Well I for one am not worried.

Australia is financially sovereign. Our debt to GDP ratio is actually very low, but even if it were twice as high as Greece's is now, we'd still be able to borrow more because we own the Reserve Bank.

Refugees are people. That should go without saying, but unfortunately many of the posters on this site, and even some government ministers, keep wrongly assuming them to be parasites!

Refugees aren't invaders. They're trying to get away from the serious problems in their own countries.

Australia is big. We've got room for lots more people. Particularly in The North.

Of course there are many things to worry about. Tony Abbott seems to be going in the wrong direction on nearly everything. If I thought he had much chance of winning the next election, I'd be very worried.

Aidan "Australia is big."

A big desert.

Got a magic wand that turns desert into non-desert? Fabulous!

"We've got room for lots more people. Particularly in The North."

Did you run that by the Aborigines?
They seem to "own" a lot of that North.

Lucky for you Aidan, we have no shortage of sand for the likes of you to stick your heads in.

Aidan, what our debt to GDP is now is not what we should be focusing on, as what we should be focusing on are two points, One, where were we ten years ago, and Two, we are now post boom times and the previous boom spoils were wasted.

Considering where we are today, compared to ten years ago and, considering we are still to my knowledge a AAA rated economy, suggests there's daylight between first and second place and, should we slip into second place, (a non AAA rating) it would be near on impossible to recover from there without another boom.

One of the fundamental irregularities between business and politics is that while politics relies on past data when forward planning, business focusses on predicted futures, a kind of crystal ball approach and is the reason so many large companies lay staff off despite having record profits, because the record profits 'have already happened' and are essentially old news. Economists also fall into the same trap in my view.

How any government can sit there and say they will fix unemployment, knowing that our car industries are on their last legs is beyond me.

Continued.

As a long term liberal voter, (labor lost my vote when Bob lost the top job) I find myself in a position of wanting to, for the first time in decades, vote for none of the above.

The sad reality is that I feel we need a very deep recession so we can find the bottom, then start to rebuild with all the unions and over generous working conditions gone, or with their backs to the wall.

By having such a recession will also allow us to address important issues like welfare distribution and waste, including indigenous welfare and what many consider to be unfair perks for such people because let's face it, many of us who see these people hanging around a pub or park, not working, take that as the norm.

The other very important issue is serous tax reform. Not one that just increases the GST, one that taxes everybody evenly and fairly. I think the Abbott Goverment is starting to look down this path at long last.

We need to tax spendings, not earnings, by way of a finical transaction tax because by doing such would remove the burden of consumption tax from those who have already paid income tax in most cases.

Of cause the worst effected are those who don't contribute, but someone has to loose and provided we look after those who can't fend fir themselves, then the rest would be collateral damage, and by look after I don't mean give them cash to spend as the like as is the case now.

Tough times will require tough fixes and we can't go from a government incurred debt of hundreds of billions without feeling the pain.

Abbots got guts on the international stage.

When countries, groups, and people around the world
Try to dictate what Australia's policies should or Shouldn't be
He simply tells them no. He doesn't say how high do you want Australia to jump
Like a lot of labour politicians and greens do.

That is a big plus for me.
I am not the usual Liberal party voter, knowing the bloody history
Of the fights and struggles the workers have had with the conservative Tory
Classes in centuries past.

That is financial, at the moment I am more concerned with national security
Above the financial worries. One of which is the banning of penalty rates for my
15year old granddaughter who works at bigW to earn pocket money whilst studying at high school.

But at the moment I would vote for Abbott on the strength of his tough stand against
All those who want to override Australian sovereignty.

"But at the moment I would vote for Abbott on the strength of his tough stand against all those who want to override Australian sovereignty"

Many would agree with you.

Regardless of who occupies the government benches in Canberra there will have to be further cuts to welfare. That is not understood by rhose who applauded Labor and Greens cynicism in frustrating Abbott's budget initiatives in the Senate.