Suze, no I don't believe either party can achieve what they say they can, however, has Hockey got his budget measures through the senate I think would have made a huge difference.

Poirot, I will gladly do the math, just give me the figure ive asked for about ten times.

579, thanks for the gold star, but don't get to comfortable because I do have my bad days.

Bazz, if oil prices rise, so too might gas prices which may reignite our stagnate CSG industry.

Oh 579, I did not realise that you are a politician !
Conspiracy ?
My goodness what do you mean ? Production figures are there for real.
I suppose you are one of those that insist peak oil is a theory, are you ?

Dear oh dear. Your reaction is similar to what that Minister of the
Crown said. Can't possibly be true, that right ?
The Labour politicians are making the same assumptions as the Liberals
and even the Greens are deluding themselves, but in a somewhat
different way.

Once the price gets to a level some believe is around $US80 some
of the shale fracking companies will restart production.
However a large number of them are now bankrupt and the financiers
are now thinking the business is too risky.

The price volatility was predicted back in 1990 as a feature of peak oil.
Of course that occurred in 2005 for crude oil, and was on a bumpy
plateau until it started declining.
Tight shale oil is now also declining.
The only conspiracy is by the politicians to pretend there is no problem.

This is Labor's pathetic attempt to get out of a hole it had dug for itself:

"THIS was the week that was supposed to bolster Labor’s economic management credentials, but the plan backfired because of a silly misjudgment. The attempt to present a glossy and shallow PR pamphlet as a 10-year plan for Australia’s economy was greeted with almost universal scorn.

The lack of detail in the lightweight document about how a Labor government would tackle Budget repair enabled Bill Shorten’s critics to portray him as a leader not serious about matters economic. Labor gave the impression of trying to spin its way out of a damaging admission — that, if Shorten wins the July 2 election, there will be bigger deficits over the next four years than under the Coalition.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison quickly and skilfully applied pressure. As a result, when Shorten yesterday produced a Budget repair strategy with savings that included support for some measures Labor has previously blocked in the Senate, the government was able to claim he had been pushed into it."

"Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison quickly and skilfully applied pressure...."

Lol!...you make them sound so noble, SM - you'd never know that they're such a pair of useless twats.

Rather than worrying about a surplus it should be the concern of government to see that all Australians are getting adequate education and adequate health care. If they are not and more money is needed for those purposes taxes should be adjusted accordingly even if it means raising them.

P,

When you start using profanities then I know I have you on the run.

Labor finds itself skewered and twisting in the wind.

Labor economics is best understood with a hefty dose of marijuana.