Well, I like the policy on appretiships.
I don'ike the emphasis on roads.
I don't like the absence of policy on rail.
I like the payment to new mums. We need the home grown population.
I think the boat buying idea looks dodgy unless someone has a better
way to implement it than has so far been suggested. Looks to be open
to manipulation. Still it could be dropped if it fails.
Not a single word about fuel security at the same time we are closing
all our refineries. We won't be able to refine our own oil !

Will natural attrition be enough to cut back on PS spending ?
Most other policies are reasonable.

What I would like to see is a reinforcing of TAFE colleges.
Not really a Federal matter but the apprectiship policy will require it.

All in all reasonable, but parts need stronger application.
Hopefully the mad borrowing will reduce dramatically.

Lexi my sweet, I can assure you I have no fantasies about our Abbott, & never actually believed you would have one either. I am having trouble getting my tongue out of my cheek this weekend.

However I find ROberts post interesting. I agree that the parental leave is excessive, & believe it will be interesting to see what the Greens do with it in the Senate, assuming they still have the balance of power.

While I agree that broken promises have weighed heavily on Labor recently, the promises they broke all made the majority worse off. When a broken promise is to disadvantage the despised bureaucrats of the public service, the response does seem to be quite different.

Hasbeen, my flower,, maybe your daughter was gently trying to make you (and other male posters on this site) aware of the unhealthy adulation you lot seem to have for the he-man Mr. Abbott?

Maybe the budgie smuggler photos secretly excite you guys, so you try to put the rest of us off the scent by suggesting it is all a female problem with Tarzan Abbott?

That thought is not nearly as ridiculous as suggesting ANY woman other than his wife would be attracted to Abbott...

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

If only that were true.

Dear Hasbeen,

I'm so glad that you were joking about
Mr Abbott. You with such great taste -
I was quite worried.

As for election promises?

I like what Dennis Pryor had to say in
his satirical dictionary of Australian politics,
"Political Pryorities":

"Election promises are self-destructing statements
made during election campaigns. Following the
election the promises self-destruct because either
the promise becomes inoperative "due to changed
economic circumstances" or the promise is found
to have been so cunningly worded that it did not mean
what it said and careless voters misunderstood the
terms of the original promise."

Dear Suse,

Well said.

Lexi,

The biggest jokes are Kevin Dudd and the labor party.

"The government is not running on its record. The Prime Minister is not focused on his achievements. He is running a campaign built on fabrications and future glory. He has been caught lying, without compunction, on multiple occasions. This is not even the most insidious mischief.

The government has manipulated the official statistics. It has compromised the reputation of the Treasury. An example of the endless spin cycle is the manipulation of the unemployment rate, a basic measure of the economy and thus, indirectly, a measure of the government's performance. The official rate is 5.7 per cent. It has been trending up for a year, from 5.2 per cent, a 10 per cent rise in 12 months. The real unemployment rate is higher, about 6.2 per cent according to a study by Andrew Baker of the Centre for Independent Studies.

Baker found that more than 100,000 job-seekers had been moved out of the unemployment ranks by shifting them into training schemes. ''An astonishing 360,000 unemployed people are classified as non-job-seekers,'' Baker wrote in his centre's monograph. ''The number [in training schemes has] skyrocketed from 62,500 in 2009 to 150,000 in 2012 … People on welfare who are not required to look for work will stay on welfare longer.'' He estimates that if the unemployed who are classified as ''non-job-seekers'' was included in the unemployment baseline number, the rate would be 6.2 per cent.

Even the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) finds something is amiss with Australia's unemployment data, noting recently: ''The non job-seeker population is so large that it needs more analysis and attention.''

Not good, considering that when Rudd came to power in 2007 the official, uncooked, unemployment rate was 4.5 per cent. Despite a resources boom and $300 billion in government deficit spending, the unemployment rate has risen about 37 per cent under Labor."

Dear SM,

Got anything new to add?
We've heard all this from the Coalition.
How about telling us how Mr Abbott's
going to pay for all of his promises.
We've had enough attempts at diversions -
what about giving the voters some real
information as to why they should vote for
the Party you support. Now that would be
a real change for you guys.
How long do you guys think you can keep
blaming the government and not be held up
to scrutiny yourselves...
People are beginning to get wise.
Things have to change.