PREFACE: I can't help but feel like i've already made one of these threads... Oh well, its not on the main page, and I can't search for it, so I'll try again...

So, the election is in two weeks, and I'm a bit sick of all the media hype, so I thought we might be able to take part in some educated discussion on the pros and cons of both major parties.

Personally, I trust John Howard and Peter Costello a lot more than I trust Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

I find Rudd to be very interested in winning votes, but not so interested in what really needs to be done. His whole campaign has been aimed at discrediting the Government and putting “Kevin07” in everyone’s mind, and while I can appreciate the brilliance of his campaign, I can’t help but be worried about what Australia might become under a Rudd Labor Government.

Personally, I trust John Howard and Peter Costello a lot more than I trust Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

I find Rudd to be very interested in winning votes, but not so interested in what really needs to be done. His whole campaign has been aimed at discrediting the Government and putting “Kevin07” in everyone’s mind, and while I can appreciate the brilliance of his campaign, I can’t help but be worried about what Australia might become under a Rudd Labor Government.

QFT.

I don't trust John or Peter.

I don't know how Kevin and Julia will do.

But it won't be 'Better the devil you know' in my case.

Either Independent or Labor

last edited by Kat at 17:05:08 12/Nov/07

I'm not keen on Peter Costello, so that makes it harder for me to vote for John Howard because I don't like the idea of him just retiring and handing it over to Costello without him having to go up for election

Greens ftw.

just remember kids... 70% of labor polititions are *shock horror* union bosses!@!@#! however.. 100% of liberal polititions are polititions. :D

I'm curious what people have against Peter Costello.. anyone want to enlighten me? (for my money, having met the guy, I found him quite likable, and his track record indicates that he knows what he's doing in terms of the economy..)

As for the Greens, I would never vote Green anyway, if I were going to vote for Labor, I'd harden up and admit that I was voting for Labor.. also, the Greens' stance on abolishing the ANZUS treaty has me more than a little concerned..

For my money, I'm seriously hoping that the Coalition get re-elected. I just don't trust Labor to actually make the hard choices and do what's right over what's popular.

Voted today at city hall. Fwiw of the 20 odd people who came in while I was there, 1 old lady took a liberal how to vote card, everyone else took one from the ALP.

Liberals ftw, nuff said.

I'm curious what people have against Peter Costello.. anyone want to enlighten me? (for my money, having met the guy, I found him quite likable, and his track record indicates that he knows what he's doing in terms of the economy..)

I completely agree with you. First thing I would say is he is extremely experienced, and obviously very good at his job, you would have to be to manage the economy of such a fast growing nation.

I don't understand why people don't like him.

Imitation, I fear the worst, while I don't want Labor to win, I think they may have done enough to win over the public.

Greens ftw.

I completely agree with you, but for the Senate. Personally, I prefer the Democrats, because they are a little more down the middle, policy wise. I would not like to see either major party control both houses again as the Coalition have done this time. Its too easy to push through unfavourable legislation.

We need change at all levels of government, from Local to National. Howards trick of playing the fear card every time seems to not be working. Costello is a smug prick who spends the entire time grinning like he pumped the neighbours cat. Krudd is so sickly sweet he makes me wanna puke. I don't care who gets in as long as the greens have control in the senate. The line between the 2 parties over the last 20 years has just got more blurred.

The way I see it, politicians have figured out some formula for telling people what they want to hear before an election - and the formula has gotten so good it's basically a science - so both parties have gotten the same results and are spinning the same stuff.

What actually happens after the election - well I guess that is whether you trust them to do what they say, or to do what their party is historically known for. Hard to say.

So you can't vote for what they're saying - you have to either vote for which party you've traditionally preferred, or which candidate is marketing themselves better (which is silly - but I suppose a lot of people will vote based on the marketing probably).

It's hard to get an honest list of their policies, and an explanation of what exactly they intend to do. Neither party is giving me the information I need to hear to make an informed decision - and that is no doubt done purposefully to keep the processes of government a mystery to the common man, as has always been the case in Australia.

The way I see it, Labor have never delivered.

Also, I lost a semester at uni because of the student union, so they can FOAD, honestly.

I'm sorry Idol, that just sounds a little too conspiracy-theorist to me :(

Another thing I don't understand is the not-insignificant proportion of the voting public who vote against a party (believe it or not, you are only voting for John Howard if you live in his electorate. Otherwise, you're voting for his party), on the grounds that "it's time for a change"..

Kevin07 - Recession08

funny thing I'm noticing about this election is that all my firends that are labor voters who I can rely on for informed discussion about polciy etc have all converted to the Coalition, because they can see right through Rudd.

Yet all the other friends I have who are life long Liberal purely because mummy and daddy voted Liberal have jumped on the mindless Kevin07 bandwagon. Its quite a weird phenomenon.

So really, we just have to hope there are more informed swingers than mindless liberal voters for the Liberals to win!!

Oh the irony..!

I am a card carrying member of the ALP, so yeah I'll freely admit that I'm biased. i want labor to win as i feel that i just cant trust johnny or the libs any more, last election there was no mention, no inkling that the libs would bring in work choices and yet as soon as they had control of both houses, they did. i don't want them to have another chance to mislead this country as to their future intentions, I can't say that Labor will be any different, but i do know, that i can't forgive the libs for what they have done.

I doubt they knew they would introduce work choices, it was a surprise to most people that they won control of both houses.

Luckily, they made use of it and got some genuine reform through while they could. Work Choices is a fantastic bit of policy, tempered somewhat by the socialist driven fairness test.

To me Costello will do whatever he needs to do to get power.
Once upon a time he was motivated by his ideals
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/41/Youngcostello.png

Now he motivated by power. And he already believes he is running the country.

I do lead in this country

And everyone keeps saying how great our economy is... household debt has doubled. Lets hope India and China keep buying our resources.

http://www.henrythornton.com/content/upload/images/hen111007.JPG
76-78 Fraser Liberal government .... 77 - 83 John Howard was treasurer...

What did Costello have to say about this ?

"The Howard treasurership was not a success in terms of interest rates and inflation... he had not been a great reformer."

Pressure is already on people to stop spending (that's why the RBA is putting up interest rates) so what is our government that promised to keep them down doing ? SPEND SPEND SPEND! ... tho Kevin is no better.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm a hell of a lot better off under WorkChoices. I get paid more, get all the same perks as used to be guaranteed and I have more bargaining power when it comes to salary review time..

Funnily enough, this is all related to the Work Choices legislation that they "snuck" through both houses. Greater demand for staff means that it's now up to the individual to prove that they're worth what they're getting paid.

Now he motivated by power. And he already believes he is running the country.

or his ideals changed or something... but i'm sure you're right you wouldn't be biased about it or anything.

And everyone keeps saying how great our economy is... household debt has doubled.

so what's happened simultaneously to household assets then? or does that kind of ruin your doomsday prediction?


I'll be voting Liberty and Democracy Party as my first choice as they are the only true libertarian choice we have. but i know they have f*** all chance of winning because australian politics is retarded so i'll have to figure out who to preference.

last edited by taggs at 19:21:47 12/Nov/07

I find both major parties to be unconvincing. I'm on the left so I can't agree with the Libs. However Labor seems to have decided at this point they need to focus the debate on Work Choices. To do this, they look to be agreeing with the Libs on every other major matter, thereby highlighting that as the main difference between the two parties.

In doing this however, I feel they're abandoning the more rational side of their base and hoping a more emotive focus on Work Choices gets them over the line. I think this is a massive mistake because it loses them votes on both the left and right. This could have a particularly bad outcome for them in the Senate where they could lose seats on the left to either the Greens or Democrats. In the House of Reps it isn't quite so bad because the votes they lose on the left should flow back through preferences.

