"Julia Gillard has indicated that she will do the honourable thing and call an election"... well, she has no choice does she, since the ALP time is up very shortly, and the election is due, isn't it?

As for the GG selecting people to govern us, what nonsense.

In fact, there is no need for the GG at all, nor a president.

The other Furphy here is the opening one, that the people elected Rudd.

Not so at all, as with all election wins, the people voted Howard out, and Rudd was simply the ALP leader.

As our Monarchist Republican, Bill, complained about when he lost to Hawke, a drovers dog could have won the 2007 election, with WorkChoices such a patent dead Albatross around the Coalition

TBC you do know don't you?
Well your posts are full of self confidence could it be miss placed.
An election need not be called until April next year.

You are correct Belly, and I may well be wrong, but I suspect the 'goodwill' will soon enough dissipate somewhat, although not altogether.

The expectation is to have the election sooner rather than later, and it would be dangerous to disapoint that community expectation.

A campaign from now til April would kill any leader as punters got bored stiff.

There will be a point at which the first preference Greens votes stop returning to the ALP, a couple of weeks hence I'd say, and then a campaign from July to August will suffice.

I do expect Queen Julia to be returned, and Abbott to evaporate to nothing on current performance.

That is just a 'feeling', I am not 100% confident... it could all be wrong.

You know, while all this crap is going on, is anyone actually running our country, or, is it simply on 'auto pilot'.

In any case, whether labor looses the upcomming election or not, the next term or two will be spent trying to fix the number of broken things left behind by Krud.

Meanwhile, he will be sitting back, with his personal fortune still intact, probably in some high paid consultancy job he has fixed for himself, which seems to be the case with retired pollies these days, while we suffer the concequences of his little romp.

After all, we're not all blessed with a rich missus!

nairbe
You seem to forget the huge debt that the howard government inherited, thanks to PK and co and, if not for the howard teams management', Krud would have plundged us even deeper into debt as he still would have wasted billions, only all borrowed.

Remember, there are people that are not yet born that will owe money.

The stimulis was a good idea, however, as proven again and again, Krud had no idea how to manage it. The wasted billions are living proof of that and can't ever be denied.

I say again, the best way to stimulate an economy, is to make employing people easier.

We now have thousands of small businesess on the verge of collapse. Why? Becauee the stimulus money has gone and more hoops have been placed in the way of employers.

Very few people today feel thier jobs are secure. Agree?

National Broadband.
This is a joke.
People buy in the country because the land is CHEAP! Often one 10th or even a 20th of the price or the cities.

Do they expect to pay pittence and then get the mod cons?

I own investments in the country and I will clean up when this BB plan comes to light. But I still think it is wrong and there should be a huge levy placed on BB if you live in the country. Then, you can axcess it if you choose, but pay for the privilage.

Continued

Mining tax.
If you want profits from mining, then buy shares. At least then you also share the risks.

Madam PM says it's wrong and needs changing. BUT! Where will the billions needed come from now?

Any clues?

After all, almost the entire labor budget relies on this tax.

They hide behind the phrase 'non-renewable'. But that's what the royalty is about.

Nobody was complaining about the royalty when coal was $30 per ton and miners were going broke, did they?

At the end of the day you can't shift the goal posts 'mid steam'.

The tax rules were in place when the project strated and were part of the consideration at the time. They must remain the same until the project is finnished.

By all means, introduce a tax to all new projects, then, the miners can decide whether or not it is worth the risk.

Having said that, I still think that is dangerous and may well place thousands of jobs at risk. But that's just my view.

Another joke is when the government says the miners must be happy as they are offering to buy the rail in QLD.

Of cause they want it, after all, they have watched Anna lie waste billions on failed projects and most likely feel there may be no rail left if they leave it up to her to manage.

This is just another cheap political stunt.

On my way home tonight I heard Twiggy Forest claim that he was 24 hrs from signing an agreement with Kevin Rudd over the RSPT,
and now that is all suspended because of the leadership change and was basically demanding that Julia put the deal back on the table.

Perhaps I was wrong about Mining Corps deciding whom our Prime Minister should be, in my first comment on this post.

Maybe Mining Corps only think they can dictate terms to elected Govt's in Australia
like they actually do in third world countries.

Maybe Kevin Rudd was about to perform another backflip on the RSPT,
and we now have another leader because they Labor Party just couldn't abide this.

In addition the CFMEU came out today and committed to combating any resumption
of hostilities from Miners with their own advertising campaign. In response to threats
made by the same Twiggy Forest earlier in the week.

Interesting times ahead. Despite not knowing the real facts, ( about the Rudd demise I mean ),
i still think it fair to say that we could not and should not have Tony Abbott
( Mr preferred PM rating of 29% with or without Rudd ) for a Prime Minister regardless.

The Liberals can only react to the Labor's leadership change by having one of their own.

I believe this patently obvious, and therefore the primary reason why an election will be called sooner rather than later.