So Labor totally bereft of talent has to rehash an old failed State Premier.Julia had to slip him in the back door and rub Steven Smith's nose in the dirt.

Bob Carr left NSW in economic ruins and did not have the courage to face the electorate but resigned before we could vote him out.

Bob Carr once said that Desalination Plants were "bottled electricity" both energy wasteful and very pollutive.So off trots Bob to the Middle East and upon return does a 180 deg about face and NSW gets a $2 billion + white elephant.Why did he not take the cheaper more environmentally friendly option of purifying sewage water? He brags about 100 new National Parks that we do not have the money or resources to maintain.Surely a stronger economy is better able to look after the environment?

Upon his resignation Bob soon gets a $500,000 pa part time consultancy with Macquarie Bank no doubt helping them line up all the choice State contracts and investment opportunies for them.Yes it is who you know once again.

Bob was probably in his prime the most articulate and best performer publically.He was equal if not better than Alan Jones in a debate on radio.

Bob Carr is the person who Labor need to overcome their malaise of image over substance but can he bring some honesty and integrity back to a party that has lost its way?

Bob Carr-Image ? Strange definition of image.

Used Carr, Hire or Resale;

Built early 50s’, never raced, rallied or rolled, one carful owner, sounds very good, mechanically sound, regularly serviced, sounds really good, needs some TLC, image tarnished by last user, still sounds good, cranky shaft needs tuning, still sounds good, voice to text system tweets automatically when you say “Press”, built for comfort of premier class travel, a little tired but ideal for “shows”, RES certificate available as statute of limitations has now expired, still sounds good.

This Carr would be ideal for any organisation lacking authority that deperately needs to inject the gravitas of an adult and father figure with senior citizenship credentials.

No serious offer refused.

Correction, just any offer.

Individual,Bob Carr has a sharp mind and tongue which labor need.When he talks he sounds he has some authority.Hence giving some illusion of substance to a poor image.

Arjay, you wrote;

<< Bob Carr left NSW in economic ruins… >>

He tried to address rapid population growth, especially in Sydney, but the powers against him were too strong.

What sort of economic growth rate would NSW need in order to provide all the necessities for the rapidly growing number of new residents plus completely cancel out all the negative environmental and social impacts of this rapid growth plus create real improvements for the whole population?

A very high rate indeed. Basically, too high for any government to implement or sustain.

Sydney’s rapid population growth is the primary factor stressing the economy. It causes huge demands for money to be spent on duplicating basic infrastructure and services for ever more people instead of on real improvements for the existing population.

Don’t blame Bob Carr. Blame those who wouldn’t let him mitigate population growth.

<< Bob Carr once said that Desalination Plants were "bottled electricity" both energy wasteful and very pollutive >>
He was right. But with Sydney’s enormous and rapidly growing population, something had to be done. Unfortunately, purified sewage water just wasn’t publicly palatable.

Arjay, you seem to bear no thought for the all-important continuous growth factor. It has everything to do with the economy, quality of life and future wellbeing of our society.

Bob Carr has got the right idea when it comes to this sort of stuff. He is a very good person for Gillard to bring on board. Hopefully he can now get right into her ear about the importance of curtailing rapid growth.

She denounced Rudd’s Big Australia. Bob can hopefully remind her of that and start to sway Labor towards a more sustainable less suicidal policy platform.

Ludwig ,China can handle rapid pop and economic growth.They've have growth of 9-12% for the last 10 yrs.Why cannot NSW do this?

Arjay,

This is what sustained growth of 9-12% looks like in a system like China's.

http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

Thanks Poirot, that puts a few things into perspective. Alas, will they see, or hear? I have my doubts : (

The fact is that Labor leaders leave our economies in an absolute mess.NSW still have not recovered from their exccesses and now some want a failed Ex-Premier as the leader of our country

Poirot,
This link brings home the message of consumerism & overpopulation. I shudder at thought of how many useless bureaucrats these poor wretches support.
It would't be like this if there weren't so many people. You can't get a clearer argument for birth control than these pictures.

"Labor leaders leave our economies in an absolute mess" is a bit of a generalisation to say the least.

Ironic that ex-Premier Nick Greiner, who sold off all the car parking land (and more) around Sydney Railway Stations is now a representative for Infrastructure Australia, or that ex-Premier Fahey sold off the Bank of NSW to Westpac for about 12 months of it's earnings.

Now that's not just incompetent, as far as the NSW taxpayers go - it was bordering on criminal.

Wobbles,
How else were they supposed to refill the coffers so callously raided by Labor ?

"Bob Carr has a sharp mind and tongue which labor need. When he talks he sounds he has some authority"

Vomit, double vomit.

<< Ludwig ,China can handle rapid pop and economic growth.They've have growth of 9-12% for the last 10 yrs.Why cannot NSW do this? >>

A question well worth asking, Arjay.

China’s economic growth has enormous downsides, as Poirot has pointed out.

( I note particularly no 21 from Poirot’s link:

< In Some areas of China people’s lives were threatened because of the environmental pollution. Residents suffering from all kinds of obscured diseases, the cancer villages, increase of deformed babies, these were the results of sacrificing environment and blindly seeking economical gain. > )

Obviously, NSW doesn’t want growth like that.

NSW has got a dynamic economy just like the rest of the country. What more could have been done to boost it to the level that would be necessary to provide real tangible benefits to the average quality of life for the whole community, where there is rapid population growth, without causing major negative factors?

Arjay, if you were Bob Carr in the 1990s, how would you have created real meaningful sustained economic growth?