Anyway, that's just my perspective as someone they've currently lost to the Greens on the left. Personally the main thing driving me away from the major parties is their promise of tax cuts. Both Howard and Rudd talk about being fiscal conservatives, reducing tax and putting downward pressure on inflation and interest rates. I'm no economist, but these would seem to be contradictory points from a fiscal conservative view point. Given the conservative view that tax cuts stimulate the economy, that would lead to higher inflation and therefore lower affordability and higher interest rates, thereby quickly rubbing out any short term advantage gained from losing less money to the tax man. I prefer the Greens platform of spending more of the budget surplus on hospitals, schools and other basic infrastructure. Sure they won't be in a position to enact their policies, but at least their ideology best matches mine.

whether the government spends your tax dollars or gives it back to you and you spend it... the money is still spent.

tax cuts stimulate consumption, but by definition reduce government expenditure

Y = C + I + G + NX

where Y = national income or aggregate demand, C = consumption, I = investment, G = government expenditure, NX = net exports (exports - imports)

Whether you spend the money or the government does makes no difference. think of it like the law of conservation of mass - no new income is being created, only changing who spends it.

so it's not inflationary (edit: or it is, but no more inflationary than if the g'ment spent it) unless the government wasn't going to spend it (which they may or may not have done).

macroeconomics 101.


last edited by taggs at 19:10:50 12/Nov/07

I find both major parties to be unconvincing.

That's what the s***heads don't get... Liberals have supported Australia for over a decade and our country is going fine.

Everytime Labor get in power, they f*** things up.

Who gives a f*** what anyone says... the current government works, the opposition doesn't work... even if Rudd can turn things around (to what? lol), everything is fine at the moment. Why risk it?

It's like the republic argument... Australian's don't give a f*** about "principle", "if it aint broke, don't fix it" I say.

PS. f*** STUDENT UNIONS

last edited by CHUB at 19:24:26 12/Nov/07

But economic conservatives believe private spending stimulates the economy more, hence regardless of how correct they are, they're hypocritical for saying they'll simultaneously cut taxes and put downward pressure in interest rates (without unveiling other major policies that address the issue anyway).

Also I personally believe we may as well get something that benefits society as a whole like a better health care system out of our money than an extra plasma TV for the bathroom.

That's what the s***heads don't get... Liberals have supported Australia for over a decade and our country is going fine.

Everytime Labor get in power, they f*** things up.

That's what people that don't understand the impact variable economic forces have would say. Look closer at the econmic climate both globally and locally at different times before putting the difference down to just which party was in power at the time.

Well I don't pretend to think indepth about politics Chakas... I come from a small family business that was affected strongly by the unfair dismissal laws (read: "go away money")... so I hold a grudge against the unions and fully support the IR laws.

I also lost a semester and potentially a degree from student unions (which they will reinstate asap if Labor get elected).

Whether it be short term (howards awesome tax system for low income earners, read: me) or long term (FOAD climate change/child care/union bollocks which I don't give a fark/don't need it/f***ing unions kicked me out of tertiary education)... Labor offer nothing for me that the Liberals don't and they have never delivered in the past.

I agree, if it aint broke, don't fix it... I know a very wide range of people that are earning $$$ better then they ever had under the new IR laws... the only c***s losing jobs are stupid noobs that want to shift 10 containers an hour (rest of the world does 30 - 40) and shut down the docks in times of military conflict, FOAD.

Last bit was rage, not relevant really :)

ok ill bite....how the f*** did a student union make you loose a semester?

ok ill bite....how the f*** did a student union make you loose a semester?

Pay money (right at the time you're paying textbooks) or you can't go to university, couldn't afford nearly $300 by week 3 and I got booted... no payment plan, no excuses, no nothing.

Works fine now not paying money.

So what was I paying before? According to the QUT student guild over 80% of the money went to homosexuals, women and internationals... which I'm not a part of any.

I got no problems with unions, I just don't like compulsory union membership.

last edited by CHUB at 20:12:58 12/Nov/07

voluntary student unionism (i.e. forcing universities to make student union membership voluntary against the wishes of the vice chancellor and administration) was and is a silly ideological walk down wank alley that deserves to get s*** canned immediately

i doubt labor will do it though

76-78 Fraser Liberal government .... 77 - 83 John Howard was treasurer...

It has been tried and tried to argue that point.

In March 1993, Bernie Fraser, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, gave a speech to a group of Sydney economists. Included in the text was the following:

The appropriate degree of price stability to aim for is a matter of judgement. My own view is that if inflation could be held to an average of 2–3 per cent over a period of years, that would be a good outcome.

An increasing focus on achieving, and then maintaining, low inflation had been a feature of the Reserve Bank’s rhetoric and actions since about 1989.

The reserve bank did not try to limit inflation until 1989. Howard was treasurer in 77-83 as you said, so at the time of his treasury, the reserve bank did not adjust interest rates according to inflation.

http://www.henrythornton.com/content/upload/images/hen111007.JPG

That is all...

that said the graph shows what old mate gough whitlam did to inflation

what a f*** up

But economic conservatives believe private spending stimulates the economy more

i've never heard that before... as far as i knew economic conservatism meant fiscal responsibility and a preference towards small government, free-markets and private enterprise.

in the context of the election i think rudd is meaning he will be fiscally responsible as he sure isn't any of the others.

i'd like to know what makes you say that because i've never heard that economic conservatives believe that private spending is more inflationary than government spending.

i'd like to know what makes you say that because i've never heard that economic conservatives believe that private spending is more inflationary than government spending.

Not directly more inflationary, just that it is a better way of stimulating economic growth than government spending - the side effect of strong economic growth then being (likely) higher inflation.

I'm still undecided at this stage, I'm quite a fan of Kevvy boy especially with the QLD connection. It also wouldn't be the end of the world to see a change of government just to shake things up a bit....11 years is a long time for a single government to be in control.

However I am a bit iffy on Labors whole "me too" strategies so far, and from watching the debates some of the Labor ministers i.e. Wayne Swann seem pretty gutless and just as old and out of touch as Johnny boy and the libs.

i have a had time understanding why anyone would want to vote howard, policies aside he looks like a child molester and it makes me cringe.

oh right, sorry i misread that.

tax cuts are seen as better by most economists but it's not quite as simple as they stimulate the economy more (which they may or may not do depending on the circumstances).

but yeah, i see what you're saying. however, it could be argued that the current higher CPI figures are caused by supply-side issues. that would mean trying to control them through demand-side management (interest rates) wouldn't only not have the desired effect, it could be even more destabilising. i'm not 100% sure about it either way as i haven't looked at any of the data (uni holidays anyone! =D) but there are some economists out there saying that.

though i would suggest that neither government should be claiming they can affect interest rates other than very marginally through underlying macroeconomic variables... which arguably they can't really affect much either, or if they do they can't do it with any kind of serious precision or predictability.

I'm sick of all the political s*** flinging by both parties.

boo hoo john did this boo hoo kevin did that... who gives a f*** what they DID, tell me what they plan to DO.

f*** y'all both i'm voting for pauline simply because she doesn't piss me off, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

I prefer the Greens platform of spending more of the budget surplus on hospitals, schools and other basic infrastructure. Sure they won't be in a position to enact their policies, but at least their ideology best matches mine.

Most people would agreee with this, but as the saying goes - "why throw good money after bad?"

With wall to wall state labor governments completely f***ing service delivery, most people are better off with the money in their own pocket instead of funcing bureaucratic f***ups.

The one labor policy I like is the federal takeover of hospitals, but they were too pussy to go through with it. Instead giving the states 'a chance' to fix it, then 'considering' a takeover.

Stop the buck passing and just implement a national system, this will never happen though. The Libs are the only ones with the balls to do it, but they would need at least 2 of the 3 eastern states to have Libs in power at the time and I can't see QLD getting a coaltion government in the next 10 years, even with that idiot Bligh running the show. In all likelihood, the Vics may return to a coalition led government, but by the time that has happened Rudd would have put us uin recession and health won't even be on the agenda.

I very much dislike the advertising run of both majour parties. They constantly bicker and bitch about the other party and hardly talk of their own. It seems it is a battle of who can make the other look worse.

Yeah I think we're on the same page now taggs (I'm just focusing on the hypocrasy of some of the rhetoric and pork barrelling, not the validity of any theories).

