I agree with you OUG, we should be taking far more tax off the top.
As for smokers, the taxes are an outrage, especially for those like my mother who were seduced and addicted while it was still a state-sanctioned, heavily marketed drug. I think anyone over a certain age should not have to pay the tobacco tax. They should get their drug virtually free. By the same token, they should be advised that if they choose to keep smoking they forfeit their right to transplants etc.

Belly,
In my opinion nothing can redeem Rudd, Gillard or the Labor Party.
I won't get into the refugee issue.

Squeers let us look at Australian politics.
It is not off subject, partly as a result of opinion makers it is over all not very good.
Labor, my mob, are in it deeply,who could have seen the nature of Rudd this time last year.
Gillard? well she is doomed, I get verbally flogged for saying that,, but the same folk once flogged all who said bad of Rudd,then helped remove him.
Perception is every thing, Gillard is gone,soon, Bill Shorten, no Rudd will take over,but he too must confront the 24 hour news cycle.
Now Conservatives, has any one seen them so out of policy's and plans?
Just as Labor is propped up by conservatives lost,, nature Abbott too owes his revival to, Labors decent,not his wild fluctuating policy's.
Now Greens, can any one see ever them getting more than about 15% of the vote?
Mid year they inherit about 50% of power nothing can pass the house unless major party's unite against them.
Chasing the opinion makers the 24 hour news cycle is hurting Australian politics.
Hiding failure is hurting my party, not daring to dream is too.
The Rudd ship, the polling leads the idea that he was other than the ugly thing he is, the idea Gillard, a woman who would become anything to stay in power is an answer for my party is wrong.
That ship was a phantom of no use.
This country needs leadership, it needs direction, Squeers we can not avoid the refugee issue, you may wish to but both party's have made it center stage.
Australians are this morning hurt at the deaths hurt too at the signs saying UN help us, no policy's that can not stop these boats will be excepted by this country's voters any more.

Bill Shorten is the man Rudd had us believe he was, he will be fresh air and 100% fair dinkum.
His task is not easy,dragged pushed and panicked by opinion makers Labor promised much delivered little.
ETS , boy they look silly now but we are re birthing that policy that helped elect us.
Cash for clunkers, fuel watch, grocery watch, the rather heedless fight against banks interest rates opinion makers frightened them into.
We said sorry but built no homes we run away from asking for accountability for welfare.
Why not think big, why not say to Australia we need to change .
When will some one say let us look at social welfare and help those we can while controlling fraud.
Why not make government things work not selling them.
Our politicians,all of them have given up politics to satisfy a grubby unfocused and uncaring media.
One that takes a story and stretches it bends it and presents it as truth.
The opinion makers,are lowering our ability to get good government.

Belly,
I also am a Labor voter. That's why I'm disgusted with the party; because it isn't Labor and hasn't been for decades, if ever.
It is virtually indistinguishable from Liberal, and vice versa.

Politicians are in the main educated and accordingly disgusted by the hysterics over the trickle of refugees Australia has to process. There are a few dyed in the wool conservatives who mean it when they say "stop the boats", but mostly they're just pandering to popular paranoia--which, on this issue, is worse among the grass roots of blue-collar Labor than educated Liberals. It's a despicable issue that reveals "Australianness" for what it "really" is; and it turns the stomachs, I suspect, of most politicians on both sides of the political divide. But popular democracies are such that political contenders have to play the cards they're dealt. How they must despise their constituents, I suspect.

Belly:
<Our politicians,all of them have given up politics to satisfy a grubby unfocused and uncaring media.
One that takes a story and stretches it bends it and presents it as truth.
The opinion makers,are lowering our ability to get good government>

Belly,
you think?
Politicians have no interest in the media per se (they hate it), only in how it "represents them" (representation is everything). The media is a sitting duck. The media is the interface between politicians and the public, ergo politicians try first to manipulate the media and second, to play it as best they can in order to court the popular vote. Your comments above are true of popular (commercial) media because their interests and the politicians' interests are identical: RATINGS, POPULARITY (commercial interest). The only way the ABC and other (sometimes) respectable organs can avoid being "played" is to second-guess the bullsh!t the politicians want to broadcast as gospel. This is a wonderful grey area. But yet more wonderful is that the popular audience (which listens to Alan jones and watches 60 Minutes open-mouthed) actually see this as the contested ground. The real action is the product, the fall-out, how the benighted masses, the popular vote, can be manipulated. There is no truth, no ethics, no mandate; there's only popular politics. The "issues" are patronage..

This is CDF isn't it??

To a degree Squeers I share those views BUT.
I think about 20% of voters are for sale, not interested in understanding politics.
I just have to be careful to get my opinion explained as it is here.
Yes we are not the old ALP,that is both good and bad.
I do not require my party to govern only for my class, working.
I remember some of those ideals we held in my childhood kept us in opposition.
I dislike the middle class take over of my party.
Please understand I never wanted a union heaven, understand the idea good government is for most of the country.
I have a very long history in the movement, but at a function seem to see new people with a few months membership.
The new Labor limpets ,young up worldly mobile couples, have a hold on parliamentarians, fawning over them and it sickens me.
Reality however screams at me Labor had no choice it had to take the ground conservatives left on its rush to the right.
The future will be better for Labor,falls do lead to regrowth, but right now?
Federally few know, less care,Gillard is recycling her Latham team Crean, an ex unionist who defiled his dads record and that awful Hunter MP who was being rewarded by China for a start.
We are all opinion makers and that 20% can be bought, government with it.
No true leftist Labor or greens will again govern this country.
I want only good Government from Labor not good opposition forever.
We must understand current conservative policy's are a danger to us and our country , unity is our only hope.