Nicky I was on those wharves in Newcastle standing in for workers who could not be there.
We marched in my rural town, 500 of us, and fed many a sausage sandwich.
It was the methods used not the intent that drew us to support.
Max Moore Wilton!
I confronted the bloke, see a post here that describes him not leaving a meeting set down for strict 15 minutes.
He stayed much longer trying to get a union delegate to shake his hand.
He for a while, controlled the NSW RTA he would get no sandwich from me ever.
I think you are heading in the wrong direction on this issue, manufacturing ext are issues remote from the bail out.
Our future is bleak with it, far worse without it.
Are we to be the only western nation without one?
Did Australia want to place control in the hands of this SA senator.
Or Mr 2% from family first?
Dissolve both houses, give us a chance to remove them, Australia a chance to rejudge Rudd and Turnbull
bring it on please bring it on.

“I that enough for you Ludwig?”

Thanks for your comments Foxy, but no it isn’t enough.

Even if each of your points is true at face value, they need to be compared to the bad things put forward by Rudd.

I don’t think these things are necessarily as bad or as straightforward as your simple statements make them out to be. Afterall, they were all put forward with good intentions.

I’m no Liberal supporter, but I could proffer a few comments on the GST, Workchoices, etc, to the effect of making them seem a little less directly awful.

Neither am I a Labor supporter.

The main problem ….and you know what I’m going to say… is that they are both in bed with big business and are manically pro-expansionist and anti-sustainabilityist.

Neither have any intention of reforming the regime of political donations, which amount to bribes from those who can afford it, which is big business. Rudd has mumbled a bit about some of the worst aspects of political donations. He’ll tinker a bit, but he won’t touch the core issues.

Neither major party has any intention of becoming decision-makers that are independent of the all-powerful vested-interest pro-growth lobby, or as independent from that as they are from the environmental and sustainability lobby. They are both absolutely going to uphold the most blatant and terrible bias in favour of greed, vested interests and short-term gain.

Even in times of great economic and environmental stress, neither Labor nor the Libs if they were in power would pull back on the absurdly high immigration rate or try for one moment to mitigate population growth rates in stressed regions like southeast Qld.

They are both just so totally on the wrong track. This makes the little differences that you tout very little indeed. In fact it pales them into insignificance.

If anyone's interested in the breakup of State and Federal taxes, here it is (as at 2006) at http://www.cis.org.au/policy_monographs/pm73.pdf.

Dear Ludwig,

The fact is that immigration policies are controlled
by world opinion. We have to appear to be participating
in the mass population movement around the world if
we want co-operation and assistance from other nations
we have no choice. We have agreed I believe to take in
a certain number of refugees - and each elected Government
has to comply with this agreement.

As far as big business and lobbies are concerned - they do
generate jobs, they make the economy go around, and
governments have to be careful how they treat them, as we
have seen to date, a great deal of manufacturing has gone
overseas because the local environment has become
unattractive. So it is a very difficult balancing act for any
government to sustain. Some governments make the effort,
others succomb totally to big business.

At least the current government is trying to make an effort
in a reasonable direction. Question is what direction would
the previous government have taken?

I refer you to the current American Government policy which
has passed in both houses of Government.

Bail-out packages to schools, hospitals, and infrastructure,
will generate jobs for the currently employed and maybe
for additional workers. Otherwise these people would lose
their jobs in the downward spiralling economic conditions.

Admittedly it may be a short-term solution, if the world
economy keeps worsening, but the hope is that with the bail-out
packages things will not get worse.

As for financial aid to individuals, such as the unemployed,
assist them in their present crisis, and for those who are
employed, may help in paying back debts instead of losing
their homes.

Belly, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a bailout (and I certainly have no support for Fielding). I'd just want to be sure it was to be targeted to the people who need it, and in its original form, it excluded people who didn't earn enough to pay tax, for example, arguably the people most in need of all.

In your visits to Newcastle, did you ever meet Bob Rose, the (earlier) Secretary of the Waterside Workers' Federation? I was the Industrial Officer for Patricks, and Bob was my best friend in the world. They were great times for me. I did the wharfies' rosters and wages too (so there wasn't much I didn't know about what went on!!).

Moore-Wilton was probably among the most hated people in the country, when thousands of CPSU members lost their jobs; most were in the CES, and only some got the promised jobs elsewhere (Centrelink and the Job Network).

But back to the stimulus package. I think if there were to be a dissolution of both houses, Rudd would certainly get back in. And I agree that both suck up to similar degrees to big business, and big business is about the bottom line, not people (until it comes to executive salaries - think about the Telstra CEO (whose name I cannot spell!). Donations to political parties have been made deliberately impossible to track as well, despite Rudd's promises.

Maybe, at the end of the day, there isn't a politician alive who is capable of honesty and integrity, and we are choosing the best of a bad bunch (or are we?)

Nicky

“The fact is that immigration policies are controlled by world opinion.”

Foxy, Australia’s immigration policy is not at all controlled by world opinion. We have extremely high immigration for one reason: because our illustrious leader thinks that we need it in order to maintain a healthy economy…and a reasonably contented big-business sector….or perhaps the real reason is to keep the big and powerful end of town onside so that he can be re-elected.

I can’t see that there would be any significant international forces that would express outrage if we reduced our immigration rate down close to net zero…especially if we doubled our refugee intake at the same time, which could easily be done. We’d then have an immigration intake of about 35 000 per annum, of which 26 000 or more would be refugees.

“As far as big business and lobbies are concerned - they do generate jobs…”

Now hold on, in recent times, jobs have been created predominantly by increasing the rate of exploitation of primary resources and by the ever-increasing demand for all manner of goods and services due directly to high immigration.

High immigration both creates and demands many jobs. Overall, it pretty well job neutral.

“…they [big business] make the economy go around…”

They could make the economy go round just as effectively without constant expansion.

“So it is a very difficult balancing act for any government to sustain”

It is really? How do we know? No government has come anywhere near even attempting to strike the right balance, as far as I can see. ALL of them succumb to, or are happy to pander to, big business.

I reckon that if concerted efforts were made by government to achieve sustainability, we might just find that there is overwhelming public support and that it wouldn't be so difficult politically afterall.