I wouldn't mind if the money was being spent building infrastructure but its being frittered away on consultants and planners who will analyse the problem to paralysis before awarding the contracts to their well connected squillionaire maaates.

Less talk more action!

The stimulous package has beeen great for middle class families and the poor and well recieved.The idea to keep Australia at work, while most of the world is not, can be argued and debated. How we got in this mess (GREED) can not be argued any more.Australia can not afford to be greedy with a surpluss of cash. The GST hit the middle class/POOR the most and should be spent back on the poor at this time of need.

Tristan, trying to pass this off as "attacking" the ALP is laughable.

You start out doing the usual ALP savaging of the Opposition leader, standard ALP handbook stuff, he's "irresponsible", of course he is, he's in opposition and doing his job, but now that's irresponsible!

Then we get a listing of all the government initiatives, some of which are just renamed existing programs, but the reason for the tally is so you can "disagree", ROFL.

Debt is just dismissed, "Any debt incurred can be serviced later..", easy as that isn't it, and serviced later, by someone who has a clue most likely.

The media managers at ALP HQ must love stuff like this, criticism so tender and gentle.

Is the reason for the article in fact to reinforce that, "Labor could go further - and should go further - but there is a clear distinction now between Rudd Labor and the conservatives."

Despite all the protests to the contrary, both sides of politics are offering pretty much the same thing.

The argument is only over the detail and the notion that one side "could do it cheaper" is much like the "interest rates will always be lower..." mantra. It's trying to suggest a distinct alternative when there isn't one.

In fact, Malcolm agreed with all of the inital proposals but later changed his mind when he embarked on his current political strategy.

I also can't see where the "80% of spending is in Labour constituencies" comes from when a Liberal State was granted more infrastructure funds than the biggest Labour State, just for starters.

The motive is to get more money circulating through the economy, not some elborate master plan that's going to solve this problem overnight.

Tristan's arguments are logical, albeit the hard core conservatives who read these pages refuse to even consider alternate viewpoints. Yet let's tell it like it is - Ben Benankie and a number of other overseas monetary gurus have declared that stimulus packages like those from the Rudd government are what good economics and foreward planning are all about to manage risk and reduce debts as far as possible. The problem with Malcolm Turnbull is that he is so incredibly wealthy, and yet still demands to get living away from home allowance (even though he stays in his wife's apartment in Canberra)that he simply does not get it. Worse, he is so blatantly negative that he is directly leading the push towards fear, panic, a 'run' on some banks, ... and so on. Yet any good economist will tell you that confidence in the market is critical. The ridiculous thing is that where Malcolm Turnbull should be leading or atleast backing Mr Rudd up to be a leader, such as on world emission targets, Mr Turnbull prefers to be a follower everywhere, that is everywhere except on being the creator of doom because he has nothing positive nor original to offer.

Tristan

Much much more could have been done. I suspect Rudd and Labor went easy in this Budget with an eye to a November 2009 election. This is because unemployment will skyrocket in the next year, with over one million unemployed, making winning an election in November 2010 more difficult.

Like you I doubt the Coalition would have done much different either, except perhaps continue further work choices 'reforms' (i.e. screw wage down more) and ignore climate change completely.

As you point out, the unemployed are treated badly. This is deliberate - to force people to scrounge a living on low pay and put downward pressure on wages.

Prospective youth allowance uni students got a raw deal. Defence won 3 percent increase in real terms till eternity. Why not divert some of that extra defence spending to social spending?

The ridiculous 'efficiency' dividend continues, wreaking long term havoc on public services.

ETS is a joke - billions to polluters, nothing to households who reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The market won't save us.

The private health insurance changes are small beer. Why not move to a fully public health system? Taxing the rich could pay for that.

In fact there are over $80 billion worth of disguised tax handouts to the rich (mainly) the Government could use to fund a much bigger social services budget.

Labor's guess that the economy will recover is precisely that, a guess, based on figures from previous recessions. Why not use 1929 as the benchmark?

The stimulus package made some small difference. It doesn't address low profit rates and so if they are the root cause of the rpoblem won't resolve the Great Recession (as I point out ad nauseum on my blog.

Like you I am a democrat. The market is anti-democratic. A democratic and planned society where production occurs to satisfy human need is what we need, I believe.