Dear SM,

You describe the new look Labor front bench
as a bunch of "amateurs" even though their
qualifications, experience, and ability
to get things done in a toxic environment
has been well and truly tested.

However,
despite all that you still call them "amateurs".
Then perhaps the appropriate word to describe
the Coalition's front bench (quid pro quo) would
definitely have to be - "useless!"

That would be fair enough.

Yes Lexi,

Labor has been tried and tested, and found wanting.

Their major reforms to the economy are debt and taxes.

Dear SM,

Our taxation system is badly in need of reforms.

As are other areas such as health, education, infrastructure,
and so on - which was badly done by the previous government
and now needs fixing.

It is time however that the Coalition did more than just
use scare tactics to try to attract votes. They need to come
up with something more positive in order for the voters to
see a reason to vote for them at the next election.

Lexi,

The previous government was Rudd. The "reforms" that labor have put in place have yielded no improvements, and simply increased costs with additional layers of bureaucrats.

So far so good. Bob Carr seems to be doing well at sticking to his long-held guns about population and getting the message out there:

From The Punch:

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/carr-wants-to-hit-the-brakes-on-our-ballooning-population/

And Lateline:

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3461709.htm?site=&source=rss>

Quote:

CARR:

... Yet we are the largest emitters of carbon pollution per head of
population. And I can't talk as I did yesterday to ambassadors from poor
countries, from Africa, from the Caribbean, from the South Pacific and urge
them to take action on climate change unless I can point to Australia's
record as a rich country taking serious action.

With the passage of this legislation under the Gillard Government we've now
got that and we've got iron-clad credibility when we talk about climate.

TONY JONES: Let me ask you this: as Foreign Minister have you been forced to
put aside your fundamental objections to the idea of a big Australia?

BOB CARR: I will stay patron of sustainable population Australia. I believe
in the cause of linking population growth to our key environmental
indicators.

TONY JONES: Won't that be in conflict with Government policy which is to
increase immigration exponentially?

BOB CARR: No, I remind you of what Prime Minister Gillard said when she took
her office. She moved Australia away from what I see as an old-fashioned
notion of simply force-feeding population growth.

We've got a different economy from the one we had in the 1950s and 1960s
when you had car plants in just about every Australian city, when we were -
we needed more and more blue-collar workers.

We haven't got that old kind of old-fashioned manufacturing economy today.
We've got a smarter economy and we need a different approach to population
growth and we've got to respect the environmental limits of this strange and
fragile continent. We've got to respect its environmental limits and
population policy has got to be tailored to that.