The same could be said about elections.
Here is some truths that have been missing.
1. The (Labour) government didn't waste money on the stimulous. It was defrauded by shysters, tradesmen, & managerial staff.
2. The speed that the international monetary crisis was assuming gave no time for streamlining & tinkering. It needed preventative & immediate action.
There were bound to be poor supervision.
&
3.While there were riots in Iceland.
Burning of the Stock exchange in Karachi.
Portugals,Italy,Greece & Spain were named economic disasters. (P.I.G.S)
And Growing foreclosures & tent cities for the resulting homeless in the US.
With out neighbour NZ in an econmic recession because they actually followed the Liberal agenda, Australia felt almost zero effect, because of the measure they took.
To me, that sounds like the standard for sound economic management.

Really? Labor wasn't the cause of the schools debacle.Defrauded by shysters and tradesmen.Small business did not effect or sign the contracts.Most of the money was made by the likes of Leightons a British company.Who signed off on these contracts? Not lowly contractors or tadesmen of Govt officials of the Labor Party.It is corruption/incompetence at the highest level in our Govts that allows such waste and rorting.

Arjay "Debarcle" is a media word. If it was a debarcle we would have been hearing a different story every night.
Debarcle is when we bought the dud F111's to keep the US General Dynamics company afloat.
Of course there was neglect by senior officials to scrutinize contracts, & probably incompetance due to laziness or the sheer size of the work, but a task as mammoth as this project will yeild millions of lost funds in a 5% failure rate.
I'm not defending this, I'm just trying separate the election spin from what is not yet been verified.

Australia felt almost zero effect, because of the measure they took.
rickda,
It takes quite a while for for a decease to show symptoms from the time of infection.

Welcome to our new poster.
Some advice, while we should never let others control our opinions in time you will find very little of what arjay says makes sense.
I offer his post that followed yours run the tape over it, look for truth balance and understanding, I rest my case.

individual
I am not saying that it's all over & we escaped. I'm talking about what was done to lessen or suppress the sweeping effects the crisis was having on major international economies.
Every nation is going to have a price to pay, but those that are the most economically fluid will have the means to recover quicker.
As far as who to vote for.Frankly, I think you could take a couple of darts to your election booth & throw them into you voting paper & get the same result, but what this government done does not need political sway.
Thier actions can be judged by what they done, & what other nations done, & the results so far.
No political bias intended.

Well...here are some 'TRUTHS' which might interest voters!

When given the opportunity, along with all major parties, to respond to 24 questions from the ACL, here is the outcome. (just some questions)

1/ Would your party protect the right of Religious Organizations to employ Staff who share their ethos?

GREENS DELCINED (but they were most happy in Vic to have political parties exempted from the new anti disccrimination laws which would otherwise have prevented them from exCLUDing non 'Green' thinking employees.

2/ Prayer in Parliament ok? GREENS DECLINED to answer.

3/ WHAT would your party do to support vulnerable people groups overseas re specific instances of religious or ethnic persecution?

GREENS DELCINED TO ANSWER!

4/ WOULD your party support the retention of FBT concessions for Churches and faith based charities?

GREENS DECLINED TO ANSWER!

5/ WILL your party reject any moves to legalize Euthanasia?

GREENS DECLINED TO ANSWER!

6/ WOULD your party support a conscience vote on medicare funding for Abortions?

GREENS DELCINED TO ANSWER!

6/ WHAT will your party do to obtain more accurate information about Abortion rates?

GREENS DECLINED TO ANSWER!

7/ Funding of faith based chaplaincy?

GREENS DECLINED TO ANSWER !

8/ YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT what would your party do to encourage young Australians to engage in active employment?

GREENS DECLINED TO ANSWER!

9/ MARRIAGE-man and woman. Would your party support this definition ?

GREENS DECLINED TO ANSWER!

10/ SEXUALIZATION OF CHILDREN . Would your party commit to a comprehensive review of Australia's media regulatory environment ?

GREENS DECLINED TO ANSWER!

I think you missed one, Boaz.

11/ Have you stopped beating your wife?

GREENS DECLINED TO ANSWER!

Honestly, how can anyone take this questionnaire seriously?

