short memory Rache, stopping the boats and getting rid of the breathing taxes could not have happened under any other leader as they had no intestinal fortitude. Take off your blinkers. Tony did more good in 2 years than the economic vandals did in seven. We will be paying for decades for the Green/Labour treachery under Rudd/Gillard.

Dear Hasbeen,

Just for this thread can you forgive me for not taking the bait. I promise to resume hostilities later. I fully agree we failed to train our next generation properly and the opening up of our education system to private operators has been a total disaster with out government and our school leavers being rorted hundreds of millions of dollars.

Dear Luciferase,

How about this for a scenario. Trump says to China these tariffs stay in place until they fully float the Yuan instead of artificially keeping it low, crack down on copyright infringements and stop government financed economic espionage. China has not been playing on a level playing field and I'm happy to see someone prepared to take it up to them.

Here in Australia we had Andrew Rob, the minister who secured a free trade deal with China, welcomed the leasing of Darwin Port to a Chinese corporation with ties to the Chinese government with the words “"wonderful outcome for the Northern Territory, and for Australia as a whole" and then resigned from parliament to take up a highly lucrative position within that very same company.

Yet every time we raise concerns about Chinese influence and asset sales to them we get accused of xenophobia.

"These free trade agreements are too important for our country, they're too important for our businesses and too important for our children to be sacrificed at the altar of short-term xenophobic politics" Tony Abbott

Whose stance do you prefer?

I'm chuffed because I tipped Trump from day one, much to my wife's disgust.

Hi Steele,

I'm happy with our migration program, more or less. I also support an increase in the annual intake of refugees, on the following basis:

Refugees who have filled out all the necessary forms and waited - 20,000.
Refugees who come illegally by boat - - - - - - - - Nil

As well, refugees in the greatest danger of persecution, Yazidis, Christians, Mandeans, South Sudanese, etc. should be given preference.

There are blocks of flats around where I live and I would be happy to welcome them here, and give them a hand. Somebody mentioned Greens' taking them in, but accommodation in their areas would be too expensive.

Cheers,

Joe

“Donald Trump heard a voice out in this country that no one else heard,” Paul Ryan.

Now, finally, they get it.

Hi Steele,

Trump doesn't have to actually impose the anti-Chinese tariffs to force them to the negotiating table. The threat is enough. Just start the process and get all the ducks lined up ready to implement the tariff. Then go to the Chinese and say "Now about that currency of your's and your copyright violations. Anything you can do about them?"

Remember Reagan didn't have to build Star Wars to force Gorbachev to deal. Just the threat was enough.