Foxy,

This:

"There are quite a few people who are happy to support
the Liberal campaign which stresses "government waste"
and decries Labor policies that benefit all Australians.
People don't realise what it means to cut, slash, and burn
government services until such a time when their lives are
personally affected by these cuts. When their child's class
at school suddenly has 45 students per teacher, instead of
20. When they have to wait 18 hours in the emergency room
at their local hospital because there are no nurses or
doctors available to see them - and so on.

The next three years should prove interesting.
It's going to be a different scenario now that the rhetoric
about what's wrong with the Labor governments has to change
to the Libs having to actually having to govern. There's
a big difference between rhetoric, and having to govern.

Posted by Foxy, Sunday, 16 February 2014 2:00:33 PM"

Well now we know, don't we...the LNP govt has cut, slashed and burned...and still managed to ramp up debt at a rate of knots.

Labor took on the GFC, went into debt to keep us rolling along - and were wildly successful according to eminent economists the world over.

No recession - unlike most of Europe and the rest of the world and one of the lowest debt to GDP figures in the OECD.

Sorry to harp, but your last post was a doozy.

Poirot,

So often the proof of the pudding is in the eating. It is easy through changing definitions, selecting convenient (to you) points in time and other tools of false comparison to try to pull the wool over the public's eyes. However all here lived through the Rudd and later Gillard years when Labor was forever desperately casting about for new and higher taxes to pay for overspends.

All here should remember that Labor with Greens encouragement were beavering away behind closed doors determined to reintroduce death taxes and capital gains tax on the family home. They got their last wish, to grab the dollars eked out of income and stowed in the home, by making elders pay for their own aged care. Of course that is always done by wedge politics based on half-truths, outright lies and jealousy - Class War.

Returning to Rudd, few would ever agree with his squandering TAXPAYERS' money, NOT government money which it doesn't have, on a home insulation scheme that was immediately abused and chaotic. Ask taxpayers and they may have preferred hospitals, improvements to Highway One (get rid of narrow bridges), more and better rail and so on. However Rudd didn't give them a choice.

While on Rudd, it is as good an opportunity as any to confirm through comparison with him, the vast difference in style and substance of Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull does consult and he wouldn't be experiencing such support from diverse interests if he wasn't putting runs on the board where they are concerned.

Poirot, you were very keen and fist-pumping (as you seem to do) for Turnbull before he was leader. That you are now sledging him at such a personal level suggests previous deceit and hypocrisy on your part.

Foxy,

"Dear Poirot,

Not sure about the "fairy stories."

However, Joe Hockey responding to the IMF Report
said the Howard Government left Labor with a
$20 billion surplus and no net debt.

"It was not John Howard and Peter Costello who
wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on dangerous
pink batts and over-priced school halls - it was the
Labor Government," he said."

I missed this post - love the bit about the "dangerous pink batts and over-priced school halls"..although I think I've inadvertently addressed your chosen quote (with which I presume you agree) of Joe's hackneyed Lib-speak in my last post.

Do you not even have an inkling of understanding of the tumultuous times that Costello presided over? During that time, China went from an industrial midget to a world dominating giant in terms of buying up our resources. China had years of growth around 10% and often more. Australia's resources boom was phenomenal - and it took place before the bankers brought the world to its knees with the global financial collapse.

And for all of that, Costello could only manage to leave a $20 billion surplus?

And you are using Labor's GFC debt, the debt that kept us from recession, to laud the Howard govt's profligate record?

Here you go: from the time just after the 2013 election (most of those countries with the huge debt% to GDP exercised austerity during the GFC):

http://www.abc.net.au/news/linkableblob/3727694/data/possum-graph-8-government-debt-as-gdp-data.jpg

Labor did the opposite - good, eh!

Oh hello onthebeach,

I see you haven't bothered answering my earlier enquiry as to why you extended the conversation on negative gearing when you considered it hijacking a thread.

Still, we're used to you ducking for cover when you're called out - once a week is the average :)

"While on Rudd, it is as good an opportunity as any to confirm through comparison with him, the vast difference in style and substance of Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull does consult and he wouldn't be experiencing such support from diverse interests if he wasn't putting runs on the board where they are concerned.

Poirot, you were very keen and fist-pumping (as you seem to do) for Turnbull before he was leader. That you are now sledging him at such a personal level suggests previous deceit and hypocrisy on your part."

Let's face it, with a bozo like Abbott running amok, can you blame me?

I kinda hoped Marvellous Mal would have some substance - notwithstanding the shambles he's made of the NBN.

The proof being in the pudding, my dear Beach person, and the pudding appears to be devoid of filling.

Such a shame really...he looks the part, acts the part, waffles the part....but...nothing.

Oh well....

Poirot,

So you blame Abbott for the dozens of your posts lauding Malcolm Turnbull, when you need to take responsibility yourself?

Instead of disempowering yourself nagging away at others and yourself you really need to sit down and contemplate the good life you are living at present.

Leave Faceache and give up your hope of being the adored Queen of the Twitterati. Get the legs moving, go to a park somewhere with a nice Thermos and enjoy the colours and sounds of Nature and people enjoying being alive - in Australia too with taxpayers supporting you, what a bargain!

"onthebeach"

"So you blame Abbott for the dozens of your posts lauding Malcolm Turnbull, when you need to take responsibility yourself?"

I can't recall making "dozens" of posts lauding Malcolm...as I said...Abbott, being an unmitigated disaster n'all, magnificent Mal seemed to be in line for a try out.

My conclusions since he's been "tried out" are that he is a leader of little substance and even less direction (that's if he's not reading the IPA's map)

"Leave Faceache and give up your hope of being the adored Queen of the Twitterati. Get the legs moving, go to a park somewhere with a nice Thermos and enjoy the colours and sounds of Nature and people enjoying being alive - in Australia too with taxpayers supporting you, what a bargain!"

Thanks "otb" - what an interesting and mysterious fellow you are...(not really...if you get my drift)

Just touching on "negative gearing" again..I do recall your mate Saul Eslake had interesting things to say on that subject a while back in the general section of this forum. Now there's a guy who knows his stuff.