You will find boat arrivals would have increased in any case. it has something to do with the amount of disruption in the world.
liberals collapse the economy and create unemployment, Infrastructure spending goes by the wayside. Liberals are for the 1% economy.
That 20 billion has grown to 98 billion in the futures fund managed by Costello and co.

Banjo,

"....no infrastructure or anything to show for the huge spending."

You're joking of course?

What a silly bleat that is. I only have to cruise past a selection of schools in my immediate area - and every one of them possesses excellent and long-needed additions in infrastructure.

I'm also wondering why Australia's economic performance wasn't much dented by the GFC?

Can you give me an alternative scenario that somehow ignores the impact of the economic stimulus? After all, the opposition's line on the stimulus, isn't based on sound ideology, but simply on a "spoiling" mechanism - nothing but heckling from the sidelines.

btw, Banjo, thanks for your input - makes me realise there are more differences between the two majors than I've been taking into account.

Bazz, these links explain subjudicy better than I:

http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Manuals%20Volume%203/volume3_64.htm#fair

and,

http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/odgers/chap1011

and,

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4285856.html

Should those text's have been released before the judge makes a decision the way i read it they should not.

579, here is an extract from the first link;

So, from the time that someone is charged with a crime - or, more
accurately, from the time when the police tell you that someone is
about to be charged with a crime - the case is sub judice.
From that moment on, until the court case is completed, you should
write nothing about the crime except *details* which emerge while the
court case is being conducted.
end quote * * my emphasis

I think the last sentence is directly applicable to this case.
The judge of course has the option to embargo all or any part of the
evidence.
The texts are clearly details that have emerged.
I believe that rule is similar to the reason a charged persons name
must be made available to avoid secret charges and trials.
Also the rule makes evidence available to the public so they can see
that the trial is being conducted fairly.
Otherwise court reporters would have no function.

I notice that Insiders this morning agreed with me that Slipper
should have been asked to resign before the opposition motion was put.
Then the whole nasty smozzle of Thursday would have been avoided.

579,

Ashby made a request to release the texts. This was unopposed by Slipper. Whether it was stupid of Slipper to allow this is history, but it was entirely within the law.

As Labor's economic competence, this is a joke. One can keep up growth employment etc if one keeps on spending. It is when fiscal discipline is required that the brakes come on. I notice that the unemployment is creeping up again.