SH> must admit this campaign is a total bore...

Yeah, nothing very spectacular so far. And there is a hell of
a good reason for the coalition to keep it as boring as possible
and just let nature take its corse and piss labor off.

Interesting political year tho in many ways, what with the spectacle
in QLD, the federal election, and young Jeff too this year.

SH> but suppose that just mirrors the rest of us ie were're also boring!!!

Speak for yourself |-)

SH> personally while it might be nice to have a change, i am still
SH> convimced the only election the coalition needed to win was the last.

Yeah, interesting example of how not to do it in many ways. That fiasco has
ensured that quite a bit of what they wanted to do just cant be done now.

Jeff did it a lot better, basically just said that things were comprehensively
stuffed, there would have to be massive changes, without being to specific
about the detail, and then could do it once he inevitably got elected.

SH> i quite frankly couldn't care less if keating won again,

Dunno, I think its about time the shit was shaken out of the IR scene. The
ACTU has finally woken up to the fact that if they done watch out their role
has gone down the tubes with the massive drop in union membership, and they
will be insisting on a role for unions in enterprise agreements, even when
both partys think the union is irrelevant. That alone IMO is a good enough
reason to piss labor off federally. And then there is the other current
problem that even the state employees in the lib states like VIC and WA
can bugger off to the federal system if they dont like the state system.

Personally I would piss the IR bench off too, brainless fools like
Deirdre OConner, but I cant see either of them doing that any time soon.

SH> but i do think pyschologically(?is that spelt proper??)
SH> the all ords will pick up if there is a change..

Well, you will certainly see some short term stuff, sure.
It really is rather more dependant on the fundamentals
tho and there isnt all that much between the two partys.

Its not as if either of them plan to shake the shit out of the system ala NZ.

SH> i just wish we had a governemtn with the guts of a recent
SH> nz gov which dragged that place really up to date...

Yeah, but there is rather more to it than guts. The NZ system has always
been uniquely easy to do sweeping stuff in with a single house of parliament
for the entire country and no upper house at all, and a simple first past
the post voting system which avoided any tiny group getting power way outside
its electoral appeal. THATS whats comprehensively stuffed our federal system.

Corse the NZers were silly enough to dump that system and have their
current rather weird hybrid proportional system. Completely nuts IMO.

SH> we just seem to mince around at the edegs,

Sure, but thats often just because its hard to get control of the
upper house. Even Kennetts control of both houses isnt that common.

SH> but hawke did do a good job, but keating at
SH> the helm seemed to loose the alp the plot imo...

Dunno, most of the economic reform stuff wasnt Hawke, it was Keating,
as treasurer. Yes, he fell flat on his face completely leaving the
dampening down of the economy until FAR too late, so it had to be
bludgeoned to death with extreme interest rates, and it took quite
some time before he realised that the treasury line that we werent
going to have a full scale recession was total bullshit.

Corse it remains to be seen if the coalition are any better on that stuff.
No sign that that fool shadow treasurer has got clue at all about economics.
@EOT:

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