Howard's gone...

[Mantas 3]

Our prime minister of 12 years has been defeated in a landslide by Kevin Rudd's labour party.

[kokodoko 67]

yippeee wooopeee

 

good riddance little johnny.

 

--

[Go Native 70]

 

Good riddance

 

I vowed that I would never return to Aus whilst Australians were so stupid to keep voting that prick in. Now he's gone at least I'll consider it, for a holiday maybe.

[indosnm 0]

Thumbs up from me!

Go Native, I said when he won that I was leaving the country! I kept my promise, and it seems when I return there may even be fast broadband

[moloneb3 0]

Dont know anything about Austrlias politics? Why was he so bad? I hope it is not just Iraq that people judge him on (which is quite big), but what else did he mess up?

 

Here people loved Koizumi and when I asked what he did (asides from talking about "REFORM") then they were stumped..what did he reform, change or do????? Then the next idiot Abe-San just spoke about his "reform agenda"! Somehow people didnt buy it and he got the chop.

 

Again I dont know too much about the detail, but would be good to hear why people dislike Howard?

[Go Native 70]

Moloney to go into all the reasons would take me way too long. Let me just sum it up like this, whilst Howard was Prime Minister I saw some massive changes in Australia, most of which I didn't like. Instead of uniting the country, Howard was very good at dividing it. There has practically never been a time when the gap between rich and poor was greater. Relations with indigenous peoples is in shambles. Racial tensions have rarely been higher. Overall social cohesion is a distant memory. Community means nothing in Australia, it's all every man for himself. I think the damage will be felt for a generation or more and I for one doubt I'll ever want to live in Aus again.

[Mantas 3]

The Australian economy has been booming for the last 10 years. Low interest rates, low unemployment, strong Aussie dollar ect.. Mostly due to the resource boom, we will dig up anything out of the ground anywhere and sell it to anyone. Most people have prospered under the Howard government. (MOST)

BUT

He has dropped the the ball on all the big issues. Kyoto, aboriginal affairs, climate change, Iraq, and all the other things GN mentioned.

[Go Native 70]

The whole economy thing was another one of my issues Mantas. All Australians seemed to care about was money, money and more money. Bugger everything else, as long as we are making money who gives a damn about anything else...

 

The government flush with cash from the booming economy had so many opportunities to tackle some of the big issues but what did they do instead? They gave tax cuts to the rich. I remember when I was last in Aus a tax cut was introduced that gave me something like an extra $6 per week. Giving this tax cut cost the government in excess of 2 billion dollars. The last thing I really needed on the income I was on was an extra $6 per week. It made absolutely no difference to my quality of life. But 2 billion dollars could have made a big difference to so many other issues or how about something crazy like significant tax cuts for the poor!

 

The Australian public kept on accepting this ridiculous state of affairs for so many years that frankly I lost all respect for them and the country I used to live in.

[HelperElfMissy 42]

I sit on the other side of the political fence I am afraid boys.

I sure hope that the nation got it right in it's selection, and I understand that one persons nirvana in politcal agenda is anothers disaster.

 

Mr Rudd talks the talk on the issues that I think swayed the public - the Climate, Kyoto, Aboriginal affairs.

 

However there has been a lot of lies told by those in opposition to Howard, and very little done by way of defending it (Lib's fault).

 

Work Choices has been slammed and one of the things that has been quoted over and over and over is how many awful money hungry business have FAILED the fairness test. Well the numbers lie. We are among those employers that failed the fairness test - on ONE of our 60 employee's. Why did we fail? Because we were paying our partimer $22 per hour instead of $13.65....you READ that RIGHT! Someone actually failed us for paying her MORE per hour than she should have been...bizarrely ALL of our staff are on a higher rate than Work Choices dictates, and the others passed... The roll back of AWA's is going to be a very very difficult thing for people in business. Despite the negative campaigning the system is actually working for the benefit of workers and employers working together.

 

Here in WA we have been having Union heavies muscling in on work places PRIOR to the election - making statements like "you wait until next week mate - I will be back with the governments blessing - then you are going down!". I agree that some employee's require the assistance of a union - they have not the voice to speak for themselves - but most workers are empowered to speak for themselves nowadays. There should be no discrimination against the empolyee who uses a Union of work advocate - but there should also be no compulsory unionism or unions able to black list companies for not doing the will of the unions. It smells awfully of Mafia type behaviour to me. The Labor party is trying the distance itself from Wa's Union thugs - but boys...I have seen it up close - and it is UGLY!! We had systematic break in's and theft from marginal seats of all the Liberal hats, t-shirts etc on lection eve - nothing of value taken - just the promotional stuff!