Just vote liberal already chakas.

asif pauline duzzen roxt joo

Um, isn't pauline going for Senate? If so, you still have to vote normally as well.

wow, i just found out today that i'm in the bennelong electorate

howard is so going down

go maxine mckew, you saucey lass who doesn't know how to run s***

Actually chub ...

You are blindly believing political rhetoric.

The Liberal government pre Hawke made a mess of the economy.
The floating of the dollar and deregulation of the finacial sector, which the liberals admit helped us avoid the asian meltdown, was done by labor. The libs play down this fact by saying labor had no choice ... ok so why didn't the libs do it ?

Using interest rates to arrest inflation is why the huge huge interest rates happened. Unfortunately was a combination of things that made them go so high. But in saying that it did need to happen (just not as big as it was) or it could have gotten nasty
1. They probably were overzealous in applying interest rates and tried to arrest it too quickly.
2. the boom in 80s caused a high growth.
3. the deregulation of the finacial sector meant money became easier to get, hence people borrowed and then spent.

Both major modern parties have done good and bad things. Both are full of lawyers the scum of the earth, and are full of people fueled by the desire for power.... We need a friendly dictator

I'm probably going to vote liberal, even though I don't like the way Howard is incompent at lying, nor how Costello is a smug f*** about everything. I also don't like how they bought economic stability by f***ing any public works, especially education at all levels and the continuation of luddite ignorance when it comes to research and technology.

Actually chub ...

You are blindly believing political rhetoric.

Regardless, student unions are c***s and (could have) potentially f***ed up my degree... Labor will reinstate student unions asap; they have said so on numerous occasions, Howard removed it and will keep it that way.

I don't give a s*** about anything else, it doesn't affect me, I hold a grudge against requiring to be part of a union, so Labor can FOAD.

Also I was under the lowest (100% refund) tax bracket in previous years, Howard is raising that barrier, so +1 to him.

last edited by CHUB at 22:08:41 12/Nov/07

Most people that I know at uni also enjoy the voluntary student union. Now that it is gone, zomg, It hasn't affected me at all. They can bring it back when I finished uni though. ;D

Who cares about Tax cuts, I'd much rather that money go towards health care and everywhere else that needs it.

Also, sif pay full price for text books, 2nd hand books or not bothering to get them ftw!

last edited by Tollaz0r! at 22:22:51 12/Nov/07

Pay money (right at the time you're paying textbooks) or you can't go to university, couldn't afford nearly $300 by week 3 and I got booted... no payment plan, no excuses, no nothing.

ermm....I don't actually remember paying student union fees.....don't they go to hecs? Or maybe I just paid it.....eh ok fair enough, but surely if your dad is going to fork out for something it would be $300 bucks so you can continue your education? anyways too little too late.

voluntary student unionism (i.e. forcing universities to make student union membership voluntary against the wishes of the vice chancellor and administration) was and is a silly ideological walk down wank alley that deserves to get s*** canned immediately

I have no problems with being part of the student union....what I DO have a problem with is where my money is going....all those stupid social groups, gym memberships....plenty of people getting a free-ride on my $300 bucks.
If there was a toned down option - as in just be part of the union for legal advice and respresentation (for uni stuff) etc I'd be all for it.

Isn't there that toned down option? I thought there was.

Most people that I know at uni also enjoy the voluntary student union. Now that it is gone, zomg, It hasn't affected me at all.

Tell me about it.

I noticed a small increase in food prices at UQ, but if you add up the extra few cents I pay for lunch per day over a year .. it never reaches the amount of the original union fees. So I'm pretty much better off.

I guess if I actually used union-subsidised services (gym, etc), then that'd be a different story ..

" who do you trust? "

Neither, really. I think I'll vote for the most neutral insignificant independent (wheres Nigel Free-Marijuana?).

Howard and Costello are both proven liars and resource boom surfers. Rudd is a 'say anything to get into power' lightweight and Swan isn't showing us anything to make us confident in his ability to be Treasurer.

infi hasn't joined this thread, therefore it is not a proper politics thread

ok look i'm not going to try and convince anyone. the record stands for itself. but i can say this:

that said the graph shows what old mate gough whitlam did to inflation

yet the labor party roll him out at every campaign launch like some sort of god. he was a major league f*** up.

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/5672/aussiedebtkeatingdh4.jpg
By rdegan

last edited by infi at 08:24:49 13/Nov/07

Neither party has done s*** for tertiary education so neither party are offering me much. I saw today the education rebates for primary and secondary schooling and I was waiting for the next screen to hold something sweet for uni funding... and nothing came. Libs have been way more generous than labor and they dont have a damn thing. If labor even remotely have a chance of bringing back compulsory student unionism (which compared to the liberals they do) there is no way they could ever get my vote.

Im not so insane (like chub) that I would passively take it up the arse while Im 'kicked out of uni' for something totally avoidable. (like maybe paying the fee and using the library copy of your text book or even borrowing money off family or any other reasonable method of obtaining money easily available to virtually everyone) Every time I payed that union fee and used nothing at all that it went towards, let alone even know what the hell it paid for it annoyed me that I had to actively seek out and pay the s*** just to stay in uni. And as if it wasnt bad enough that I had to pay that s***, as soon as it was gone, subway and other fine enterprises popped up on campus to provide me with food that wasn't below third world caf standards :P

i have a had time understanding why anyone would want to vote howard, policies aside he looks like a child molester and it makes me cringe.

Rudd's face makes me angry and the thought of him running the country, with a find tradition of hating such efeminate giggly looking f*****s, makes howards appearance appealing. I dont get how a bunch of union bogans could endorce somone as womanly as Rudd. He needs to smile less and grow a chin.

Having lived under the Governments of Menzies, Holt, Gorton, McMahon, Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating and now Howard, I'd have to say the majority of posters here haven't got a clue as to the relevance of history, ideals, philosophy and if I may say so the achievements and failure of both parties. If anything I think some here need a good dose of education in politics, policy formulation, public administration and social and economic outcomes outside the ads on TV.

That is why we come here SFB. So you can edumikate us with all your smarts and knowledges.

cbf'ed educating the ignorant. I'll leave the misinformation, misrepresentation and the Mal-adjusted, Anti-social and Darn-mean i.e. MAD stuff to our resident paid up Liberal Party member infi-tesimal brain..........and people wonder why the Queensland opposition is a joke.

cbf'ed educating the ignorant.

Yet, I'll complain that they don't know s***..

cbf'ed educating the ignorant

We're not ignorant, we just don't have the experience of the Menzies, Holt, Gorton, McMahon, Whitlam, etc.. governments.
You should really share what you've learned.

..........

Ellipses are only three periods long, not two, nor four and defiantly never 10.

ill be voting for that guy who says i dont have to pay taxes

I love grammar.

i guess you will busy today infi, chasing JH around brisbane, TRYING TO KISS HIM

been there, done that

haha, i saw him kiss a baby at his launch on the news.

I couldn't believe the cliche.

it was his grandchild.

still, for the tv cameras it was just a baby.

Hey infi-tesimal brain, if I sold my house I'd be out of debt too. I'd have nowhere to live, but heck at least I wouldn't be in debt. Just another example about the benefit of debt in fueling investment, the successful Macquarie Bank finances the majority of it's transactions based on credit from Equity Markets i.e. debt accumulation used as a driver to produce higher growth and to significantly enhance ROI. But according to you infi-tesimal brain if they were running the country we'd be a basket case in no time, well according to your logic (or lack of). Now let's take this further to companies like BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, our complete banking and finance industry an just about every single business in Australia whom have debt in some form even to the limits you are so proudly flaunting. Accordingly given your logic these must be unproductive, inviable and hurtling headlong into the dust bin of history. Oh wait, there not!

The thrust of your argument is not only an incomplete picture as it disregards the drivers inflation, employment, investment, monetary policy, financial policy, productivity, international trade and markets, social and industrial landscape it is also out of context in which they should be viewed and is somewhat narrow minded and misleading. But hey why should I expect more from an infi-tesimal mind.

Keep feeling warm and fuzzy about your lack of thinking outside the fridge magnets, I always enjoy a good laugh.

i still cant believe john howard hates the internets

John Howard thinks the Internet is a dating service in Kings Cross specialising in cross dressers wearing fishnets.

