what I agree with is that we are over-governed.
You mention the high interest rates during the Fraser government but fail to mention interest rates during Paul Keatings tenure.
You mention state politics but fail to mention that the state ALP stuffed up so bad on all those issues & wasted so much money that the Baillieu government are hamstrung by the stupid spending if the previous government. You fail to mention that the Cain/Kerner state ALP were so on the nose that even Tassie was laughing at us. Kennett came in, made the hard decisions and brought the state back from a -A rating to the most livable city in the world.
Cain government was a dud as they gambled on the 80s boom continuing on and on for Victoria and got financially hammered when it crashed. Baillieu however inherited a strong Victorian economy and Labor ran 11 straight budget surpluses. No excuses for Ted. His government has had 18 months to change things if he wanted to but instead they have sat back and done nothing backflipping on every pre-election promise. He's lagging badly in the polls 45-55 which is saying something as Labor is hardly flavour of the month right now at Federal level. In any case they are state governments and the discussion was about the worst Australian government. A Government that has kept Australia out of recession despite a global financial crisis is hardly the worst. As for spend spend spend - most of that was on the stimulus measures to kept us out of recession and even so our debt levels are low relative to our GDP. The Libs can't one hand advocate bipartisan support for the stimilus measures that kept us out of recession if now they claim we shouldn't have gone into debt. You can't have it both ways. As for Hawke and Keating they came in and made the tough decisions and reforms to fix the mess the country was left in by Fraser and Howard. Sure they weren't perfect misreading the boom/bust cycle as many did but the resilient and flexible Australian economy we have now was set up by them. Howard admitted in 1996 he inherited a strong economy (and yes he and Costello left a strong one as well). Inflation was finally under control by the early 90s after high inflation levels had plagued Australia from the late 60s through to the 80s and that had brought down three governments (McMahon, Whitlam and Fraser).
Facts are that this current federal government was left with a giant amount of money in the bank but the ALP can't help themselves and spend spend spend. They come up with ideas sometimes good but fail to implement those ideas effeciently.
Pink batts.
Building the education revolution.
Cash for clunkers.
Carbon dioxide tax just to name a few.
......and What will be the biggest waste of money; The broadband network.
All governments have made bad calls from time to time but this current federal government will top them all in idiocy.
I'll give you pink batts and cash for clunkers. Actually the pink batts brought up another issue in the findings which was never followed up in the media. IIRC one the deaths occurred in a roof that had been left electricially live for 10 years. It had been a death trap left in waiting. Now how many potential cases like this are still out there?
. The education one was mostly a success. Something like up to 97% successful in fact. It was the remaining 3% where there were delays and costly overruns (mostly in Vic surprise surprise with our public service
). The carbon tax isn't even in yet while the NBN is updating our telecommunications/internet infrastructure to which Abbott and one his Sydney-based shockjock cheerleaders showed they didn't have a clue about a few weeks back
. Abbott is at his weakest when he has to discuss an issue beyond his usual one-line slogans and cliches.