I did liked the responses provided by the Australian Sex party, though.

http://australiavotes.org/policies/index.php?election_id=5&topic_ids=all&party_ids=65

I wonder if they have a candidate in my constituency?

Hmmm. I also wonder how the press manage to avoid the phrase "standing" for parliament? And how do the candidates steer around the concept of "taking a position" on an issue?

Must be tough.

Incidentally, Arjay. I know that you never do any fact-checking (presumably it is against your religion or something), but...

>>Most of the money was made by the likes of Leightons a British company<<

Where on earth did you get the impression that Leightons were not a true-blue Aussie company?

They are about as British as the stump-jump plough.

Sorry but Leighton's are not British or Australian, every big construction firm is owned by two big players.
Think Thiess is part of the same stable as Leighton's.
Boazy must you over use caps?
Yes I do for highlighting but your miss use only serves to annoy.
And it gains you not one extra believer.

Pericles,whether Leightons is pommy or not ,does not make my argument any less valid.I was told in a conversation recently that it was.

Nit picking will not improve your own arguments.I said at the time the the stimulus was unnecessary and you argued to the contrary.Now many of the pundits are saying that that stimulus was a waste of money.

The RBA should be creating all the money that equals our GDP and inflation,since GDP belongs to all people of this country.08/09 the RBA gave a dividend of just $5.9 billion to the Aust Govt,while the money supply due to GDP/inflation increases was $78 billion.$72 billion was created as debt by our banking system.It was not theirs to create.It belongs to all Australians.

While I'm not "arguing" about the actions that were taken, just pointing out where I think we are today compared to so many other countries who not only have huge debts, their unemployment level means that without bouyancy & tax gathering off wage & salary earners, thier hole is so much deeper.

I don't think you use comparitive monetary standards when an economy is in crisis & it's controlled by external forces.
We can't turn it around. We just have to ride it out.

rickda,

Good on you for saying these things. only problem is that they are very out of fashion. Tony Abbott has proved if you just formulate a negative argument and continuously yell everyone down over it the media will eventually fall into line and believe the rubbish. He of course had the ever ignorant shock jocks of sydney to help the argument with their rude and undemocratic methods of pushing a negative that suits them without allowing recourse to the argument and never an apology when they are wrong.

Labor have only themselves to blame though as they could have gone to war on these points instead of fighting each other and having an unnecessary leadership change. Poor administrative leadership and inability to cover up or even turn it to their own advantage like Howard did with children overboard may yet cost them government.

It was just another example, Arjay, of your total disregard for facts.

>>Pericles,whether Leightons is pommy or not ,does not make my argument any less valid.I was told in a conversation recently that it was.<<

If it doesn't affect your argument, why bring it up?

And however hard you try, you still fail to grasp even the simplest economic concepts. I suspect you may have studied with the same guy who told you about Leightons.

>>I said at the time the the stimulus was unnecessary and you argued to the contrary.Now many of the pundits are saying that that stimulus was a waste of money<<

"Pundits", Arjay? And who might they be? And what would their alternate strategy have been, given that the same approach was taken by every major economy across the world?

>>The RBA should be creating all the money that equals our GDP and inflation<<

I'm absolutely certain that you don't have the first clue what that sentence actually means, Arjay.

But by all means, prove me wrong. Explain how that money would be "created", and in what quantity.

>>$72 billion was created as debt by our banking system.<<

And who has the money that was thus created?

Think it through, Arjay. Avoid banal soundbites and seductive slogans. They only serve to shine a spotlight on your lack of understanding.

The interesting thing about this whole political saga, is why was so little attention was given as to how & why the Howard government was defeated.
He did some brave things & at times, earned a tick from the centre left. No mean feat.
Why did he not only lose government, but his own seat?

As I recall, when they went into office the public & private sector debt was about the same. Around $70 Billion.
When they left, there was some $20B in surplus. On the face of it, & there was much ado about Costello's fiscal competance but, the private sector debt & jumped by about 400%, which translated into the Howard government's "austeriy" measures, along with the GST, people were living on thier credit cards.
The fact that the public debt was almost paid off with the sale of earners like the Airports, Quantas, the Comm banks Telstra etc, which netted them in excess of $60B, middle class Oz felt the pinch & voted accordingly. Whether they will come back will be another interesting twist.
Remember Keating? LOL

Pericles,you are circumventing the real issues.Who owns the GDP of Australia? Answer this very basic question?