Pictures as those from China have been going around for a long time but has anyone been affected sufficiently to change the situation ? Of course not. It's much easier to ask for more of everything. The pro-growth brigade both industry & Union should be forced to have such pictures hanging in their offices. Would be interesting if compassion could possibly dampen greed by a minute degree. Let's start with the non-productive workforce paying a poor tax to help those who can't make a living as a parasite.

Individual,

For your information, Greiner and Fahey were Premiers between 1988 and 1995.

Carr didn't start until 1995 and won on a campaign based on the waste and mismanagement of his Liberal predecessors as well as adverse corruption findings and other such matters.

Some of us have long memories.

Some of us have long memories.
Wobbles,
that's funny, how then do you not remember that the whole of the public service is Labor even when there is a coalition Government.
Just imagine how much worse it could have been if there weren't any Coalition Governments before Carr.

Ludwig ,If I were Bob Carr with the knowledge I have now,I would have created a new State Bank that had the power of credit creation to equal the productivity of the State.Money is not wealth.Money is the symbol of productivity.The private financial system have hijacked the real purpose of money.They turned it into a commodity which perverts the true intent of human endeavour.

The other innovation would be to cut back the size of the Public Service.

Our economies are collapsing right now in a sea of debt,or money starvation.Right now private banks own our increases in productivty and loan it back to us as debt.ie Debt slavery.

How is it that the US Fed a private group of banks have created over $ 30 trillion since 2008 and still the US economy falters? They are putting this money into their ponzy derivative scams while the real economy starves.

The other innovation would be to cut back the size of the Public Service.
Arjay,
yes but only via natural attrition. We can't afford job losses as such nor do we want it. What is desperately needed is a reduction of salaries in the public service. Insane amounts of money are literally wasted on people who are simply there. For no reason or other obvious point except being the Labor backbone.
It's high time that accountability is introduced.

You're like a stuck record, Arjay.

>>If I were Bob Carr with the knowledge I have now,I would have created a new State Bank that had the power of credit creation to equal the productivity of the State.<<

Or whatever the cyber equivalent of a stuck record might be.

The only problems with your suggestion are i) you haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about, as we have discussed on oh-so-many previous occasions, and ii) you haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about, as we have discussed on oh-so-many previous occasions.

There is a third, but I can't quite think of it at the moment.

Of course, you could always, even at this late stage, prove me wrong by explaining the real-world activities that would take place in order to "create credit to equal the productivity of the State".

But as we both know, that's where you fail, every time.

Do yourself a favour, and read something - anything - except those weird-and-wacky conspiracy sites on the internet. You'll be amazed at what you will discover.

Regarding the public service Arjay, I don’t think that cutting it back would be the right thing. There are numerous services that are not up to scratch because there are not enough people employed in those sectors. The police is one that comes to mind.

Indeed, the public service should be increasing proportionally to population growth.

But I would agree that it needs to be made a whole lot more efficient, and that overlaps between the different tiers of government need to be eliminated.

But that’s tangential to the thread topic.

Regarding credit creation and the like, I’ll give you a bit more credence than Pericles. I’m sure there is merit in what you are saying, although I admit I don’t understand it very well. But I wonder how relevant it is to Bob Carr’s management of the NSW economy.

It comes back to continuous population growth and the need to provide all the new residents with the same highly consumptive standard of living that established residents enjoy. THIS is the major factor in the degradation of the NSW economy, starting well before Carr’s premiership and extending up to the present.

Some genius of a premier or a really tuned-in government could possibly have implemented a miracle technological innovation or two, or introduced incentives to really get manufacturing and value-adding of all sorts happening as well as maximised primary resource production… and perhaps really hard-sold Australian produce to the world in order to significantly increase exports. But really, none of that was very likely on top of the already pretty big efforts to grow the economy in NSW.

continued

So I can’t really see how Carr could have done that much, other than insist even more vehemently than he did that the Federal government reduce immigration and thus slow the constantly increasing population pressure in and around Sydney.

But then, if he’d done that, he would really have been going against his party’s doctrine and risking severe backlash. In fact, it is quite amazing what he was able to say about population growth, for so long, and not get totally ostracised by his colleagues.

The fact that he was re-elected multiple times and became the longest continuously serving NSW premier is a pretty good indication that he had the people onside with his desires to stop Sydney from becoming ever-more congested.

He is definitely a very good man for Gillard to have on board.

I just hope to goodness that he speaks out about this stuff and is not stifled under the threat of losing his highly prized job if he does.

Ludwig since Carr is our new foreign minister,put pressure on him to stop the proposed war on Iran.Carr considers himslef to be a person of intellect who loves the original US Constitution.Obama and Bush have trashed it with presidential signing orders.The US is a virtual police state and we are ignoring the fascism coming our way.

Gotta laugh,Pericles hates hearing the truth about private bankster counterfeiting.

With Carr off to the Senate and into the plumb job as Foreign Minister Bob needs to come clean on any conflict of interest between his old job as an adviser at Macquarie Bank and his new position.
The Greens are demanding the former premier declare the clients he has represented at Macquarie Bank, and that he absent himself from Cabinet discussions where their interests arise.
Bob Carr says "That (conflict of interest) will not be an issue. First of all, I (Bob Carr) would be super sensitive to making a decision that affected any one that I had been even speaking to in the private sector"
Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon says a full list (Bob's customers at Macquarie) is needed.
"He does need to be more open about his work, and what projects he's been working on as a lobbyist. This needs to be available for the public." Carr should absent himself from Cabinet decisions which benefit former clients, not some 'whishy washy' promise of being "super sensitive," what ever that means!