SFB, are you a Labor supporter? You sound more biased than Infi.

and Spook, the libs imho have a better BB plan, Labor's is based from stolen Telstra internal documents and their $8.7bn costing takes into account Telstra's pre-existing assets (ie. It would cost a lot more than $8.7bn if you're not Telstra)

But hey, if you want to pay $60/month (ex GST) for 512kbit FTTN goodness, be my guest.

last edited by mongie at 11:14:50 13/Nov/07

More like, Are you a Communist?

Laissez Faire Marketplace ftw. Liberal Party is the closest one to that. You can get Welfare these days for just about anything. It's the biggest joke. I dream of a Meritocratic society where Merit (Hard work and ability) is the method of wealth distribution.

Well shiver me timbers, I've been outed. Well what do you think mongie? I could be Labor/Greens/Democrats/FF/Bungie Jumpers for all you know, but one thing I'm not and that's non-thinking Liberal supporters whom rely on fridge magnets, brochures in the mail and Media advertisements.

Now before you attempt to label me a Unionist, I've never been a member in my life. Doesn't make me support the underlying philosophy of worker rights and groups constituted to represent their interests. Just as I have no problem with Business Groups/Associations/Unions, which I am a member of.

I just get pretty damn tired of morons like infi-tesimal brain who can't think for themselves and rely on the likes of Andrew Bolt, Piers Ackermann and Glem Milne to do their thinking for them.

More like, Are you a Communist?

Laissez Faire Marketplace ftw. Liberal Party is the closest one to that. You can get Welfare these days for just about anything. It's the biggest joke. I dream of a Meritocratic society where Merit (Hard work and ability) is the method of wealth distribution.

You're an idiot, nuff said. BTW have you tried to get welfare for invalid reasons? I bet not and I also bet you wouldn't have gotten away with it either. The majority on welfare are not dole bludgers, but the disabled, the infirm, the elderly, the disadvantaged. But hey whatever makes you feel good about yourself and works for your self-esteem then by all means.

The only weakness to your argument SFB is that during Keating's debt-fuelled binge, real wages stagnated whilst over the last 11 years real wages have increased over 20%, because they have not been eroded by inflation.

Labor is not concerned about job-creation, they are concerned about protecting the well paid jobs of union members. Since the "evil" WorkChoices laws came in 200,000 jobs have been created of which 85% were full-time.

What's going to happen if we reintroduce unfair dismissal laws. I don't even think Labor is brazen enough to claim that the return of those inefficient laws will increase full-time work.

And your personal insults merely detract from your already paper-thin argument.

infi likes the liberals becoz they give him moneys

What is so bad about a laissez faire marketplace? The true value of something (or someone in terms of employment) is whatever the market will pay based on supply/demand. If there is a small quantity then you should be allowed to charge more. Likewise if they are lots of resources it's only fair that it's cheap.


And where is the unfairness in rewarding natural ability and hard work rather than people who want something for nothing?
btw: No, never have been on welfare. Don't know anyone who is either. So you are correct in assuming that i don't know about ripping off the taypayers.



last edited by fade at 11:49:24 13/Nov/07

What's going to happen if we reintroduce unfair dismissal laws. I don't even think Labor is brazen enough to claim that the return of those inefficient laws will increase full-time work.

I was under the impression that unfair dismissal laws were still in effect for businesses with over 100 employees.

-

SFB: I don't care who you support as long as you have a valid argument, which you do not... Are you calling me a fridge magnet reading liberal supporter?

I believe I have reaserched the policies of the various parties well and decided on the Liberal party, at least for the house of reps. I will most likely be voting Democrat or Green for the senate.

I have to agree with fade, and I believe that is where we're headed under the John Howard Liberal Government, and that Peter Costello will continue the trend when he takes office.

that said the graph shows what old mate gough whitlam did to inflation

what a f*** up

back when a government wasn't just a bunch of bean counters fiddling imaginary figures to make themselves look good & thier political foes look s*** in the eyes of the public. *demon shakes his walking frame in anger ;D

but unfortunately that's what politics is now ... the free market, no political vision for the future except the economy, no public works, etc.. pretty sad. and in this regard labor today is just as bad as the liberals imo. :/

or worse...

Rudd is simply trying to win votes. I think that Howard puts in a lot more though to the future of the nation.

ie. WorkChoices. Maybe unpopular, but for the good of the country (at least, in his eyes)

you are pretty naive if you think that either rudd or howard gives a f*** about the future further than thier own political career.

last edited by demon at 12:35:34 13/Nov/07

Rudd is simply trying to win votes. I think that Howard puts in a lot more though to the future of the nation.

You can't really judge either based on campaign promises. Both are throwing money at the electorate to buy votes right now, Howard is just as bad as Rudd in that respect.

hahaha horses*** john howard isnt as bad as kevin rudd with regards to just trying to get more votes

He is throwing money around left right and centre but he (and p.costello) always throw around the "na we are different we are reaaaaaaally trying to do whats best for the future PROMIZEEEEE KKKKK????". Its so f***en see through its not funny and just another dam tactic to win votes, just like Kevvie.

Demon, I have to say, I think you're pretty angry and disillusioned about the whole political process.. did you get touched by a politician as a small child?

To say that nobody in politics is interested in anything beyond their own careers is patently false and shows ignorance and a total lack of intellectual maturity regarding this subject matter.

For one thing, if politicians were only interested in their own careers and couldn't give a stuff about the country, then why are the Coalition implementing changes that are beneficial for the country, but possibly detrimental to their own careers?

Moreover, since they are *our* elected representatives, you are implying that anyone who votes for a politician is essentially an idiot for not seeing right through them..

If this is truly what you believe, I feel sorry for you :(

For one thing, if politicians were only interested in their own careers and couldn't give a stuff about the country, then why are the Coalition implementing changes that are beneficial for the country, but possibly detrimental to their own careers?

QFT.

That was my point re: workchoices.

I'M ARGUING ABOUT POLITICS ON THE INTERNET! HOW CONSTRUCTIVE!

yeah demon you should be using your walking frame for good, not evil

This article was brought to my attention in another forum. I figure it'll add fuel to the fire in this thread.

ill be voting for that guy who says i dont have to pay taxes

I don't know what rock you've been living under, but here in Australia you have a choice to not pay taxes. This choice also comes with penalties, usually in the form of jailtime.

I'm worried about reds under the bed so I'll be voting for Libs.

ill be voting for that guy who says i dont have to pay taxes

I don't know what rock you've been living under, but here in Australia you have a choice to not pay taxes. This choice also comes with penalties, usually in the form of jailtime.

...or you can be a student/bum and taxes pay you :D

Gesthemene, yeh, polititions molestered me & this is the reason i now think they are all self-serving lying conniving lowlifes... not because of the political process that i have experienced over the last 40years.

political parties have to have policies & there will always be a way of viewing any policy as potentially benificial to a particular part of society & potentially harmful to thier careers... it all depends on how it pans out. saying that the workchoices policy & similar will benifit everyone in australia & will be detrimental to the libs for implementing it is just typical political bulls***.

ill be voting for that guy who says i dont have to pay taxes

I don't know what rock you've been living under, but here in Australia you have a choice to not pay taxes. This choice also comes with penalties, usually in the form of jailtime.

yer, you know i was talking about this guy hey?

http://www.revenuereview.com.au/

i should have editted my post, i still have to pay taxes, just not do a tax return

I liked this one the best:

Who cares about Tax cuts

I don't know either. Like seriously, who would care about getting more money in their hand every week? Surely not 100% of the population. Surely not.

howward is the smart vote. rudd is the fanboy vote.

Ross McMullin is a historian and biographer whose main interests are Australian history, politics and sport. He has researched and written extensively about the impact on Australia of its involvement in World War I. His books include the ALP centenary history The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party 1891–1991, the award-winning biography Pompey Elliott, and So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the World’s First National Labour Government. He has also contributed chapters to many other books.

Wow, he seems fairly neutral?

"The light on the hill" hahhaahaha.

