices before its introduction.

And that is what makes me an ex_liberal_voter. I am determined not to leave a country for my children with Third World employment pay and conditions.

All the Liberals' other assaults while in government - on our democracy, our way of life, our economy, our international reputation - these all contribute to my anger, and my resolve to never again vote for that miserable party.

*Australia has the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world*

It seems to me, this is more about how you crunch the numbers.
Some people with an interest, mind be wanting to send average
Aussies on a guilt trip, a bit like the Christians do, when they
claim that innocent babies were born with sin etc.

Yes Australia mines coal, for others to run their power stations.
Yes Australia exports gas, so that others have energy. Yes
Australia smelts aluminium, as it makes more sense to do it near
where the coal is, rather then export the lot to China.

We could simply move those smelters to China. Our figures would
look alot better, the guilt ridden might feel better, but it
would achieve exactly nothing.

Last time I checked, in much of Europe and much of America,
households consume large amounts of gas and oil to stay warm for
months at a time. I could be wrong, but I don't know of too many
Aussie households with central heating.

In fact the house in which I once spent some time in central Europe,
burnt as much diesel heating oil per year, as I consume here per
year, for vehicles etc to run a farm, as well as personal use.

So if somebody would please explain why Aussies should go on this
guilt trip, as suggested by the author, I would like to know.

Fiddle with the numbers all you like, but at least be honest about
it.

Ex-liberal-Voter.It is a nobel notion not to have your children living on 3rd world wages,but will Labor be any different?

I see it already in the building industry whereby Chinese tradesmen are undercutting everyone. Since they have poor language and education price becomes the critical factor.At least the Italian immigrants had a price with a floor.

Just the other day a powder coating company told how his Chinese opposition quoted a price for a rate equal to his material costs.Sounds impossible,but I hear this story too often.There must be also an illegal immigrant component to these scenarios.

Now kevin Rudd wants to bring many more of these immigrants who ultimately drive wages lower.The big Corps donate to both the major parties.Ex CEOs make up most of the RBA board and now they have virtual autonomy in regards interest rates.

It won't matter which party you vote for,since the slow war of attrition will win.Perhaps it's time to emigrate and leave it all to the Chinese.

Arjay,

I agree with you in what you wrote in your last post, if little else.

The prospect of large numbers of immigrants being used to reduce our wages is a scary prospect. This is the openly stated rationale behind the call to massively increase immigration. When Murdoch's Australian newspaper published an article ("Bring in the Chinese" at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23693124-7583,00.html on 14 May) arguing that we should be prepared to have Chinese guest workers employed by Chinese companies that are to be given contracts to build the infrastructure necessary to increase our exports of raw materials to China, I responded by writng the article "The Australian proposes apartheid 'solution' to Australia's labour shortage 'crisis'" at http://candobetter.org/node/507

I also worry greatly about the Australia China free trade agreement which I assume is now under agreement. I suspect it will be even more damaging to Australian National Sovereignty than was the AUSFTA.

---

Cartman wrote, "Fiddle with the numbers all you like, but at least be honest about it."

As one who has had the misfortune of having engaged with Cartman elsewhere, I hardly see him as someone fit to give others lectures about honesty.

Cartman wrote, "Some people with an interest, mind (might(?)) be wanting to send average Aussies on a guilt trip."

Cartman has shown that he is utterly incapable of feeling guilt or, indeed, any concern whatsoever, over the terrible environmental damage that is being wrought today in order to satiate the selfish uncaring greed of people like himself.

Ludwig,

I agree with you on the need to devise a way we can live sustainably through the next few troubled decades. Unfortunately there are two problems in the way of doing this.

Firstly, the small matter of our enormous foreign debt. If we fail to maintain a satisfactory rate of growth of exports (in the opinion of our creditors), we may have our debt called in, with rather catastrophic results. In addition, we have a very export/import oriented economy (i.e. we can't eat the bauxite we mine), and so would have difficulty surviving on our own produce.

Secondly, with the rate of productivity growth due to technological change being so high, any decline in economic growth would immediately translate into higher unemployment figures. Coupled with high interest rates and high transport costs, this would produce a degree of social distress that would be fatal to any government.

If Prime Minister Scullin (sorry, Rudd) is to survive he will need more than just the platitudes and spin he has come up with so far.

It may already be too late. Twenty years ago forecasters postulated an earthquake in Tokyo that would trigger a major world depression. Only time will tell if the recent quake in China will translate this forecast into reality.

Yabby “*Australia has the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world*

It seems to me, this is more about how you crunch the numbers.”

Agree with all your post and would only add

It might also change if we adopted Nuclear power as the primary source for electricity generation, like, say the French.

Ultimately all the waffle about denigrating the performance of the liberal government is just that, the political waffle of the malcontents.

The next three years will be interesting. Somehow I think we are going to experience a significant economic downturn which will force people to reflect:

All this socialist rubbish just produces sentimental rhetoric and no results; maybe the Liberals had it right and the three years of Krudd have been the great leap backward.

I see another “recession we had to have” on the horizon.

It reminds me of Lenin’s saying

“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”

Australia is wealthy enough to be called a nation of the bourgeoisie

Of course Lenin also said

“ There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.”

The Me-Too political manifesto of Krudd and Co was one of the most expedient I have ever seen.
Certainly the since discovered conduct of Evans, Kernow, Richardson and Bob Collins suggest a scoundrel or two were available for use. I wonder what we will come to find out about the current bunch of scoundrels?