A vote for the Liberal coalition government is a vote for one P Costello......think about it???

Do you want him for PM ?????

A vote for the Liberal coalition government is a vote for one P Costello......think about it???

Do you want him for PM ?????

You don't honestly expect Johnny Too Good to leave if reelected?

What's one more lie in his litany?

A vote for the Liberal coalition government is a vote for one P Costello......think about it???

Do you want him for PM ?????

You don't honestly expect Johnny Too Good to leave if reelected?

What's one more lie in his litany?

Well Rudd won the election. Howard lost his seat.

And this morning Costello announced he is retiring from politics at the end of his term, and therefore won't be seeking leadership of the opposition Liberals.

(If only Abbott would disappear with Costello it would be a fine day indeed!)

It is going to be an interesting next 4 years as the next elections will undoubtedly result in a confirmation that people choice this time was a good one or not.

It took Hawke eight years to bugger up the country and the "buyable" swinging voters in marginal electorates still gave Keating another five years to really bang the nails into the coffin.

A whole generation of small to medium size businesses were wiped out during the Hawke / Keating years. Absolutley disgraceful & un-forgivable what those two imbeciles did.

Given his party setup, & penchant for dis-honesty because that's all those ex-unionists are capable of, I honestly think Rudd will send the country to the tip in 3 - 5 years, eclipsing the previous labor governments record.

No problems, unless there is a major avoidable catastrophe (such as the nuking of the Sydney Harbour Bridge), the 2 - 3% swinging voters, who effectively govern the country, will give the labor party a second term & the Hawke / Keating process will repeat itself. Words like banana or should we say mineral republic come to mind....

Bad & dark days for Australia ahead all because 200k - 300k people on the Australian electorate vote for the here & now, forgetting about the future.....

Well I was around and owning a small business when Keating lost power. Well on the way into buying an decent sized investment property and had a fat superannuation account.

Now I'm not very smart but when that GST came in I knew small business was f*cked in Australia. So I sold up at a good price and the buyer when bust in two years. Couldn't handle the accountant's fees for starters. So I picked up work running other peoples businesses in the same industry while they had a break or a spell in hospital and they were all going the same way. Mean while the big guys were picking up all the extra business and grinning from ear to ear.

I happily paid my first house off at the high interest rates of the 80's, (not as high as the Fraser/Howard's 22% though) because house prices hadn't been forced artificially high in those days.

So I did very well in the Hawke/Keating years as an ordinary working stiff.

Pity my ex mrs got most of it.

First step to buggering the country - undo all the good work of the previous government.

Draft laws phasing out AWAs ready soon.

Sunday Dec 2 17:56 AEDT

Draft laws phasing out the Australian Workplace Agreements hated by the union movement will be ready in time for the opening of federal parliament next February.

But unfair dismissal laws will remain unchanged until the middle of next year, incoming Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says.

Ms Gillard, who will be sworn in along with the rest of the Rudd ministry on Monday, said cabinet would consider the transition bill before Christmas.

"We will have our transition bill for the opening of parliament next year," Ms Gillard told the Ten Network.

"And the transition bill is a very simple one - it will end the ability of employers to make Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs)."

AWAs were introduced by the Howard government as its first major industrial relations reform within months of winning power at the 1996 election.

But they have been bitterly opposed by the unions ever since, although they have been credited with introducing greater flexibility and higher pay in some sections of the workforce, particularly the West Australian mining sector.

Story Here.

Australia will go down the tubes in three to five years I tell you.

Spot on Soundman - unfortunately, people have short memories.

Perhaps you're a little out of touch with happenings in Australia these days Soundman. I don't mean that in a nasty way, but I believe you have lived for a long time in Thailand. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The Howard government's Industrial Relations reforms were the single great defining issue in the election. And they were the reason the Liberals were resoundingly beaten.