We should have a 25% GST on everything and no personal income tax.

I don't know how anyone could possible form any opinion on how any government is doing in this country. They stop so much information coming to light through bulls*** loopholes and charging a bucket load of money to get things through the Freedom of Information act. Our state government sends so much to cabinet it is ridiculous. If you think they have your best interests you are sadly mistaken. All governments are doing it because they rely on the apathy of the media and the public.

remember what happened to Labor's last tax cuts? they never appeared. Pete has managed to cut taxes for the last 6 years or so. Pretty tidy imo.

yeah, might have been good if they took the hospitals from the states and spent some of that money fixing them up in that time.

NSW govt are useless. a federal fixup of NSW is NSW's only hope.

Hey infi-tesimal brain, if I sold my house I'd be out of debt too. I'd have nowhere to live, but heck at least I wouldn't be in debt. Just another example about the benefit of debt in fueling investment, the successful Macquarie Bank finances the majority of it's transactions based on credit from Equity Markets i.e. debt accumulation used as a driver to produce higher growth and to significantly enhance ROI. But according to you infi-tesimal brain if they were running the country we'd be a basket case in no time, well according to your logic (or lack of). Now let's take this further to companies like BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, our complete banking and finance industry an just about every single business in Australia whom have debt in some form even to the limits you are so proudly flaunting. Accordingly given your logic these must be unproductive, inviable and hurtling headlong into the dust bin of history. Oh wait, there not!

SFB, government debt != private debt in terms of its economic consequences.

For one thing, if politicians were only interested in their own careers and couldn't give a stuff about the country, then why are the Coalition implementing changes that are beneficial for the country, but possibly detrimental to their own careers?

If politicians were only interested in their own careers and seeking personal gain, they wouldn't be politicians.

Costello could rake in about $10 mil a year if he worked in the private sector for a large Investment Bank, Howard wouldn't struggle either.

Both parties are interested in winning votes, but the coalition is also prepared to make tough symbolic decisions they believe in, even when they know they won't be popular. Work Choices is a good example and Kyoto is even better.

If Howard was interested in populist politics like rudd, he would have ratified Kyoto ages ago, as it is nothing more than a symbolic gesture.

Australia isn't a signatory to Kyoto, yet we have met the targets that Kyoto set for Australia in regards to emissions. Nearly ALL of the countries that did ratify Kyoto have FAILED to meet their targets! He could have signed it last month as a bit of a publicity grab in the knowledge that we have reached the targets anyway, but that would be the popular road to travel, not the right one.

Stop talking sense and get back to the Labor-worshipping hyperbole.

Garrett would sign Kyoto like THAT *Snap*

hmm,

perhaps we should ratify it, then NOT meet the targets? As opposed to not ratifying it and meeting the targets?

Strangely I think Option 1 would be more effective in winning votes!

very interesting spidz

The sad fact that we are all missing about our electoral system is that you can be the most knowledgeable, passionate, informed follower of all the issues tabled and discussed as they apply to our wonderful democratic society, yet your vote at the polling booth on election day counts for exactly the same amount as the brain dead bogan who only shows up to tick a few boxes and avoid the fine.

I say abolish compulsory voting!

last edited by spidz at 16:54:10 13/Nov/07

I am male, single, middle-class, and white. Where are the policies that benefit me??

non-compulsory voting tends to make political systems more vulnerable to control by vocal/powerful minority groups, case in point the USA.

counts for exactly the same amount as the brain dead bogan who only shows up to tick a few boxes and avoid the fine.

but if you tick the boxes it doesn't count. so let them tick :)

Spidz, nice post. I agree.

I am male, single, middle-class, and white. Where are the policies that benefit me??

Do you own a business? If so, Coalition.

Are you a skilled or unskilled worker, or more importantly - are you good at your job? If you are unskilled and/or crap at your job. Labor. If you are skilled, or unskilled but a good worker - then Coalition.

Beyond that, both parties are pretty similar when it comes to the impact their policies will have on you directly.

but unfortunately that's what politics is now ... the free market, no political vision for the future except the economy, no public works, etc.. pretty sad. and in this regard labor today is just as bad as the liberals imo.

We live in a country with an "awesome economy" yet have failing infrastructure.
No water, roads are crap, our urban planning is crap, broadband is gaydongs.

I am voting 1 for an Alien Overlord. If nothing else the opiates they put in our water should keep us mellow.

there's no keeping you mellow obes, you raging fiend

Well shiver me timbers, I've been outed.

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2007/10/26/joemcdonald2_wideweb__470x378,0.jpg

No water

I turn on the tap and water comes out; until that stops happening the government is doing OK

roads are crap

well, unless you're talking about federally managed roads (I assume there are some) this is a state govt issue is it not? In any case, Brisbane is doomed unless we start investing in better public transport. I'd rather see more money going into trains/subways like every other civilised city has

broadband is gaydongs.

pretty much everyone I know has broadband, some even have ADSL2 - not sure why people think its so bad, other than its not 100mbit with unlimited transfer

The sad fact that we are all missing about our electoral system is that you can be the most knowledgeable, passionate, informed follower of all the issues tabled and discussed as they apply to our wonderful democratic society, yet your vote at the polling booth on election day counts for exactly the same amount as the brain dead bogan who only shows up to tick a few boxes and avoid the fine.

I say abolish compulsory voting!

Voting is non-compulsory in the States and we've all seen how that turned out.

amyescence 1, bush 0

amyescence - the alternative was Al Gore....

sometimes you are going to look stupid no matter who you vote for.

What progress would ever be made if we all stuck to the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it?" addage?

What we need is for our government to be afraid of us - not unlike they are in France - so that we get good deals from them. However, that takes bloodshed and revolution, of which I am not a fan.

I'm leaning towards voting for Kevin. While this may well be foolishness driven by not being old enough to remember Labor running the country, inasfar as I can see (and I haven't researched this a great deal because frankly I don't care enough) the Libs haven't done anything for me and maybe it's time to change things around a little. One is essentially as bad as the other - they are politicians, after all - so why not give Labor a turn in the sandbox?

Has anyone else noticed, though, that Kevin looks somewhat akin to a Gumnut Baby?

amyescence - the alternative was Al Gore....

sometimes you are going to look stupid no matter who you vote for.

I find him marginally less stupid. And if he had chosen to invade Iraq, he wouldn't have been doing so on the back of a statement like "Saddam tried to kill my daddy."

it would seem you are one of those people I was referring to in a previous post (the ones that shouldn't be allowed to vote!)

if it were only a sandbox i would probably risk voting for kevin too.

pretty much everyone I know has broadband, some even have ADSL2 - not sure why people think its so bad

Unless Telstra has changed their policy lately, they don't offer ADSL2 in exchanges where there is no competitor offering ADSL2. That's pretty bad, considering they easily just "flick the switch" to enable it the moment a competitor comes along.

Whether or not Telstra can or should be doing this is beside the point, it puts an artificial cap on broadband.

it would seem you are one of those people I was referring to in a previous post (the ones that shouldn't be allowed to vote!)

Yes, because my 1 vote is going to make or break the election.

Should I not be allowed to vote because I think Rudd would do a decent job when you don't? Or because I said I don't really care?

If it's the latter, I don't really care because as far as I've seen, there's a shortcoming to EVERY political party out there. Too left-wing, too right-wing... too pro-life... too anti-military. Whatever. For this particular four-year stretch in my life, I'd like to see what a Rudd government can do for Australia.

Obviously the country isn't just a sandbox. It was a metaphor to lighten the dreary mood that surrounds debates not unlike this.

SFB seems to have disappeared... I wonder where he's gone?

Amyescence, whoever you vote for, as long as you can choose based on their policies and philosophy. It's people who vote for a face who shouldn't be allowed to vote... and bogans.

Not a bogan and not voting for a face.

Kevin looking like a gumnut baby is just a bonus.

