The previous NSW Labour government has branded Labour as dirty. There is a fault line in Labours pre-selection process as to admit so many crooked and grasping politicians as candidates something is awfully wrong. The list is ugly and belongs in an African republic not Australia. LABOUR MUST PAY A PRICE FOR THIS

Whenever hysterical Liberals start screaming about the bottom line and Australia going into debt under Labor, it makes me want to scream. Have you not the sense to realise that much of this so-called debt has been clawed back by the sale of billions of dollars of our assets, eg the sale of all our utilities (Kennett sold off Victoria's State electrical utilities and now that sad state of affairs has had the end result of Victorians paying the highest electrical bills in the country). Get real! And as for the comments about more jobs with workplace agreements .. how stupid! The Labor Party have always supported the proven guide that increased trade = increased jobs. This ideology has been proven to be successful. Even during the deepest global recession since the Great Depression, Australia was unique among the major advanced countries in avoiding recession and job losses. While more than 11 million jobs were lost in North America and Europe during the global recession 413,000 new jobs were created in Australia. In addition to the Labor Government's fiscal stimulus and the continuing growth of China, an Australian recession was averted as a direct consequence of the resilience of Australian businesses, large and small. This resilience was born of their exposure to international competition through gradual reductions in industry protection. As someone commented above: history proves it!

Workplace Agreements will stifle opportunities and hand back real power to ruthless employers who will seek to disadvantage those who are most vulnerable, eg migrants with poor language skills, factory workers (with minimal education); blue collar workers; single parents. Once again the unbelievable self-centred myopathy of conservatives is appalling. When will you EVER EVER learn that the conservative Liberal Party have a long long history of taking care of the BIG end of town: the multi-millionaire bankers, the billionaire mining bosses (Rinehart has already suggested that we lower the basic wage whilst her wealth borders on obscenity); big businesses where profits are syphoned overseas to the long-term detriment of Australian jobs and in-country profits. Take your blinkers off and wake up!

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/rineharts-welfare-comments-an-insult-to-millions-treasurer-20120830-251u5.html

Katie kid, just think a little more deeply.

You don’t have to be an Einstein to realise that nothing would have to be sold off, if you didn't get into huge debt in the first place. It would be welcome to the new republic of Grease, if those debts had not been cleared, before the rat bags started running up a new lot.

I was going to try to explain a few things to you, but why waste my time, so just a couple of questions.

Who sold off our bank?

Who were the highest payers even when they had workplace agreements?

Hasbeen, perhaps YOU should be the one to think more clearly? Whilst, it is true, both parties have been guilty of selling off assets, the Liberal Party are the ones that enshrine the practise. They are obsessed with the bottom line and prepared to sacrifice anything to get it: health, education, essential utilities and transport. Right now, in NSW, the Liberal O'Farrell government are sacking large numbers of teachers and essential student welfare staff in schools. It's a disgrace!

I am not a supporter of privatisation of public assets under any circumstances and by any political party. The ideology of privatisation has always been flawed. The idea that private always does it better and cheaper has been shown here and around the world to be untrue. As does the idea that the public actually benefits from such sales in the long-term. There have been too many examples of the opposite.

Even though a government may be making money by selling off their public entity, one has to wonder what proportion of that purchase cost is made back by the privatised corporation against the tax system. I therefore wonder what proportion of that sale price the government actually makes in the long-term taking these factors into account. The infatuation with the "Bottom Line" has a huge cost and long-term impact in human terms.

Interesting that Hasbeen should refer to Katie as "Katie kid".

Nice try at age deprecation.

Perhaps we should refer to you as "Hasbeen - old duffer".

Katie, you had better take a bex and have a nice lie down after the
election and the opposition has had time to go over the books.

Neither party has been prepared to take seriously the world wide
decline in GDP, and it is the GDP that pays for all these govt programs.
The Liberal & Nats will act quite quickly when they see what is
happening, but I think it would take labour at least two or three
more budgets before it sinks into their heads that the situation is very serious.
There will be very severe cutbacks in all government services.

There is no choice, start reducing the debt while there is time left
to at least get it down somewhat, or pay the penalty of default.
Sooner or not much later Europe and the US will either default or
have Zimbabwe like inflation.