Maxine must be suffering withdrawal symptoms,now that she is not on at 7.30 every night we now see her on an earlier time spot.
"Death threats" well that should bring out the media scrum.
I only hope Maxine will withstand the high pressure life in politics that her predecessor Mary from Melbourne, who managed to convince the pollies in the Victorian State parliament to give her a multi million pension after working for a few years in the Victorian Labor Government.
TAX FREE PENSIONS ARE THE WAY TO GO.after working on the 7.30 Report.

Oligarch,we do have a balance of payments dilemma that has worsened with the reduction in tarrifs.We have two choices.We either increase tarrifs again and the prices of our consumerables such as cars become far more expensive and of much lower quality,or we work harder and smarter to compete with the rising giants of India and China?

John Howard's IR reform is all about making us more competitive.The Unions and the Labor Party are in denial.The resources boom will end and eventually we will run out of things to sell.As the world population expands expodentially,so energy and resources become scarcer and more expensive.In a finite world of energy and resources,helping the poor in the long run,makes all our lives more difficult.

I would rather see a world far less populated so that human life and labour is once again valued.

That said,Maxine McClueless is way out of her depth and was only put there to distract John Howard from the main game.

Arjay, Australia's average working hours are already longer than most other OECD countries. As for Work Choices, productivity has actually declined since the legislation was introduced. So as our working hours increase, our productivity is in steep decline. Another Howard Government economic miracle.

As for competing "smartly", the Howard Government receives another fail grade in terms of education and innovation. We have an ongoing skills crisis. We are the only country in the developed world to have gone backwards in public investment on higher education, whereas the OECD average has increased by a factor of nearly 50%. Tax concessions for Research & Development have also been cut back to the point where Australia now has the second lowest level of R&D investment in the OECD. Smart countries are spending more than three times as much on R&D than Australia. We are working harder, but definitely not smarter.

Howard and Costello were quick to tear up the industry and export policies by which the Keating Government increased Australia's export share, but they have put nothing in their place. It should be no suprise then that since the Howard Government came to office, Australia has experienced one of the lowest rates of export growth in the OECD.

Any fool can balance a budget through privatisation and deinvestment, but that won't sustain long-term prosperity.

I dont think it is fair to regard McKew's candidacy as a simple celebrity 'milking' (ala Schwarzenegger). She is obviously intelligent and she should know the ropes pretty well. Personally, I am not particularly enamoured with her but anyone whose brain is in the-right-way-around is a bonus in politics.

While Garrett has yet to show any political cred (I always thought he was too idealistic for the job) and while his might well be a 'celebrity candidacy' I think anything that stops him dancing is good.

Posted by runner, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 12:16:09 PM
"I wonder if Rob is still concerned with the ABS 'right wing bias'."

Dont tell me there is right-wing bias at the Australian Bureau of Statistics as well! - I always thought there was.

Oligarch, nice come back.

Arjay you've been told.

I'll never watch the ABS again.