[SeaGypsy]

Not that this is going to be a surprise to my fellow Aussies. But I thought to start a thread to invite discussion.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-07/t ... y/4943606'

Mr Abbott believes cutting red and green tape, having a firm fiscal strategy and supporting private enterprise will help reverse what he calls a "budget emergency".

Implementing his border protection policy will directly affect relations with some of Australia's most crucial neighbours, particularly Indonesia.

Mr Abbott's plan involves putting a senior military officer in charge of securing Australia's borders, continued offshore processing, turning boats back when safe to do so and buying boats off people smugglers in Indonesia.

The incoming prime minister characterised the election as a referendum on the carbon tax and has promised to begin work on legislation to repeal it on the first day of government.

However, until mid-2014 the Senate will remain under the control of Labor and the Greens, which have both indicated they would block a move to scrap the carbon tax.

Mr Abbott has left open the option of a double dissolution election if his plan faces opposition in the Senate.

[Plantagenet]

Im surprised Australians didnt fall for Labor's trick of switching leaders just before the election.

[Shaved Monkey]

Rupert Murdoch made sure that didnt work with a daily personal attack in his rags

http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/486629 ... 00x933.jpg
http://truthinmediaresourcecentre.files ... .jpg?w=525


Democracy its great when you have enough money to get people to vote the guy in you want.

[Graeme]

Abbott is a disaster for Australia. I agree with George Monbiot.

If Abbott is elected, Australia's natural wonders will gradually be rubbed away

His views have changed, but don’t expect Tony Abbott to acknowledge this, let alone apologise to Australians for misleading them. In 2009 he maintained that manmade climate change is “absolute crap”. Now he says “I think that climate change is real, humanity makes a contribution.” But he has merely switched from denying global warming to denying the need to act on it.

Abbott is following a familiar script – the 4 Ds of climate change inaction promoted by fossil fuel lovers the world over. Deny, then defer, then delay, then despair.

His Direct Action program for reducing emissions is incapable of delivering the cuts it promises, absurdly underfunded and surrounded by a swarm of unanswered questions. Were it to become big enough to meet its promises, it would be far more expensive than a comparable carbon trading scheme, which Abbott has falsely claimed would incur "almost unimaginable" costs. But it won’t be big enough, because he refuses to set aside the money it requires. Direct Action is a program designed to create a semblance of policy, in the certain knowledge that it will fail to achieve its objectives.


It’s been bad enough under Gillard and Rudd. If Abbott is elected, the natural wonders that distinguish this nation will gradually be rubbed away until it looks like anywhere else: a degraded landscape and seascape, supporting just a few generic exotic species.

The country will be run exclusively for the class to which Gina Rinehart, Clive Palmer and Ivan Glasenberg belong: the 1% of the 1%. Forget the pious rhetoric and nationalistic bombast. Abbott’s policies are really about removing the social and environmental protections enjoyed by all Australians, to allow the filthy rich to become richer – and filthier.

theguardian

[sparky]

.
To all non Australian readers ,
the comments above reflect only their authors views and like minded writers
Mr Abbot is not very exciting , certainly
but the election was not about him
it was about a faction riddled , economically idiotic government who had surrendered
to a ramshackle coalition of rogues to keep themselves in power
it was a litany of scandals , corruption and leading the country by press releases
with an horizon firmly fixed on the evening news .

The worst was a prime minister starting a Jihad against men
oblivious to the inconvenient fact that men were the backbone of Labor supporters

[SeaGypsy]

You have nailed it Sparky. It will be interesting to see what power does to Abbott and his massive majority Government and what the Senate result will be next week (of course the new Senate is stalled until July next year, regardless).

[Tanada]

No offense intended but I find it mildly amusing that a government Americans would consider mildly left wing is considered hard right wing by other countries.

[Lore]

No offense intended but I find it mildly amusing that a government Americans would consider mildly left wing is considered hard right wing by other countries.

Which goes to show you how far right wing some of us have become in the US.

[ROCKMAN]

Tanaka - True. And as the effects of the POD becomes increasing disruptive I suspect the great majority of govts, regardless of where they fit in the spectrum today, will slide further to the right as well as turn more focused on self-interest. Always easier to be generous to you fellow man when you're flush. And unfortunately such a swing will also seek out any handy scapegoats.

[SeaGypsy]

Well I'm pleased some Amerikanos are up to speed on the details, certainly not offended Tanada !

We have 2 advantages the USA and Europe lack- a much lower population base and Oceanic border. Perhaps the most right wing thing the new government here has a mandate for is 'Stop the boats' implementing policies directly aimed at closing the border to unauthorized arrivals- much as the US did to stop boats flooding in from the Caribbean.

[Loki]

Is stopping the boats a major reason they got elected? Or eliminating the carbon tax?