 

Now it might be different in other parts of Australia - but WA is the stand out. We are the only state that recorded a swing toward the Lib's, and returned 10 of our 15 seats to the Lib's. Liberal voters in the West have seen with thier own eyes what is happening under a Labor state government after grand promises - and our vote reflects that we do not trust what is to come under wall to wall labor governments. I hope we are wrong.

[indosnm 0]

Anyone could have done well out of the last 10 years. The mining boom wasn't created by Howard. He might have started the ball rolling with the housing market, but look at that now. Out of reach to many.

 

Go Native, a tax cut might only save you $6 a week depends on where you sit in your tax bracket. The same tax cut might give someone else $30-40 a week and that does make a difference.

 

I remember Johnnies famous line... "I'm not going to implement the GST"

Pollies are all full of shit...

[kokodoko 67]

Johnny will hopefully lose his seat to maxine mckew.

 

ha ha the humour of it all.

 

The liberals have been demolished to an irrelevancy.

[tripitaka 0]

 Originally Posted By: Mantas

The Australian economy has been booming for the last 10 years. Low interest rates, low unemployment, strong Aussie dollar ect.. Mostly due to the resource boom, we will dig up anything out of the ground anywhere and sell it to anyone. Most people have prospered under the Howard government. (MOST)
BUT
He has dropped the the ball on all the big issues. Kyoto, aboriginal affairs, climate change, Iraq, and all the other things GN mentioned.

-- Prospered under debt. Aussies are the most heavily indebted people on the face of the planet. If the trend continues, each Aussie will owe 2 dollars for every one that they make by as early as 2015. Aussies are as worse off now as they were when interest rates were 19%. You wonder how long it can continue for.

[Domokun_72dpi 0]

Also, let's not forget, that when interest rates hit 17%, the world economy was also stuffed. Nothing top do with Labour.

 

John Howard backflipped on GST & introduced it, and didn't lower income tax.

Howard denied Climate change was real.

Allowed the US to introduce Free Trade agreement (benfiting them)

Has ignored indiginous plights across the nation

Taken credit for the Mining Boom (whatever).

Taken WA's boom & fed the Eastern States piggy bank

The list goes on, and on, and on.

 

It was time for change, and whilst we have a strong economy, it's good timing. Sure, things can get screwed up, but at least we have many mining contracts guaranteeing income for the future.

 

The thing is, we need to put into place measures to make the state sustainable, increase toursim, whilst building conservation of land, and actually give something back to the state which has been getting screwed over for years.

 

All pollies suck, but why stick with Libs because it's too scary to face change? hell no.

 

here's to a brighter future (fingers crossed).

[r45 4]

Does the new guy have as annoying an accent?

[Rag-Doll 0]

 Originally Posted By: Go Native

Moloney to go into all the reasons would take me way too long. Let me just sum it up like this, whilst Howard was Prime Minister I saw some massive changes in Australia, most of which I didn't like. Instead of uniting the country, Howard was very good at dividing it. There has practically never been a time when the gap between rich and poor was greater. Relations with indigenous peoples is in shambles. Racial tensions have rarely been higher. Overall social cohesion is a distant memory. Community means nothing in Australia, it's all every man for himself. I think the damage will be felt for a generation or more and I for one doubt I'll ever want to live in Aus again.

Strange. I thought there was only one country called Australia. Reading this, I can't believe it refers to the same place that I know.

There has practically never been a time when the gap between rich and poor was greater. Actually, there was never a time when people were as well off. Regardless of whether you assign Australia's prosperity to Howard, no one really denies the past 10 years of so have been a golden time for the Australian economy and Australians in general. Very few people have not benefited from these boom years.

Relations with indigenous peoples is in shambles. Funny, that's not what Noel Pearson reckons. Relations with indigenous people have been a shambles for the past 200 years. A decade of labor government did nothing as well. ATSIC had years to fix the problem and did nothing. What the Little Children are Sacred report revealed was hardly news but at least, finally, something was done to cut through the BS and start getting things fixed. People who object to the intervention or who want further consultations should be made to place their kids in those communities while they talk through the issues! Then we’ll see how quickly things get resolved.

Racial tensions have rarely been higher. Gee, do you think it might have something to do with the fact that immigration from non-anglo saxon/western european countries has never been higher and the difficulties of assimilating communities with contrasting and opposing cultures. Then there are the religious inspired bombings of civilians....

