I understand the thread will have visitors who think every thing was a mistake.
Lets look past that.
In time I will try thread asking what they got right.
But fellow travelers, those who voted Labor or did not because of failures tell us about those failures.
We never got a hint Rudd was not sharing his job, who truly understood the gang of 4?
Why did they back down on ETS?
Why no DD election?
How could we be both so well liked and rejected in the one term.
Full of promise then full of something far different the ALP won only by a breath and only because Abbott lead the opposition not Turnbull.
We held the federal seat of Robinson, one that was given up a year ago but lost safe ones?

Belly I'll take you at your word, & give you my true feelings.

To start with, get off the Turnbull thing. You are wrong about him. He would make a good Labor leader, better than Gillard, but is not a Liberal, & will never be accepted by enough of them. That is why all you Labor lot like him.

I picked Rudd for what he is, when he first started undermining Beasley. When ever I see him I feel dirty, & know I'm being slimmed by a con man. I could see that he had the technique to con a lot of decent Ozzies, & disliked him for doing that

Nothing he has done, [or is doing now] was to do anything but further his UN ambitions. He never believed in an ETS, it was his passport to the UN, After Copenhagen it was no further use to him.

He was also smart enough to know that a DD election campaign on the ETS would expose much of the BS about global warming, now partially accepted, & he would probably loose.

Many were embarrassed at accepting the handouts, knowing it was wrong. One bloke said that he would like to send it back, but if we were going to throw billions at boat people, to buy the bleeding heart/academic vote, he'd better grab his bit before it was all gone. Many believe something similar.

His micromanagement style exposed his huge ego. His many failures displayed his lack of savvy.

For what ever reason it was done, all the failures in the stimulus package leave a bad smell.

It wasn't the ETS directly that cost you under Rudd, it was that his response allowed people to see through him at last. I was as surprised as anyone at the speed of it's happening.

I was prepared to give Gillard a go, but have found her to be both incompetent, & a thoroughly unpleasant person to boot. She is as much a con act as Rudd, just not as cunning, so not as good at it.

Continue

Continued

I wish you would get someone like Beasley, or Hayden to lead you again. These were people I could respect, admire, & vote for. Why you have to have these people with a nasty streak I really don't know.

It is too late now, you have Gillard, & that is probably that for some time. I really would love to have her prove me wrong about her, but with every passing day that appears more unlikely.

The biggest mistake was Rudd not calling a double dissolution election soon after Tony Abbott was made opposition leader because of a fear that the greens and the independents would have a chance to gain more power. Rather ironic given the election result we have just had.

Labor also put the boot into many of its own with things like the cigarette tax, the internet filter and the shame and humiliate card amongst others. To hand out billions to the fat cats then put up the price of the working mans durries to pay it back is sickening to many people. If they really cared about peoples health they would put nicotine patches etc on the PBS. It was just a cash grab the same as the mining tax. That the miners got their tax reduced just shows where the Labor parties current sympathies lie.

Like Obummer in the US the Labor party has been sucking up to the wealthy and powerful in the hope that they will cut them some slack. But as Fux news and the Asstralian have shown there is nothing that the left can do that will reduce the hate and bile spewed by the right wing. Better that Labor just ignore the tory chattering and get on with governing in the interests of those Australians who support them and ignore(and if possible)marginalise the naysayers, smearers and destroyers of the Liberal party.

Hasbeen there will be other threads for confrontation I would like however this one to lift the carpet and see the dirt under it.
Well ok, for you, 65 years of age last Friday my life has been one of wanting better from both sides of politics.
I have searched for a Labor leader like the one Rudd appeared to be.
Latham even looked for the briefest Milli second to be him.
Gillard is not that person, but she will govern well, Bill Shorten is no faceless man he is the leader I have waited for.
I want a labor government that implements true reforms, to tax welfare to migration policy to sustainable living to new fuels.
I want one with the guts to bring Nuclear power to the front.
I can not exclude some conservative implementations have been ok.
But your party's profile the faces of Pyne Bishop, both of them and Abbott the real bloke? we told our kids of the boggy man these people repel me.
Turnbull is the man who one day will reclaim your party's middle ground

My post history has led some to think I am a party insider, not near true.
But I do go to functions sit at the other end,the union end ,away from the young self promoters who flock like pidgins to spilled grain at the feet of the power brokers.
Know I do not EVER want a union controlled ALP.
But in NSW we are the voiceless men, these ladder climbers in our first term forgot the roots of the ALP.
How truly awful, to get us up with a promise of so much and deliver so little.
ETS mining tax not even thought out it is so hard for Labor to win elections why tax so hard?
Gang of 4? what about us those who stood out side the poll ignoring idiotic sms telling us to become robotic in saying only what we had been told?
ALP remember we are not the greens they use us much more than we use them.
They have no power without us,lets not give them our heart our very reason to exist.