I turn on the tap and water comes out; until that stops happening the government is doing OK

Didn't notice the water restrictions ? ... population grows, and the water supply doesn't. It'll never run out!

well, unless you're talking about federally managed roads (I assume there are some) this is a state govt issue is it not? In any case, Brisbane is doomed unless we start investing in better public transport. I'd rather see more money going into trains/subways like every other civilised city has

The federal government gets most of our tax dollars. If they are running at a surplus (and they are) and services being provided by someone who gets money from federal sources (which they do) is sub par due to a lack of funding (questionable, but possibly a valid reason)... then surely the federal government can stop sitting on surpluses and start funding more local and state road projects ? The point of government is to make a society we want to live in, not turn a profit (wasting money is also not good). Now IF lack of funding is not the issue but rather poor use of the funds, then surely the federalis can ask how there money is being spent and kick up a fuss (but they aren't, whichc suggests they aren't unhappy with how its spent). The federal takes (most of) my money, they are ultimately responsible for its use.

pretty much everyone I know has broadband, some even have ADSL2 - not sure why people think its so bad, other than its not 100mbit with unlimited transfer

Your world is indro ... do you even know anyone outside the inner western suburbs ?
For us to get anything more then a 2meg link at work is insanely expensive. Why ? because we have to run it from town 17km's away. And we are right beside a major industrial area with some fairly large industries why ? you tell me since our communications infrastructure is so dandy ... and we need to improve regional areas because we have to stop making super cities.

Didn't notice the water restrictions ? ... population grows, and the water supply doesn't. It'll never run out!

Well considering the average human NEEDS 2 - 3 litres a day for hydration, and the "average" toilet flush is 3 - 6 litres (OF FRESH WATER, WTF), we will no suffer any health/social consequences anytime soon.

f***ing idiots, flushing our bogs with fresh drinking water.

I heard somewhere that if Howard gets in, every high school student/family will earn the parents $800.

Any truth to this?

/me thinks about the cost of running a second water system for the whole of Australia.

pretty much everyone I know has broadband, some even have ADSL2 - not sure why people think its so bad, other than its not 100mbit with unlimited transfer

Your world is indro ... do you even know anyone outside the inner western suburbs ?
For us to get anything more then a 2meg link at work is insanely expensive. Why ? because we have to run it from town 17km's away. And we are right beside a major industrial area with some fairly large industries why ? you tell me since our communications infrastructure is so dandy ... and we need to improve regional areas because we have to stop making super cities.

I was reading about a new industrial estate in Willawong. They can't get ADSL because Telstra won't put a DSLAM in their sub-exchange. They said that it costs $350,000 to put in a dslam and that they can't justify the cost. The article then goes on to say that "Telstra are in discussions with the Government to roll out a $4bn fibre network, but it wont be resolved until after the election (this came from the Telstra area manager or something)

Its naieve to think that just because you can get ADSL2+, everyone can. People in suburban Brisbane still can't even get ADSL, to a NEW business site no less.

I should add, I live in Mansfield, and I can get ADSL2+, however I can't sync at anything above 4Mbit. FTTN will obviously benefit me.

last edited by mongie at 20:45:49 13/Nov/07

I heard somewhere that if Howard gets in, every high school student/family will earn the parents $800.

yer, howards new cash grab

primary students get 400 bux a year for learning aids, high school gets 800

obviously this is at tax return time, for the parents

Its naieve to think that just because you can get ADSL2+, everyone can.

its retarded to think that now the government has sold telstra, that the government should have anything to do with how to run the company profitably

fully privatise telstra then they can run broadband networks wherever they like

Im happy with broadband in australia at the moment.

Ahh the days of calling people with cable "LPBs"


I'll be voting liberal, Just cant trust a guy who can talk himself out of any situation.

also, anyone who is happy with our current broadband has rocks in their heads

its too expensive, for too little downloads

it shoudl be way better

its too expensive, for too little downloads

Most people in Australia don't need the sort of broadband that you guys seem to want, and I don't want taxpayer money funding a mass rollout of broadband to Bumf***, NT so farmers can download episodes of Californication at 30mb/sec. Go back in time and unvote the people that sold Telstra if you want that sort of s*** to happen. Now market pressure will shape the face of broadband.

I'd love it if Telstra hadn't been sold and was happily using its vast cash reserves and vast revenue to roll out high speed tubes for the good of the entire country. But it was sold and now its a company.

even if there was a FTTN network wouldn't download limits be the same because the wholesale cost of buying the data would still be the same?

so farmers can download episodes of Californication at 30mb/sec

that would be so f***ing awesome

also, anyone who is happy with our current broadband has rocks in their heads

its too expensive, for too little downloads

it shoudl be way better

Anybody who understands population density understands why Australia's broadband is so s***ty.

well, considering its such a major part of labors campaign, i guess they figure it should be much better than it is now

so, whats your point typo? they shoudlnt bother?

mate, im not saying we should be the fastest in the world, but check where we are on the graph, for a country that uses internets as much as we do, thats a disgrace

http://members.iinet.net.au/~davidbroughton/broadbandspeedchart.jpg

last edited by Spook at 21:55:27 13/Nov/07

how does population density stop a new company from providing decent bandwidth to sydney / brisbane / melbourne residents?

especially when other cities with populations comprable to those have it.

i'm not trying to be smart, i'm actually curious...

http://forums.mactalk.com.au/showthread.php?t=32769

also does anyone know the answer to my question up there ^^^^^ ?

taggs: When there is a FTTN, there will be a new DSL platform to support vdsl.
Data will cost a damn sight less, but Telstra would still make like thieves in relative proportion to the carriage cost.
Right now, if Telstra offered DSL+ wholesale (if they 'flicked a switch'), they'd probably have spend I reckon $20-30 million to do it, and it would be a waste of money, and it wouldn't work very well, and they'd lose a heap of money, face, and bargaining power WRT FTTN and a bunch of other projects. So imho is not going to happen anytime soon.

Right now 8Mbit seems to be the sweet spot as it's generally enough for most people and the existing copper netowrk, slows dslam rollouts, and throttles the wholesale market to provide their own international capacity for all your bittorrents.

Anybody who understands population density understands why Australia's broadband is so s***ty.

The reality is that government decisions that force Telstra to almost give away its infrastructure has far more impact then population density. Why bother paying to roll out a cable out to whoop whoop when you have to lend some of that to a rival company. So instead Telstra do little and wait. They can because no one else is going to do it in any big way.

I'd love it if Telstra hadn't been sold and was happily using its vast cash reserves and vast revenue to roll out high speed tubes for the good of the entire country. But it was sold and now its a company.

nah theres no way telstra would have ever done this, they're a useless, inefficient juggernaut full of lazy, pseudo-government workers where intra-company politics is more motivating than the supposed service they provide.

the privitisation of the company was the kick in the balls it needed, yet 10+ years later its still plodding along as useless as ever. that they still hold such a strangle hold is probably more due to sheer market inertia (specifically in the land line market) than anything else, and if it wasn't for the amount of infrastructure they already own they'd be struggling to be competitive. then they drag their feet on any new technology, for fear it'll obsolete the same infrastructure.

though, i'm sure you're views are different when your payslip has a telstra logo on it.

Telstra should have been split into its Service Provider and Infrastructure assets divisions. The SP could have been sold whilst the govt maintained an ownership of IA, meaning they could upgrade the networks when needed.

Alas, Not many people would buy shares without the IA.

nah theres no way telstra would have ever done this, they're a useless, inefficient juggernaut full of lazy, pseudo-government workers where intra-company politics is more motivating than the supposed service they provide.

Yet despite that, most of the country at least has phone lines because of them. Any government organisation has a built in quota of uselessness, but the sheer mass of Telstra as a government organisation would have at least spread its tendrils across the whole country.

yet 10+ years later its still plodding along as useless as ever.

not according to its revenue, which is still kicking ass, despite the privatisation supposedly giving people choice. I agree market inertia has a big role there - most people just cbf changing.

then they drag their feet on any new technology, for fear it'll obsolete the same infrastructure.

Next-G, by all reports, is one of the fastest (if not the fastest?) wireless broadband in the world?

though, i'm sure you're views are different when your payslip has a telstra logo on it.

well, it doesn't, though I won't deny that my job is working for Telstra - though I like to think that my colleagues and I have done more to make Telstra's broadband offerings in Australia more useful than pretty much anything else they've ever done.