Overall social cohesion is a distant memory. What nonsense. There have been social and community tensions in Aust for as long as there have been Australians. People have always been racist. The funny thing about Wogs Out Of Work was the parody of what it meant to be a first or second generation Australian. Irish settlers and German settlers, in the 19th century, Italians and Greeks after WW2, Vietnamese after the Vietnam War etc. All of these groups confronted discrimination - it's hardly something that Howard introduced.

Community means nothing in Australia, it's all every man for himself. As opposed to what comrade? Some place where all property is owned by the state and everyone (whether they want to or not) pitches in for the glory of the motherland? Maybe if you actually lived in Australia and were a part of the community you would have a different view.

I think the damage will be felt for a generation or more After 10+ years of a Labor government, the people voted Howard in, and kept voting him in. Howard didn’t change Australia, he gave people what they wanted. What changed, and what was very evident from the voting on Sat is that the crass of popularism of climate change is driving the voting actions of many people. Howard was never able to get that and so a lot of the seats that were lost on the weekend were lost due to Green preferences going to Labor. Had the Libs been smarter on the climate issue, Rudd would be looking for a new job. Don't forget that Rudd supported the Aboriginal intervention and virtually all of Howard’s social and economic policies for the past 2 years. He even supports the offshore detention of illegal immigrants.

There are problems with Australia but they aren’t of Howard’s making. As Churchill said, the strongest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter.

What is really funny is that Rudd won't be that much different and most of things people are complaining about will remain under Rudd and eventually he will be voted out for all the same reasons Howard was. Life under Rudd may be even worse if (and it is a big IF) we see a resurgence of unionism in Australia. Remember the BLF, I can't wait to hear what people who voted for Rudd will say when they're getting screwed by union thugs.

[spook 0]

worse. plus he looks like a gimp and he eats his ear wax

will rudd be any different to howard on indigenous affairs, refugees and human rights? i think not.

rudd will cave to the unions. let's just hope the economy keeps going strong

[Go Native 70]

Rag-Doll lets just say that we disagree on nearly all the points you have made. At the end of the day I'm not going to get into a big debate about all this though as I just have very little interest in Australia anymore. Japan is my home now.

[Rag-Doll 0]

GN, no worries mate.

[indosnm 0]

well, you might return one day..

[Mantas 3]

Some of you may be too young to have been affected by the "the recession we had to have" back in the early 90's. This was under the Keeting Labour stewardship. I was forced to join the union if I wanted to work on the job sites and ply my trade. I was then laid off twice in one year. I was sick and tired of being laid off so I started working for myself. The company that I contracted to went broke owing me 6 months worth of money which I never got. All this while battling 16% home loan interest rates.

I vowed back then that I would never vote labour again, and I haven't (I didn't vote for Johnny this time either).

 

Australia is still a great place to live GN. Not sure why you have such a pessimistic view about it.

[Go Native 70]

Because I've now lived in a different place where, sure it has some problems, but compared to living in Australia there's just no comparison as far as I'm concerned.

[HelperElfMissy 42]

Mantas,

I am old enough to remember - and it is about that time that I started actually doing my homework on politics and policies, and stopped cancelling my husbands Liberal vote! LOL.

 

I am not into big debates either. The time for people to really express thier opinion is on polling day - and that day has come and gone. Time to just deal with what we are given now.

 

However I do believe in the Electoral Process - which is why I was running a polling booth on Saturday, and was 'apolitical' for the day. I have a passion for the fact that we can actually rock up to cast our vote without fear, without having to run the gauntlet of guns, with security and freedom, and freedom of choice. However I do know that in some booths in Western Australia people were being bullied abd harrassed and it got quite nasty...this from Union Thugs. This is MY biggest fear.

[nzlegend 1]

one thing is for sure, the boys at Chaser will be pleased, JH didnt really give all that much to work with, Rudd on the other hand will keep them flowing with material for ages.

So Rudd has intercepted the ball, I wonder how long he can hang on before fumbling it......

[Mantas 3]

Not long I'd reckon.

[Rag-Doll 0]

I reckon his biggest problem will be converting simplistic, sound bite type policy into practice. Defence forces used to keep tabs on Japanese whalers, combat troops out of Iraq, laptop computers for school kids, etc. It won't be long before the realities of politics will start biting I reckon.

 

Obviously the Libs had their own simple policies, its just that they won't now be held accountable for them. Give KRudd a few turns of the election cycle and he will have just as much political baggage as Howard had at the end.