Shadow,
When Peter Costello was treasurer, I believed him to be a competent economic manager even though often disagreed with him politically. But subsequently, after watching him on Lateline, I think he's just a lucky fool.

Infrastructure investment has a long term deflationary effect, so it certainly wouldn't have been the absolute worst thing they could have done. And though unemployment may have fallen to 4% overall, there were still parts of the country where it wasn't anywhere near that low.

Running surpluses was a sensible course of action; not because of anything to do with debt, but to cool the hot economy. Instead the government squandered most of the surpluses by implementing an expensive middle class welfare agenda, putting lots of money back into the economy and overheating it in some areas.

So I think Foxy's version of events is more accurate than yours.

________________________________________________________________________________

Joe,
The decision to close the plant was made more than a year earlier. IIRC it was a response to the Abbott government deciding there'd be no more subsidies. There was never any question of the cash-strapped state government doing so (nor should there have been; the targeted corporate welfare strategy of the Brown government had been a dismal failure) and I don't recall Tony Jones saying otherwise, though I'll check when the transcript's up.

The main source of the problem was really the unsustainably high dollar, which devastated many of our manufacturers, not just the car industry. This in turn was due to needlessly high interest rates, set by an overzealous RBA board trying to cool a lukewarm economy.

IF any truth existed in the anti Labor rant,
Belly,
Wrong again as per your usual. It's not Anti-Labor, it's anti incompetence by bureaudroids & other half-baked pseudo intellectual Leftists & Bogans !

Individual,

You're being very selective.

Your outlook needs broadening.

runner,
> if spending time in Indo helping out some of these guys is heresy so be it.
That's not the heresy I'm accusing you of, and you know it.

>Certainly a lot easier than to virtue signal and cry croc tears over drowned babies and adults.
Whose crying croc tears? I'm not the one who wants to prevent refugees from getting here safely.

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Loudmouth,
Would you rather the refugees all languished in refugee camps for up to twenty years, skint, at the mercy of criminal gangs in their camps?

I regard that as highly undesirable; I think people deserve the chance to determine their own future. I don't think people who have the initiative to get to Australia should be punished for doing so. People with that much initiative should be encouraged to help build our future prosperity!

>Are illegal immigrants who come on boats part of that quota, or extra to it ?
Part of it, and I don't think they should be. Also I regard the quota as too small.

Dear Joe,

The following link adds some more information on
the politics that wrecked the car industry in
this country:

http://www.senatorkimcarr.com/politics_wrecked_the_car_industry

It's worth a read.

Foxy you can not put two liters in a half liter can
Nevertheless humor is worth seeing