Bad luck for the people that stimulus money kept floating eh. That is a very narrow view of the situation at hand.
The same that u suggested could apply here. It was Qld flood so it's qld problem. That is what you are inferring.
The fires in victoria, the infastructure was paid for by victorians. We had a 100 dollar levy for all ratepayers.
Qld already gets a quarter of victorias GST.

The federal government should go into debt to re-build infrastructure destroyed by the flood and it should grasp the nettle to improve and build new infrastructure at the same time. The opposition should be supporting that policy too.

The economic stupidity of the deficit Bogeyman should be apparent to all economists. It is foolish to run an economy according to some deficit hurdle artificially created to scare voters in the hope of winning an election.

What a nonsense it is to open the flood gates for expenditure when the economy is booming and slam them shut at all other times.

Individual thanks for the thoughts. The Labor party had three big internal bust ups, in 1916,31, and 55. I can remember my pop telling me about the general strike in NSW after the 1916 punch up.

The Labor party needs another internal revolution, they have an identity crisis, they don't know who they are and I am sick of guessing.

Posted by Squeers:>> "social engineering" I'd be grateful if you elaborated a little on what exactly this is<<

Given that one of the themes of my rant was the ethnic vote being a foregone conclusion, I apply the term social engineering rather than electorate stacking given we are discussing a single ethnic community.

This from the ABC By Danuta Kozaki August 14, 2010.

"Blaxland in Sydney's south-west is traditionally a Labor safe seat. Former prime minister Paul Keating held the Blaxland seat from 1969 until 1996.
Current Labor MP Jason Clare currently holds the seat by a margin of 16.7 per cent.

The electorate has had its boundaries redrawn since the 2007 election and now has the highest proportion of voters from a Muslim background in Australia, with over 17 per cent of the vote."

That is the social engineering I alluded to, first you flood an electorate with your supporters, then just to be safe you re draw the boundaries. You hold a margin of 17%, then you redraw the boundaries to encompass a 17% pro vote.

>> Indeed, don't several of the items on your list of Labor achievements qualify as social engineering? And isn't Labor meant to be a democratic socialist party?<<

Squeers whats your point? If you change a bus time table you are social engineering. But I would consider the achievements you mention as social benefit rather than social engineering. For the most part social engineering is a modification that suits the plans of the few over the manny.

a597:>> Bad luck for the people that stimulus money kept floating eh. That is a very narrow view of the situation at hand.
The same that u suggested could apply here. It was Qld flood so it's qld problem. That is what you are inferring.<<

I don't believe anyone is inferring that we turn our backs. IMO it should come straight out of the budget because if something came up that "they" wanted they would find a couple of billion in cuts easily. Secondly I believe that our couple of billion will get a billion worth of value given their current track record. As I said Leighton’s are having Xmas in February. Just wait for the rorts allegations to come from this gold rush.

You'll admit, Sonofgloin, that your contributions on OLO have a racial bias and agenda. How is it that these canny Labor politicians induced so many Muslims to settle in Blaxland? And do you have any evidence that the Muslims are disposed to vote Labor, or that the boundaries were redrawn to exploit ostensible Muslim favouritism?
I don't have time to look into it, but I find it hard to believe any party is consciously exploiting immigration for political purposes. Do you have any evidence?