<< I was looking for positive social reforms as my choices example. We got the talk but no outcomes, just failures. >>

Agreed Soggy. But let’s be careful. What would the Libs have done? Would they have attempted to deliver similar good ideas and make them into effective policies? Would they have been significantly more successful if they had?

I can’t see that they would have been any better or will be in the future.

It would appear that Labor would be in a much better position if they’d sat on their hands and not attempted anything of any note. Then the electorate would probably choose them at the next election instead of a policyless don’t-know-what-we-might-be-gettng-ourselves-in-for-if-we-vote-for-them Lib mob!

Perhaps we should be voting for the party that has had good ideas and tried to implement them, no matter how badly… because the other mob really do look a whole lot less likely to do anything useful.

<< Luddy it seems the “more intelligent and sustainability-attuned people” have had no bearing in the previous six years….why would it change? >>

Soggy, what’s with ‘six years’ bit? Sustainability-attuned people have NEVER had any bearing on Australian politics!

Why would it change? Um… because it HAS to … sooner or later!

<< Again I can only relate to track records…the Coalition are better fiscal managers >>

Not too sure about that, as Lexi points out. But even if they are, there’s a whole lot more to good governance than that!

<< Which new Labor team with a sustainability paradigm at its core? >>

POTENTIALLY one led by Carr and/or Thomson…. or perhaps even Gillard if she’d just honour her assertion that she believes in a sustainable Australia, not a big Australia.

Paul strangely pie in the sky noble principles, attempted by twits gets you into a bankrupt situation, where you can do nothing but survive. Time to try the possible about now.

Luddy this is a description of your love affair with that idiot Carr. He is totally incapable of organising that fabled piss up in a brewery. Any management by him would leave us open to a Cyprus type rescue. Sustainability &/or grandiose noble principles are only available from a situation of sound financial backing. IE money in the bank.

I can't believe that so many fools cheered Julia's bull dust about a disability insurance scheme, starting only after she knows she'll be chucked out on her ear. That, the schools rubbish, & the NBN are just not possible. I am amazed that people who think they are smart can let her get away with it.

Not only is she conning the faithful, but is promising a pile of rubbish to the disabled. Better to know you had better start doing more for yourself, than sit expectantly on your butt, believing the fairy god mother is coming loaded with gold. Only a real bitch could do that to people.

So folks forget the cavalry, they ain't coming. We are going to have to dig ourselves out of this mess, & no one left standing in Labor knows what a shovel is, let alone how to use one.

Like the Irish labourer, left to dig a hole. When the boss comes back there is no hole. Paddy's excuse, he couldn't find the starter handle to start the shovel. That's Labor today.

Hazza, your comprehensive negativity towards Carr is unfounded.

Have a read of this: and get a handle on all the GOOD THINGS he did as NSW Premier and why he was voted back in a whole series of times and became their longest-serving leader: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Carr

And please reconsider your total opposition to the achievement of a sustainability paradigm. We simply MUST do this sooner or later. Obviously the sooner the better.

I think you’ll find that a genuine sustainability agenda would concur very well with most of your wishes.

You don’t really understand what sustainability means. Well, I am trying to discuss that with you on the other thread, but you won’t be drawn into responding after having drawn me into answering a whole series of your questions. I do find that a tad strange.

The problem we all have is that no party is prepared to face up to
our energy problem that a number of their members are well aware about.
I seriously doubt that Labour could manage the situation once everyone
is aware of the problem and at present the Lib/Nats don't want to know.

My concern is that before it hits the fan, the political cycle will
come around to Labour again. I do not think a government so completely
controlled from outside could manage a situation like Egypt's.

Martin Ferguson and Barnaby Joyce are the only ones that acknowledge
our energy problem as real and needing attention.
One Liberal member I have met thinks it is a problem that something
will turn up to fix or there will be a technical fix.
The closing of our refineries just make things more dangerous.

On the NBN, while fibre is definitely the best solution technically
because radio spectrum should not be used unless necessary.
However the trend is to radio for phones and the internet to the
extent that in the US and here the mobile only homes will soon be the majority.

Alternative energy will be an absolute necessity in the future but I
suspect that wind farms will never be a permanent solution.
Solar would be part of the solution if storage techniques are ever
developed, but we cannot afford to take the risk and await that solution.

Hot Rocks geothermal and nuclear are the only possible solutions
that I can see as being real goers. Even hot rocks have not yet
solved all problems.

Can any of you see the Labour party being able maneuver the country
through that very complex transition to a new energy regime ?

The only thing that I can see going for Bob Carr is that he was
against Sydney getting any bigger.

Lexi,
I think you may have it wrong about our GDP to debt ratio.
An article I read, and I wish I could remember the details, pointed
out that when you adjust the GDP value for factors that are not
normally taken into account the ratio is much worse. It was something
to do with such a large part of our economy is in mining exports
that it distorts the figures.
However our economy has to work internally.

Hasbeen, I think here in Sydney house prices has risen but only slightly.
There does not seem to be any big rush going on. I think everyone has
closed their purses tightly.

When we started out on this life together we made a resolution not
to borrow for anything, except the house itself.
We moved in with a bed, a kitchen table and chairs and that was it.
We had a borrowed 10 inch TV set. We figured that while we started
behind others we soon caught up because we were not paying interest.
I still owe nothing to anybody and have money in the bank.
We have reasonably good health so it does not matter much to us who is in power.
It can be done and our sons have repeated the exercise.