Clearly this last statement is just a lame attempt to try and score points off me in an argument, because its quite clear that the government spending more money on Telstra and broadband would only serve to make my life better anyway - so if you're trying to use my payslip in an argument, you should probably take that into consideration and realise that my position is more likely to result in me not having one.

fade: couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks to Telstra maintaining control over the vast continent spanning infrastructure built up by years of government investment, competition is still being stifled and the smaller companies don't have the funds to replicate the taxpayer funded pipes.

By floating the company the government have made it harder to split these two areas and if Labor were to take government, the last thing all the mum and dad investors want to see is their share price fall further - let alone the hammering the ALP's economic credentials would take.

yeh fade's idea is how it should have been done. I'd love to see the govt buying telstra back (making a killing because of the low stock price, haha) and then doing exactly that.

wireless broadband

I always find the term a little bit of a joke. They still run wires to the routers/transmitters. And wireless is still much behind wired. I can do 10gig on wires ... what 165meg on wireless ?

Admittedly the csiro are up to 6gig over 250m or so ... but its not a commerical solution (yet). And its always going to be "shared" bandwidth.

Seriously I don't see how you can defend any company that rolled out RIM/Pair Gain into new areas and estates ...

competition is still being stifled and the smaller companies don't have the funds to replicate the taxpayer funded pipes.

when the privitisation happened the only pipes that were around then that are still used is the copper from homes to exchanges. the inter exchange, interstate and international links would have all been replaced. this was all funded by Telstra, the privitised company.

And Telstra were not alone in running these pipes. These days there are plenty to choose from uuecom, chime, optus, sprint, pipe, powertel.

Furthermore, the G9 have more market capitilisation then Telstra does and they are not saddled with regulation saying any infrastructure they roll out anyone can use so let them build their own.

last edited by ara at 01:39:23 14/Nov/07

Seriously I don't see how you can defend any company that rolled out RIM/Pair Gain into new areas and estates ...

RIMs are not a bad thing. Soon you can start calling them a new name, nodes.

RIMs are the node in fibre to the node. Their closeness to premesis and the fact that they are linked back to the exchange by fibre make them the idea stepping stone to FTTN and then FTTP.

If instead of using RIMs telstra ran copper out from the nearest exchange and the local loops were > 8km or something, everyone would be up in arms about their inability to get ADSL.

Holy f***.

Its going to take me an hour to correct all of these posts.

Lets get started.

yer, howards new cash grab
primary students get 400 bux a year for learning aids, high school gets 800. obviously this is at tax return time, for the parents

For one, when the Howard government announced this during their campain launch on Monday, they were accused of my favourite thing... "me-tooism". The interesting thing is, that the coalition's policy is slightly different to labor's. Labor have announced (slightly more money, i think) for primary and high scool students BUT ONLY FOR FAMILIES ON FAMILY TAX BENEFIT A

--

Its naieve to think that just because you can get ADSL2+, everyone can.

its retarded to think that now the government has sold telstra, that the government should have anything to do with how to run the company profitably

Read up on Telstra's USO (Universal Service Offering). Its basically a set of services that Telstra has to offer as the owner of the national phone network. This doesn't cover "having to offer broadband" but it is basically what Telstra HAVE TO DO no matter how profitable it is. Also note that 3rd party companies are unable to install hardware in sub-exchanges and that means, the buck stops with Telstra as far as them getting broadband over phone lines.

--

its too expensive, for too little downloads

Most people in Australia don't need the sort of broadband that you guys seem to want, and I don't want taxpayer money funding a mass rollout of broadband to Bumf***, NT so farmers can download episodes of Californication at 30mb/sec. Go back in time and unvote the people that sold Telstra if you want that sort of s*** to happen. Now market pressure will shape the face of broadband.

I'd love it if Telstra hadn't been sold and was happily using its vast cash reserves and vast revenue to roll out high speed tubes for the good of the entire country. But it was sold and now its a company.

You basically agree with the Liberal party's policy on Broadband, and yet you seem to prefer Labor?

Labor's policy is to form a Public Private Partnership (PPP) with "A Company" - most probably Telstra, to build a FTTN network across 98% of Australia. The PPP would involve around $5bn of taxpayer's funds being contributed along with a similar amount from the successful company. The Coalition has stated that they don't think taxpayers should have to pay for the network. They are running an open-tender process for a company to build a FTTN network in the major capital cities, and will pay around $1bn to OpEl to roll out WiMAX to the rest of Australia, eventually hitting 98% coverage (FTTN + WiMAX).

Labor = $5bn taxpayer's funds (INCLUDING $2BN FROM THE COMMUNICATIONS FUND THAT THE LIBERAL PARTY SET UP TO FUND FUTURE UPGRADES TO THE NETWORK)

Liberal = $1bn taxpayer's funds

I know which one I prefer.

On the point you mention about people using their 30Mb connections to download Californication... My company has 11 offices around Australia, head office is in Sydney, and our connection to the Sydney office for 320 people here in Brisbane? 4MBIT ATM@!!@!@!!@!!@!

How much you ask? IN THE THOUSANDS.

A dedicated FTTN network in capital cities will push down the price of business connections. It is well documented however that the INTERNET COST of broadband (that is, the part that is not the cost of running the network) is affected mostly by high international data costs, due to only having SXC and AJC out of Australia.

---

taggs: When there is a FTTN, there will be a new DSL platform to support vdsl. Data will cost a damn sight less, but Telstra would still make like thieves in relative proportion to the carriage cost.
Right now, if Telstra offered DSL+ wholesale (if they 'flicked a switch'), they'd probably have spend I reckon $20-30 million to do it, and it would be a waste of money, and it wouldn't work very well, and they'd lose a heap of money, face, and bargaining power WRT FTTN and a bunch of other projects. So imho is not going to happen anytime soon.

Right now 8Mbit seems to be the sweet spot as it's generally enough for most people and the existing copper netowrk, slows dslam rollouts, and throttles the wholesale market to provide their own international capacity for all your bittorrents.

Its widely understood that Telstra only do need to 'flick a switch' to turn on ADSL2+ at exchanges where other ISPs aren't already offering it. Their issue is with access costs for thier competitors, since by offering it retail, they would also be forced to offer it wholesale under the USO.

Telstra have said, as soon as they get the contract for building the FTTN, they will switch on ADSL2+ everywhere. Its ready to go right now... they don't need to do anything.

--

Telstra should have been split into its Service Provider and Infrastructure assets divisions. The SP could have been sold whilst the govt maintained an ownership of IA, meaning they could upgrade the networks when needed.

Alas, Not many people would buy shares without the IA.

Its happening in New Zealand at the moment to NZT, and its on the cards for Telstra as well. At the moment, telstra have "Operational Seperation" which basically means they are managed as two seperate companies, within the one.

What we really need, is for Telstra to be forcibly split into a Retail arm and a Wholesale arm, completely, not just operationally.

--

Yet despite that, most of the country at least has phone lines because of them. Any government organisation has a built in quota of uselessness, but the sheer mass of Telstra as a government organisation would have at least spread its tendrils across the whole country.

Not sure what you mean here, but the first sentance certainly falls under the category of "USO" (see up)

--

not according to its revenue, which is still kicking ass, despite the privatisation supposedly giving people choice. I agree market inertia has a big role there - most people just cbf changing.

Its strange that their revenue is "kicking ass" despite their hardship under the ACCC's access regime... hrmm?

then they drag their feet on any new technology, for fear it'll obsolete the same infrastructure.

Next-G, by all reports, is one of the fastest (if not the fastest?) wireless broadband in the world?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... (catches breath) HAHHAHAHAHAHA.

oh dear.

We use NextG at work here, we use over a thousand cards, and let me tell you something, its horrible. We used to use EVDO cards which worked on the CDMA network, and everyone tells me how the range was better, and it seemed quicker.

