Dear SOG,

The Coalition are better fiscal managers?
Says who - John Howard, Peter Costello,
or Tony Abbott? Victorians, Queenslanders,
and voters in NSW certainly wouldn't agree
with that.

Let's have a debate on the economy but let's
make sure we stick to the facts. Tony Abbott
has done nothing to establish his or his
party's economic credentials. He seems content to
simply coast along on what he sees as the public
perception that the Coalition is more competent
at economic management than Labor.

The Coaltion as commentaros have pointed out -
"Had the fortune to hold office in good economic
times - especially from 1996 to 2007 when the Howard
government enjoyed the dividends of the Hawke-Keating
economic reforms and when the world economy was
enjoying a long speculative-driven boom. Good luck,
perhaps, but not good management."

Lexi my sweet, history says they are better managers. Every Labor government since Menzies has stuffed the economy & borrowed far too much to buy votes.

I get thoroughly sick of hearing about how good Hawke & Keating were as managers. The only real test is how much debt did they leave?

I think many of their reforms are coming back right now to bite us. Much of the offshoring going on can be laid right at the door of their reforms.

Do you really forget "the recession we had to have". Like hell we did, that was Keating's reforms, & poor management, some too early, some too late & much just wrong.

Do you remember 17% interest on your home loan? The bloody idiot Keating with his hands on the leavers should have been hung for that stuff up. It was not just thousands whose lives were stuffed by that fool & his interest rates, it was hundreds of thousands.

Paul on a more pleasant note, how do the locals handle the one talk system these days? When I was there it made it impossible for anyone to run any business in their own village, or even one talk area.

Has that broken down, & if so, how does that effect life in more remote parts

Afternoon Lexi, remember that I am a social democrat so neither side of politics suit me at present.

Malcolm Frasier retired Goughs debt by not spending. John Howard sold off our gold reserves at basement prices, so I know how he retired the Hawke /Keating debt. What I can’t fathom is how Hawke/Keating could sell off our Commonwealth bank and have a budget deficit. Another thing I cannot fathom is why Gough cut import tariffs by 25 percent in 1973, so in 1974 saw an increase in imports of 30 percent and a $1.5 billion increase in the trade deficit.

Lexi I am voting for the Coalition. Labor are hopeless, I haven’t know who Labor is from Goughs days. This current lot, highest tax receipts in history and they are broke. Highest Commonwealth debt in history. We pay 2 fully staffed teaching hospitals every month in interest. This Labor is tragic and so abundantly self serving…they gotta go. My belle if because of political alignments you cannot see the forest for the misogynistic trees…so be it.

Dear SOG,

We should all vote for whoever we feel will
provide our nation with the best possible economic
resilience in the future. Who will make
Australia more productive and more competitive
and who will increase our capacity to find new ways of
doing business and build a modern economy based on
advanced skills and technologies.

If you believe that the Coalition can do all that -
Fair enough. I don't!

See you on another thread.

Ludwig, the MRRT is the biggest rocket any modern day government has ever put into big business confidence.

These businesses spent billions on exploration, started mining, then had the goal posts shifted.

That is a prime lesson on how to damage businesses confidence.

Of cause now we all loose, as they (big business) are now starting to stop the risk taking until profits improve.

Yep, this mob sure are clever.

"We should all vote for whoever we feel will
provide our nation with the best possible economic
resilience in the future. Who will make
Australia more productive and more competitive....yuda, yuda, yuda.
Lexi, I thought I might vote for the party that espouses a few noble principles for myself and my fellow Australians, what a novel idea. A party, as the Americans would put it, of liberty, equality, and fraternity. A party that would give us a government that is both just and compassionate towards the weak and disadvantaged in our society, a government for all Australians. A party that believes, first and foremost that we do indeed live in a community of human beings and not merely a money driven economy.
If at the end of the day a government can claim no more than to have left an economic surplus, but at the same time leaves an unjust and divided Australia, then such a government, in my view has failed the Australian people miserably.