I feel a political headache coming on....

That is one interpretation.

Another may be about "responsibility", "accountability" and "credibility".

The bigger question is why most of the mainstream media has been avoiding ashbygate like the plague when it's actually a massive story and all sorts of other media has been going nuts about it for a week now. The answer is of course that news limited journos are involved as well, and Rupert's firmly barracking for the libs.

Abbott's up to his eyeballs in it. He was Slippers close mate, his best man FFS, made his wife cry by turning up late to their wedding. He absolutely set the dogs on him for his defection, and now those dogs have turned back on him.

He's made himself look like a complete goose, again, by claiming Brough's his best mate and of course Brough's done no wrong, but then he claims he hasn't even read the judge's findings or been briefed about it. Because he was too busy doing important stuff in London.

Compared to that the backing off a surplus is a nothing, especially considering they've been telegraphing it for 6 months, and the world economy has hugely changed since 2010 when it was first promised. It's just a mark in a book anyway, it's not the same as paying off your mortgage, it's more akin to having a mortgage for your entire life and saying well next month I'm paying my exact payment not slightly less. Some months you pay a bit over, some a bit under, but it doesn't change anything for anyone except a line on a graph.

Abbott is currently the 2nd most unpopular pollie in history (hyperbole there, 2nd most unpopular Aus LOTO actually), and working on taking number one spot. He is actually more unpopular now than his great big scary carbon tax (remember that?) which he will blood oath repeal if he gets in. The only reason the libs haven't rolled him yet is that they still hold a narrow lead in the polls - but a rogue poll yesterday showed them losing. One or two more polls like that and the mad monk will be dumped quicker than a bucket of prawns in the sun, nothing more than a nasty little burp in the history of Australian politics.

Ain't that the truth!

But hey, it's probably a good thing as I made 1K yesterday selling my BHP shares. About time I had a nice win and could go and have lunch in the good place.

Peter Slipper voted for him when he challenged for leadership of the party. The vote that he won by 1 vote. Ie if it wasn't for Peter Slipper he would not now be the leader of the opposition.

Their spending is up approx. $100 bio a year since they came into power. Yes revenue is down and its looks like we will have a budget deficit in the order of $20b at a minimum....just a few weeks ago they told us we were having a surplus...their finger clearly appears on the pulse. One big issue for me is the mining tax - I agree in principal to a tax on these resources - what i disagree with is the way in which their tax was developed and hence why it now collects so little revenue yet they have spent the money they were hoping to get. Its a shame that the tax could not have been a bit more well thought out and the monnies from the tax put to good use like infrastructure spending or a sovereign wealth fund for future use. The Aust budget is heavily linked to global prices of commodities these days which as we all know are very volatile.



They do not have control over the $A. Govt policy can contribute to the $A level but they have no way of directly controlling it. Things like inflation can certainly be influenced by Govt choices and certainly go someway to reflecting the real exchange rate, but the terms of trade and perceived risk premium of Australia also play a significant role. Monetary policy is the one clear lever that can be used but this is not controlled by Govt. Its independent.



It was a stupid stupid promise in the first place. They really only have themselves to blame on this one. They tried to bring forward the mid year budget estimate to avoid having to have this discussion. Their best attempts at creative accounting have backfired. Why would you make such a promise in the midst of a massive global downturn and then stick to your guns for all this time knowing you were going to fail? The two at the top will do anything to stay in power....they were scared of the electorate and then the Rudd factions so they continued on with their merry dance about how responsible they were as economic managers. Yes it may be more responsible to run a deficit at the moment BUT they should have alerted to this a lot sooner if they really were as responsible as they claim. Thats where the issue is. They should have been celebrating having brought the budget back so quickly from such a massive deficit to just a small one relatively speaking. Rant over.

You're like that loud obnoxious bloke that walks into a place and it all has to be about ME, ME, ME, aren't you?

Maybe you need to go self medicate on some psychotics psychotropics and weed, but make sure you don't ingest any of that nasty fluoride.

^^^ Although you know that Flysurfer makes a good point - Aus politics (and commentary) is pretty feckin boring...

...but don't let him distract you - please continue.

but that's the point. If you read a title, don't like it, don't post to it. That way it disappears from the active topics, and you don't need to worry.

I don't like some topics and don't post to them. Who cares?

That's the way you roll & fair enough. Many see a title and think "this subject looks like it needs a transfusion of humour" and mix it up a bit. That's what makes most SB threads a great read for all.

WE'R MAKING OUR OWN HEADACHE - here is one for a DISPRIN or 6

When the lib's on the power broking jury get their act together and move the laybye priest and the Lone whine out of the driver's seat's we should have some one to vote for

Did U note how Lay bye did his No2 in as a chance Getting Julie B' to Stand up all week trying to provoke Gillard made her look really silly.

So if the Labor strategy ramps up too early then the laybye priest goes and Labor will not stand a chance against a new Liberal leader - it will be interesting to see when Labor starts trying to serve it up. They do not appear to have any really good attack dogs do they - A.Alben'easy' trying to ruffle a feather - nahhh .

As 4 the laybye priest sticking with his mates - his stated mentor in Cardinal Pell is likely to be out of favour in the not too distant future wonder how quickly that link will be severed.

The classic of 2012 foot in mouth 4 me ....
After a week of Labor mud slinging (i.e. plenty of time to learn some lines[}:)]) I still have that image of Lay-bye standing up & telling Gillard she had only just won the last leadership challenge from Dudd (by 2/3rds majority) and therefore did not have a legitimate claim to lead the labor party - well U can all guess what the reply was - Laybye only shoe'd himself in by a Slipper -

Has anyone tried the APP of Keating's favourite put down's?? If so how good is it??

Top of the NYear 2 U all

AP

Yeah, sure he's entitled to post it. He can be a pain in the arse wherever he likes. He doesn't really seem to contribute anything interesting himself, other than his tales of woe about why people fire him/did wrong by him, so why not.

I used to read network news groups many years ago, which were mostly unmoderated. All it took was someone to post in every topic, garbage, and the whole thing went down hill. The groups became worthless as all the static from one or two individuals drowned out anything from anyone else.

I was sort of hoping for a grown up response where if you don't like something, you just ignore it, but hey, I guess that doesn't work for everyone. Mehh.