Sorry, I'm thoroughly ignorant about Australian politics, I get most of my international news from NPR, and those are the only two data points they mentioned about the recent election (I was shocked to learn NPR's news editors even knew Australia existed).

I am disappointed to hear that Australians have voted for a party that appears to disregard the grave threat climate change poses. Canada has also tossed aside many of its climate change commitments, as has the US, though there is some progress at the state level (Oregon, for example).

Was it just the ineptness / corruption of the previous party as Sparky alludes to? I haven't heard of any major perturbations in the Australian economy, last I heard it was still humming along as China's resource colony, so I'm assuming the economy wasn't a major factor.

[Sixstrings]

No offense intended but I find it mildly amusing that a government Americans would consider mildly left wing is considered hard right wing by other countries.

It's funny how that works out. In every western democracy you've got "liberals" and "conservatives" -- the latter are always holding the line or trying to retrench, and the two slide back and forth on the spectrum over time (and generally rightly so, extreme left or extreme right are both bad and need corrections time to time -- too much government not enough private vs. too much private not enough government, you need both).

I read something about this Tony fellow, I guess his platform was "tax cuts" and "anti-immigration." It's the same everywhere ha. You could look at the UK and their conservatives want to privatize the health system more, look at the US and the conservatives are fighting Obamacare. Same, same, same everywhere.

American conservatives are rabid about Mexican immigration, whereas for Australia's conservatives it's Indonesian boat people (apparently he's going to use the navy to turn them away at sea? Was this a big problem?).

At the end of the day, you can look at a country and look at the broad swath of average folks and how are they doing? It's bad in the US. Aussies have good wages and universal healthcare. However much they let their conservatives go back on this and give it to the rich is up to them..

[SeaGypsy]

Is stopping the boats a major reason they got elected? Or eliminating the carbon tax?

A bit of both, on top of what Sparky said, serious disunity in the party. They lied about the Carbon tax in the first place, then our utilities doubled almost overnight. Going it alone on pricing was a big mistake, instead of floating pricing as per EU.

Was it just the ineptness / corruption of the previous party as Sparky alludes to? I haven't heard of any major perturbations in the Australian economy, last I heard it was still humming along as China's resource colony, so I'm assuming the economy wasn't a major factor.

Our resource position is such that only the biggest dunce could really wreck the economy in current times, with said position re. China. The dishonesty was a major factor.

[SeaGypsy]

No offense intended but I find it mildly amusing that a government Americans would consider mildly left wing is considered hard right wing by other countries.

It's funny how that works out. In every western democracy you've got "liberals" and "conservatives" -- the latter are always holding the line or trying to retrench, and the two slide back and forth on the spectrum over time (and generally rightly so, extreme left or extreme right are both bad and need corrections time to time -- too much government not enough private vs. too much private not enough government, you need both).

I read something about this Tony fellow, I guess his platform was "tax cuts" and "anti-immigration." It's the same everywhere ha. You could look at the UK and their conservatives want to privatize the health system more, look at the US and the conservatives are fighting Obamacare. Same, same, same everywhere.

American conservatives are rabid about Mexican immigration, whereas for Australia's conservatives it's Indonesian boat people (apparently he's going to use the navy to turn them away at sea? Was this a big problem?).

At the end of the day, you can look at a country and look at the broad swath of average folks and how are they doing? It's bad in the US. Aussies have good wages and universal healthcare. However much they let their conservatives go back on this and give it to the rich is up to them..

This post is so ill-informed it's hard to know where to start, briefly from the top:

1/ Here Liberal is the name of the right wing party- your Republicans.

2/ He hasn't proposed major tax cuts.

3/ He is anti people smugglers, who have been bringing Iranians, Sri Lankans and Vietnamese by the thousands in recent times, with hundreds of deaths at sea being one result, the taking of places allocated for UNHCR sponsored refugees being another.

4/ He is certainly not 'anti immigration' he's an immigrant himself- what is referred to as a '10 Pound Pom'. He is proposing increased migration through our 457 program (skilled migration).

5/ He has not proposed doing anything to dismantle our public health system.

6/ The only thing he proposes reducing wages is the removal of mandatory 'Penalty rates' ie. extra pay per hour if working overtime, weekends and public holidays or graveyard shifts. Reality is that many of the sectors requiring these workers will have to pay more than the base rate for these shifts anyhow, or they just won't have workers- ie. Nurses, hospitality, mining etc. If you earn the same on Monday morning shift starting at 9 am as you do on Good Friday for example, are you coming to work on Good Friday or pulling a sick day?

[Loki]

Doubling utility rates due to a carbon tax would certainly be problematic. Do you have a link for this?