Circumventing, Arjay. Not at all.

>>Pericles,you are circumventing the real issues.Who owns the GDP of Australia? Answer this very basic question?<<

Nobody "owns" GDP, it is simply a number.

People own houses and cars, paid for with their wages. There is some relationship between the aggregate of those wages, and GDP, but that doesn't mean the GDP is "owned".

Now it is your turn.

Explain how the RBA "creates" money, and in what quantity.

And who has the $72bn that "was created as debt by our banking system?"

Leightons - like all big corporations, let contracts for their projects and in turn push the work down the chain to subcontractors who then hire tradesmen and labourers. Just like Haliburton or Blackwater or a host of others overseas.

As big as Leightons (or even Theiss) may be, they did not construct 24,000 projects across the country with a handful of their own employees.

In any case, the actual construction was the responsibility of individual State governments.

The report also showed that there was no evidence of systematic rorting. A premium was charged by contractors in order to meet very tight deadlines, which were required to create the stimulus effect.

Trickling the same amount of money over a much longer period would create the same amount of work but between fewer people.

The surplus is the difference between what is intended to be spent against how much is expected to be received. Some monies allocated may never be spent and some money may never be collected (such as HECS debts). Often governments have to borrow the money in advance of it being collected, particularly when corporate tax is paid only at certain times of the year.

If we are borrowing $100million per day and that's 4% of GDP then the government expects to take in about $2.5billion per day.

Truth is indeed a casualty in most things but sometimes people prefer to believe lies, particularly when they reinforce their own beliefs.

wobbles well off subject but you are right in part.
Shameful as it seems both mentioned firms one far more than the other use throw away human beings.
Casual labour hire firms, paying well under going rate, informing any one who questions it they are no longer needed.
Sham? yes one of this country's biggest unions has done dirty deals with labour hire not even paying travel or time for smoko, toolbox , this grubby move from an extremist group is awful. more later.

Nairbe wrote
"Labor have only themselves to blame though as they could have gone to war on these points instead of fighting each other and having an unnecessary leadership change. Poor administrative leadership and inability to cover up or even turn it to their own advantage like Howard did with children overboard may yet cost them government."

I think the "behind the scenes" Kevin Rudd had taken on a life of it's own. His obssession with the failed Copenhaven affair disconnected him from the financial crisis & domestic involvement. I Suspect Julia Gillard, who was already responsible for 3 portfolios (Super ministry)& the ones that were the major players in the stimulus had probably had a gutful of doing his job as well.
Rudd's bad behaviour & dominant rebellion with inside mediators it was becoming more & more evident that something had to give, & Rudds obssesive demeanor was not one of compromise.
Untimely as it was, I think what they done was a culmination not a choice.

For me, we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't. We're not choosing leaders, we're choosing who we dislike the least.

Labor has a tradition for being good with the social policies, but being poor on the financial management of those policies. The Liberals have a tradition of being very fiscally efficient, but of slashing not only excess, but many socially oriented policies.

Currently, there's a significant lack of talent on both sides, each pawing for popularity, neither with a real "plan" other than gaining that popularity.

The mining industry, for a miserable few million in advertising, convinced the Australian public that they would lose on a mining tax, and the Australian people bought it hook, line and sinker....it's US that had them over a barrel! It's not as though they can go somewhere else to get the stuff! So for a few million in advertising, they won 20 billion PER YEAR, and forced a change (I predict) in government. That's not a bad return for your money, is it?

Rudd had the right idea, but dumb timing. He should have kept his mouth shut on that one until after the election, and then with another 3 years in office and time to develop some political balls and commitment to the concept in his team, make an announcement then. But politically, to make such an announcement at the end of a term in office, facing an election, and the team obviously unprepared, was suicide.

We're electing self-serving spokespeople of the oligarchs. That's the political choice...who we honor by bestowing ministerial authority upon them, to wine and dine with the powerful and influential, be put in their place, and then told what to recite to us. Enjoy the good life, and basically, do as you're told.

To bring back "government", bring back the regulation of banking and business. But while there is no regulation, then there is no government, other than that of over the people, but not over business. In that scenario, business rules government, and thus, rules the people.