I am looking forward to the next 3 years. I say it again, happy am I with the result. Like Epsom salts and caster oil are good for children a dose of Abbottism will do "wonders" for Australia.
SM will you remain shadow minister or will you become a minister in the Abbott cabinet?

I think this sums up Labor's dilemma well:

"There is a great trap for Labor in defeat. It may cling to the idea that an unpopular Abbott will come undone as PM and redeem Labor's position. How convenient that would be. This is tied to the related assumption that Labor's only defect in office was the Rudd-Gillard struggle. This is nonsense, yet pervasively cherished.

The risk for Labor in defeat is it repeats the post-1996 mistake and refuses proper reform that penetrates to its structure, policies and strategies. Bob Hawke and Graham Richardson have warned that Labor needs a sweeping re-think to confront the depth of its problems."

SM,

Can't put it better than Gittins.

"But surely the most disillusioning thing for Liberal true believers is the way five years of railing against Labor's utterly wasteful spending, never-ending budget deficits and soaring debt levels was simply cast aside over the course of a five-week campaign.

When, just before the campaign began, Labor was forced to reveal the deficit would be worse before we returned to surplus in another four years' time, the Libs proclaimed this a ''budget emergency''.

But then, just two days before polling day, they revealed their response to this emergency, which turned out to involve a net reduction in the cash deficit of just $6 billion over four years."

http://m.smh.com.au/business/big-change-in-party-little-in-policy-20130908-2te1h.html

.................

otb,

Saltpetre,

"It is not the attack that matters, nor Poirot's obvious hypocrisy.

It is that Old Tin of Fruit has attacked the woman's sexuality that makes it interesting.

Not usual for a woman to target in another woman at all - unacceptable and impermissible one would have thought."

Au contraire...you're a silly little otb - I'm sure Tony would have mentioned the Lindsay candidate's sexuality if the candidate had been a bloke (not)...pathetic

Here's us during the last Liberal govt, discussing over lunch the assets of the front bench.....

Sexuality - Liberal ladies style (thanks to Magda, Gina and Jane:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-uVms4RiyU

*I'm sure Tony would have mentioned the Lindsay candidate's sexuality if the candidate had been a bloke (not)...pathetic*

Gawd Poirot, its trivia. It does not matter!

The sad reality of the political circus is that the libs don't even need great candidates to beat the labor muppets which we have had to endure for 6 years, just be better than them, not hard to do.

People get the politicians which they deserve

The whole costings debate initiated by Labor was rampant hypocrisy by Labor. Until the first week of the election, Labor refused to release any financial documents from the government making accurate costings by the opposition impossible, (then labor failed to provide all of their costings).

The opposition was left with only days to try and put together a balanced policy framework and costings based on a snapshot of the balance sheet a week after the election announcement. What was released was a broad brush costing of Coalition costings, but did not include other measures that were off budget.

A return to budget will come from more than just costed policies, a commission of audit will raise plenty of opportunities other than firing people such as selling of non essential assets, expenditure cuts etc. In addition the intention to raise the revenue base will include, the scrapping of red tape and the carbon tax will encourage business by reducing their costs and improving their profitability.

The $6bn is just the starting point.

Yabby,

"Gawd Poirot, its trivia. It does not matter! "

Precisely...I was employing a bit of humour when I originally brought that up.

But you know how it is with otb. He got a bit frothy and excited when he saw an opportunity to "defend women's sexuality" with his faux outrage act.

......especially since it was a woman who brought it up (He finds it difficult to resist)

Now, if you don't mind, I'll just sit back and see what Peta Credlin has in store for us.