Eliminating overtime pay would be extremely unpopular in the US. Even the most extreme of the wing-nut Tea Partiers have not suggested this. They'd immediately lose the cornerstone of their base, skilled white tradesmen. When it comes to wage regulations they focus on limiting the minimum wage, an obvious (and extremely successful) attempt to divide the working class.

As for immigration, I'm personally in favor of a zero-sum immigration policy. I'd vote for a party that promised such, even if they were against carbon emission limits. But doesn't sound like your Liberals are advocating reduced immigration, just better quality immigrants. Correct? But who represents the cheap labor lobby?

I'm assuming your Liberal party doesn't differ much from your Labour party in the main things that matter, though, right? Growth growth growth, at any and all costs. The ideology of the cancer cell. But they have minor differences in how the benefits and costs should be distributed, and maybe some squabbles over irrelevant melanin and gonadal issues? Enough to keep the proles entertained.

But maybe I'm just projecting

[SeaGypsy]

Loki,

The Carbon tax is not the main cause of prices doubling, more the excuse for power companies to restructure their billing, in such a way that even with no use whatsoever most people pay about $100 a month for the 'privilege' of having a connection. It's a sly move by the companies to attack the Carbon tax IMO, which directly has resulted in between a 15% and 30% rise depending on class of supply.

Very few trades people here are on wages reliant on penalty rates and our trades rates are sky high compared to the USA. To have a car worked on here, a washing machine or refrigerator, most places you will pay upwards of $100 an hour. Qualified building industry professionals often gross over $1000 a day for private contracts. (We already have a thoroughly divided working class.) Trades wages average well over $50k for permanent jobs and usually have restricted hours. As a semi skilled worker in construction (Truck driving, earth moving machine ops and general labour) I expect between $25 and $35 an hour as a flat rate. A permanent job in these fields would get me about $50k and depending where in the country I am working- remote jobs can pay more than double this, with 6 weeks paid leave.

Correct on the migration issues.

Correct on the growth drive on both sides (even our so called Greens don't get this one!)

[Shaved Monkey]

They lied about the Carbon tax in the first place, then our utilities doubled almost overnight. Going it alone on pricing was a big mistake, instead of floating pricing as per EU.

No one "lied" on the Carbon Tax
It was a minority government and the only way, they got the support of the minor independents to make up the numbers to govern was to accept a price on carbon
According to the independents both parties where willing to do this to get the numbers.
Both parties went to the previous election committed to a price on Carbon the opposition under Abbott reneged on that promise even though they campaigned on it and he personally said he preferred a carbon tax
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckcH0Wrmy74
Power price went up by 10% ish which was compensated
All the previous electricity price rises are from electricity companies gold plating their transmission and passing that on to the consumers.
Uninformed consumers blamed it on the tax

[SeaGypsy]

"There will be "'NO CARBON TAX UNDER A GOVERNMENT I LEAD" Julia Gillard. Google it. She said it and she lied saying it. The per kwh rate increase alone for domestic use may have been average 10%, this was not the total increase in bills at all. My total bill doubled and yes I forgot to mention the compensation package. BTW I don't know if you remember Shaved, but I advocated for the tax.

[Shaved Monkey]

Agree politically Julia was on record saying that and it was politically damaging. only because the media chose to run that instead of Abbotts Youtube
Abbott was willing to go Carbon Tax too
http://www.news.com.au/national-news/wi ... 6452005882
My power bill went down from $100 to $75 a quarter after the carbon tax and I got $10 a week from the government.
The price decrease was through efficiency not through the carbon tax
(might have had more sun on the solar panels and less fridges going???)
but regardless my bill shock was a pleasant one
Talk of doubling of bills have mainly been proved to be BS when analysed it was probably a fridge motor gone bung or more air con use.

My bill just increased by 22% in Qld that was not due to a carbon tax but a price hike based on a reaction to an artificial price freeze promised by the local conservative governments,I'm sure many people interpreted that as a Carbon Tax rise

This wasnt an election about policies it was a protest against a government that was in fighting and the Murdoch press picked a side and ran harder than they have ever against any government.
Add a populist billionaire mining magnate spending millions of his own money telling people he would increase the pension and lower their taxes
He became the safe place to park your protest vote and then he delivered his preferences to the conservatives.

So we get a BAU government who's main priority is to build roads for the 21st Century.......lol

[Shaved Monkey]

Interesting off the cuff comment from the US state department when referring to Australia.
Surprised energy was mentioned publicly as a global issue to be discussed and addressed,when our new governments major commitment is to build the roads of the 21st century.

"I don't expect there to be any significant challenges to continuing to work very closely with Australia on the way we approach both bilateral (relations) and global issues, things like Syria, energy and climate change," he said.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politi ... z2eqwxbiRD