@Steele,

<<157 asylum seekers have landed on Australian soil>>

Wake-up old chap,and use proper terminology, they are plain and simply economic migrants or illegal immigrants. Having sailed from safe haven India there is no way you can sustain the "asylum seeker" pretence.

I think the APES idea is admirable. If politicians knew they would be hit HARD with a penalty then they would tend not to make Promises that are not "core" Promises & we'd get some truth in Political Advertising during an Election run up. Yair right.

Welcome back Steelie. Getting a bit warm over there luv.

The ABC is a joke isn't it? Nothing like what the national broadcaster was years ago. All this does is add to the mockery that is supposed to be political journalism that feeds off media created controversy. It is entertainment for the peanut gallery whose attention span is limited to headlines and who seek their daily jollies from venting their spleen.

and if the ABC was the selector!
SPQR,
What ? That home-grown UN ?

.....Rehctub, the government and opposition need to have a full handle on the financial situation and know what they can and cannot promise in accordance with said finances. It is NOT acceptable for them to make promises and then renege on them by way of them not being financially viable.

Give me a break Ludwig, labor themselves didn't even know from one week to the next where we were finically. For that matter, neither did treasury.

....We absolutely need something like APES (Australian Promise Enforcement Scheme) to make sure that governments, and individual politicians, who break promises, are seriously punished for it.

Another thing we need is for senior ministers to hold professional indemnity insurance, so at least when we get wasteful governments like the previous 2-3 we can at least get our money back and they receive a pay cut per claim.

We can even fund their premiums, but not their excess or increases due to claims.

I wrote:

<< Rehctub, the government and opposition need to have a full handle on the financial situation and know what they can and cannot promise in accordance with said finances. It is NOT acceptable for them to make promises and then renege on them by way of them not being financially viable. >>

Rehctub, you replied:

<< Give me a break Ludwig, labor themselves didn't even know from one week to the next where we were finically. For that matter, neither did treasury. >>

Yes financial management has been dismal, especially under Rudd. But that is no excuse for pollies making promises that they later find they can’t keep due to budgetary constraints.

If they don’t know whether something can or will be funded, or funded to the extent to fulfil the promise, then they must NOT make the promise in the first place.

We’ve got to get an ‘APES’ type system in place to make sure that this happens.

Hey, it isn’t difficult. All pollies need to do is to say that they endeavour to do their best to achieve certain things, without promising that they will do them.

Pollies shouldn’t be making ANY promises, given that they never really know what variables there are that might come and disrupt their plans.

Perhaps we should just ban political promises altogether!