While the AWA system has some benefits and in a different form may one day be acceptable, and accepted by all, it was badly legislated and executed. With the control of the senate gained in the previous election, Howard rushed through a bill that had proven disadvantages for many thousands of little people in marginal seats all over Australia. When the pre-election polls indicated massive dissatisfaction with the legislation he attempted to water it down to make it fairer for all. It was a failure, and the people voted him out with a massive swing.

As the defining issue, Labour not only has a mandate, but an obligation, to abolish the IR legislation and replace it with something more equitable. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. Incidently the first workplace agreements outside the traditional IR system were introduced in 1993 by Keating.

Another misconception by many is that the militant unions have great influence over Labor Governments. Not true. The PM elect has appointed his own cabinet without influennce from these factions. I should point out that the biggest unions in the country are organisations like the teachers, nurses, police and public servants. They generally are far from militant. The CFMEU and idiots like McDonald and Reynolds only really come in useful as props for Liberal scare tactics at election time.

(I would also like to point out that the new parliamentary leader of the Libs is a former President of a trade union )

I'm looking forward to the next few years of a younger, fresher, more diverse, forward looking and less self centered government taking Australia to a new era.

One of the first things they will do is ratify the Kyoto agreement leaving the US alone in opposition to it. Australia will be making our own way in the world without ringing GWB before any decisions are made. A withdrawal from Iraq is also high on the agenda.

Cheers

Croc

Excellent post old Croc, the "Australia's going down the tubes" statement comes up after every Labor victory.

The history buffs should look back on how the electorate threw Menzies out of office so some one they trusted, John Curtin, could get on with the business of winning WW2.

The union garbage comes up regularly too, the only unions that are militant anymore are the building unions who are still fighting for better safety regulations in the most dangerous industry of all. (How dare they, they want to be paid and live as well!!!)

What we'll see now is honest government that will constantly battle a hostile media.

One of the greatest myths of all is that the Liberals are "small business friendly". Yeah... sure, who's going to go down the corner shop for the paper and milk when you can drive a little further and get everything; paper, milk etc at your 24 hour Woolworths.

'

and let's not forget Labor is also planning to make a belated statement to say sorry for the "Stolen Generation" or "social engineering experiment"

..though how they word it remains to be seen.

Wonder how much of that worm is left Soundman - it's already had some decent nibbles. Maybe you could try some new bait?

The worm always gravitated towards Labor, thats why the Libs wanted it banned from the televised debates!

Got me in one OC!

While OC has a point that not being near the action & following the "worms" one may out of touch.....

I will never forget the days of Norm Gallagher & following unions in the construction industry in Melbourne. In those days you couldn't even leave your work station & go to take a dump without being harassed by three or four shop stewards along the way for your union card. One little water spill on a building site with 1500 staff & a three day strike with the contractor bearing all costs. Absurd.

My father built a successful wood joinery business from scratch to a position of employing 200 people & assets of three to four million dollars (eighties $) between 1977 & 1986. No family money & debt free with excess cash invested in term deposits. By 1996, through the combination of more competition in the market place, militant unions, bad fiscal management by the labour governments, all those hidden taxes & Keating's recession that we had to have - my father lost the lot. Some of the blame could & should be proportioned onto his shoulders, however, most, in hindsight is attributable to bunch of morons running the country at the time.

It became so expensive to employ somebody on a building site without backhanders, it was ridiculous. If we paid a tradesman $25 per hour, the actual cost to the business was closer to $45 per hour.

My father's business wasn't the only one to suffer. Some reports speculate that nearly 70% of business's in the commercial building trades either closed or went bankrupt during the latre eighties & early nineties.

Getting on to politics. While my views are small business orientated, they are neither conservative or liberal. IMO both parties are a waste of time in Australia, with the libs being the lesser of two evils. They both form policy on the narrow 5 - 7% of swinging voters who effectively control the country. Absolute waste of time voting or even advocating change. In Australia, unless you live in a marginal electorate full of housing commision flats, drug dealers, immigrants & lower middle class citizens - your vote does not count.

Anyway, that is my finger exercise for the day, more later - back to work now. toodahloo!

Rudd was sworn in as PM this morning and his first act was to sign the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.