Good points Style_cafe, Ill try and answer them.
If we didn`t spend, thousands of people would have lost their jobs which would have affected hundreds of thousands & further damaged the economy. It would have created a domino effect like in other countries.
Labour spent money in areas that they thought would save the jobs of the most vulnerable. They also spent in areas that would provide ongoing benefits to the community with schemes that had to be put together very quickly.
It`s true we had a surplus in the bank from the previous Liberal government bringing in taxes like the GST. This created a massive surplus, as the Libs had no idea just how much this would make for them.
Are you saying that Labour did wrong in spending the tax payers money?
What would the Libs have done?
In John Howards last term he started investing in infrastructure when he had the budget he wanted, I can't tell you what he would have done but one can assume less money would have been spent and things would have been done to help business 'that employ people' rather than policies that coursed fires and billions of dollars worth of damage such as the insulation scheme.
Lol...that`s so funny.
Ask the kids & teachers if the laptops were a waste of money. I don`t remember any school refusing them because they didn`t believe they were needed.
The insulation scheme provided millions with insulation for their homes. These are people that previously could not afford it. It also provided jobs to unskilled workers. Unfortunately there was a criminal element in the companies that were selected from the State licenced businesses that installed the insulation. The people that tried to rip off the scheme or did shoddy work should have been prosecuted by the relevant authorities in those states. It`s my understanding that the Federal Gov provided the funding but the scheme was administered by the states. Please correct me if this is wrong.
The solar rebate scheme once again provided jobs & has reduced emissions with the ongoing benefit of lower power bills for those that took advantage of it.
The education “revolution” was by no means a failure. Abbott attacked the government on the complaints which, when investigated, it was found that only 3% of the recipients complained & only 2% were justified. Negative Tony focused on the 3% complaints but in reality the government got it 98% correct with the obvious ongoing benefits to our kids. If this is a failure as, Abbott tells you, what was the pass mark?
So the reality is these schemes were not failures they were successes. Labour did fail however. There absolutely no need to defend 2% when they had a 98% success rate
School laptops were a massif failure, teachers didn't know how to use them, this lead to year 10 kids putting computer games on them and playing Mario Kart all year. A problem was not enough money was spent on people who could maintain them, they were all noobs.
insulation scheme provided homes with cheep insulation, I agree but the government let anyone have a license to instal insulation. I don't know how the financing was distributed but at the time it was a labor government so it would not surprise me. The end result was massive debt that the companies that recieved licenses to do the job but were not qualified or corrupt could not pay back, they called bankruptcy and left the government with a debt.
The solar scheme was a devastating situation, take the NSW labor government for example, they said at the start we can't pay at this price forever and when labor lost the election, Barry discovered they had to cut it because it was losing a huge amount of money. Believe me when it was happening I done the maths, it was going to make 10+ years for it to pay for its self. To me I didn't see the benefit since the NSW government said they wont be able to offer these great prices forever.
The education “revolution” was a failure considering Public schools built these MPC buildings for more than half the price private schools built theirs for which looked better and had more faculties. These buildings were not built on time and ran over budget, for public schools anyway. They were not needed at EVERY school.
Apart from the failed policies bit this is probably true. I can`t remember any Liberal government spending on nationwide infrastructure or creating any nationwide schemes aimed at providing jobs & an on- going benefit to the community. Once again please correct me if I`m wrong.
Agreed, the difference is Liberal help the businesses who employed the people, while these polices created jobs and kept unemployment stable, in the long run we are going to be paying back money for future generations.
I`m not sure of their knowledge on our situation but I doubt they would be applauding our situation if theirs was better.
Not saying theirs is better, we are better than a lot of places, we are still in a bad state
So why did Abbott meet with Bob Brown in the days after the election? Maybe to congratulate him...ummm ..I don`t think so.
and have you considered Liberal were not going to impose the taxes and legislation that the independents & greens wanted?
They also may have decided that the taxes & legislation that the Libs were going to bring in were far worse that Labours
Abbot would have said to Bob, hey want to side with me, bob would have said want to do a carbon tax ?
Tony would have said No, im trying to win an election not get tossed out in 4 years time.
Bob would have said well I control Julia so I wont be siding with you.
My view of the conversation, greens are labor, just with more stupid polices.
And Abbott isn`t willing to do anything to be PM?
Abbott would have done a lot of things to be PM, but simple fact is labor was willing to do anything.
Where does the 300billion debt figure come from?
Okay, ill do a bit of searching for that one but I can remember reading that figure.
The last official release about unemployment stated unemployment has increased.
These are the latest figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (June)
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)
Employment decreased 27,000 (0.2%) to 11,500,500. Full-time employment decreased 33,500 to 8,065,500 and part-time employment increased 6,600 to 3,435,000.
Unemployment increased 7,200 (1.1%) to 631,300. The number of persons looking for full-time work increased 7,800 to 438,300 and the number of persons looking for part-time work decreased to 193,000.
The unemployment rate increased 0.1 pts to 5.2%. The male unemployment rate increased 0.1 pts to 4.9% and the female unemployment rate was steady at 5.5%.
The participation rate decreased 0.2 pts to 65.2%.
Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased 19.6 million hours to 1,602.1 million hours.
That just proves my point.
Employment decreased, people losing jobs.
Thorium is just one of many technologies being investigated throughout the world. It remains to be seen whether it is game changing or not. Scientists have been aware of it since 1828. Why haven`t Liberal governments invested in it?
Good point, WHY hasn't previous government invested in it, China has said they will be able to market it by 2020-30 which means, coal because even less profitable than it is now so we are stuffed.
So when would be the right time to build it? We are so far behind the rest of the world with internet speed. Kids in the back blocks of Korea have faster speed than our top businesses.
Wrong .We are not losing $50billion+. We`re investing it in proven ”game changing technology”.
The right time to built it would be when we don't have a massive debt to pay off, why does every house need fiber ?
Schools, Hospitals, Police and so on need fiber, houses don't need it, im using ADSL and can watch live streams of sports and Skype with people, I don't need fiber.
When were they asked? Do you have the Hansard reference or maybe a youtube clip so I can check the answer?Or maybe they used the same 5th rated accounting firm that Abbott used to do his budget that contained a 70billion dollar black hole.
They were asked after the last federal budget it was a big talking point, there answer was its a major project and were doing what a past government done when they were building a dam.
My thought was a dam is a necessity, an NBN will not feed or keep my alive and a dam did not cost 50billion dollars, not a good enough reason Mr Swan.
In the end, want the red hair women out of PM, I will take Rudd back.