There is also controversy over Telstra wanting to stop the CDMA network (also falls under USO). The ACCC are stopping Telstra from switching it off until NextG is at equivelent coverage. Telstra claim it is, all the farmers who try to get it (CAUSE THEY CAN'T GET LONG LINE ADSL (read up on that one folks)) seem to have a lot of trouble using it, when their CDMA phones and datacards work fine.

--

Bring on the backlash.

Oh, and what I came here to post was...

Article by Peter Costello on Kevin Rudd's past from News.com.au

Oh, heres another one for you...

Tasmanian Labor Government supports Liberal Broadband Plan

you must feel deeply about this topic

On the point you mention about people using their 30Mb connections to download Californication... My company has 11 offices around Australia, head office is in Sydney, and our connection to the Sydney office for 320 people here in Brisbane? 4MBIT ATM@!!@!@!!@!!@!

How much you ask? IN THE THOUSANDS.

who is your ISP? ATM is expensive to run. Setting up ATM clouds for customers and ensuring redundant paths between their ATM sites is not cheap.

We use NextG at work here, we use over a thousand cards, and let me tell you something, its horrible. We used to use EVDO cards which worked on the CDMA network, and everyone tells me how the range was better, and it seemed quicker.

what are your problems with nextg? i use it when im down in melbourne and i have no problems. I use it in sydney to leech stuff from Gamearena/BP files and i get awesome speeds for a wireless service. Faster then my ADSL connection from iinet at times.

Our problems with NextG are twofold.

1) ZTE, the manufacturer of the cards we use (and all of the Telstra branded NextG phones) are completely useless, in everyway. I have a card that has just come back from them after being replaced sitting right next to me. (They send you a nice little piece of bubble wrap to send your faulty card back in, and ship me a new card in a plastic bag.)

Their problem is, when you create a network that is not standard (850mhz HSDPA) you need hardware.... and what did Telstra do? Find a cheap manufacturer to make them data cards and phones at a good price. The problem is, their hardware and software suck.

2) We get poor coverage. I have clients going all over Australia, and they find poor coverage in all sorts of places, ranging from the Gold Coast, to Emerald.

--

ISP is Telstra, as if you couldn't guess. (edit: after checking this out, we're not actually using ATM, we're using TPIPS.) Our Sydney to Melbourne link is over ATM I believe.

last edited by mongie at 11:07:47 14/Nov/07

last edited by mongie at 11:10:31 14/Nov/07

I have the Bigpond Option card running the 7Mbit firmware.

Maybe your problem isn't the network, it is the cards you use.

if anyone think that these men are the ones who run all the figures and do all the hard work, I'm completely amused.

Kevin Rudd isn't going to do any major hard work, he's just the puppet at the top that says all the bulls*** to keep australia happy, as is the case with Howerd and all his fellow pollies.

These guys aren't the one who crunch all the numbers and statistics, they get a report which they then relay into cabinet and the senate. It's obtuse to think that specific people will do any job better or worse than others. Howard won't do any majorly different things to Costello, beacuse they're not really doing anything.

It's easier to just examine their direction by their policies.

Clearly labor is, and always has been for the blue collar and their targeting that and families. And liberal is for the white collar corporates, and the employers. Liberal likes surplus to keep the people happy, Labor likes spending to keep the people happy.

At the end of the day, I personally believe that Howeard and Costello would be one and the same anyway, so if you're not voting for Liberal simply because you don't want costello to take over, then in my mind that's not a very educated choice.

Look at their policies, not their leader.

I have the Bigpond Option card running the 7Mbit firmware.

Maybe your problem isn't the network, it is the cards you use.

As a client to Telstra who is spending more than $110k a month on NextG, its poor service. We've been having issues for a long time, and Telstra have basically wiped their hands of us.

We use an extra layer for VPN as well, which makes things interesting. We haven't upgraded to the 7.2mbit firmware, because as you would understand, being that the cards are designed for use away from the office, it is quite a challenge to get over a thousand cards in for a manual firmware update.

if telstra nextg is so bad, why don't you go with vodafone or 3?

see this is the beauty of mobile phone infrastucture, it is replicated. this is the reason i am against all the arguments about only building 1 FTTN/FTTP network. it removes competition in the infrastructure space.

Let Telstra build their own and let the G9/11 build their own and see who comes out on top.

We went with Telstra assuming it would be ok (NOTE: I'm not involved in the decision making process) Telstra are the company that we use for everything else (Vodafone for Blackberries)

I guess the point is, Telstra do have the Best network coverage, but their network is still flawed and has serious issues. Under the USO, they are required to provide service at the level of the CDMA network (in order to shut it down). When we are buying cards from Telstra, and using the Telstra network, regardless of the cause of the issue, its Telstra's problem.

I am not the only one who is having issues... There are 3 main complaints about NextG.

Cost of access in comparison to LLADSL
Quality of Hardware (specifically with the Telstra branded Phone handsets which are manufacturerd by ZTE)
Coverage area and speed of connection in random areas around Australia.

Since it may help you understand what I'm talking about on the first point, I'll explain what I'm talkign about with LLADSL.

A year or two ago, Telstra commissioned a trial of a product known as "Long Line ADSL" which involved putting a mini-dslam half way between the client and the exchange. Pricing was very similar if not the same as regular ADSL. The trial was very successful, as mentioned by Telstra, and it was planned to be introduced soon afterwards.

THEN COMES MR NEXTG.
Soon after Telstra released NextG, they wiped all traces of LLADSL from thier website and claimed that it would now not be introduced. The reason? They can make more money form LLADSL. We pay $110inc gst for unlimited NextG (probably to an AUP, I'm not sure) but retail customers get slogged for any decent amount of usage, as you would know. So, thats the story of LLADSL. People on the trial can't even get it now.

If you do a bit of looking around on relevant websites, you will see there are a lot of people unhappy with the service they are receiving.

--

When optus finish their 3g upgrade to 98% of the popultion, it will be fair game.

last edited by mongie at 12:16:58 14/Nov/07

You are comparing fixed line broadband to mobile broadband and crying about speed and coverage? Is that the jist of it?

Do you work for Telstra too Ara?

Wow... You're completely missing what I'm saying.

Its ready to go right now... they don't need to do anything.

That, my friend, is called eating your own dogfood... No, it is not ready, it will not scale without significant investment in hardware (specifically the at the aggregation point). I suppose they could keep recycling and augmenting their old ERXs, but that would cost a mint to maintain and scale.

I have finally decided to enter this debate, i just wished more of you would stick to some meaningful debate rather than regurgitate the rhetoric that the parties have produced so far... or go too far off on tangents!?

if anyone think that these men are the ones who run all the figures and do all the hard work, I'm completely amused.

Kevin Rudd isn't going to do any major hard work, he's just the puppet at the top that says all the bulls*** to keep australia happy, as is the case with Howerd and all his fellow pollies.

These guys aren't the one who crunch all the numbers and statistics...

Moo: You would also like to think that every CEO/CFO crunches the numbers? are you kidding me? Alot of ministers run departments that are larger and employ more people than any private company in australia. your generalisations are poor at best.
Ps, I dont mean to single you out, you just happened to be the last I have read. :/

SFB: I know alot of people have bagged you on here but your comments are appreciated by some. I always have liked your political commentary! I have different views but better to live in a 'free speech' society than one in Myanmar (Burma). To which I would say our government has done nothing! Although maybe some people in this country would be best to spend some time in countries that do not enjoy our freedoms. (especially to those that do not think that compulsory voting is a good idea)

In saying that, my view on the election promises are as followed, although, I, (even after reading both parties releases) have a bias towards the right. However I do believe Labor has a couple of good points within their policies but not overall. (eg climate change, read: $500 mil clean coal fuel investments - coal gasification ftw)

1) Labour revolution (my words) has been great for change and keeping up with market 'rapid' change/movements. eg. I have worked with many mothers that have come back into the work force and they have certainly 'demanded' flexibility that is allowed under these reforms. However i do not strongly believe that the changes mean that workers have "more influence" but employers are forced into greater competition, allowing workers to have greater choice. I believe the following has been argued in this forum: what will happen when there is a down turn in the market!? time will tell but imo, atm, both demand and supply sides of the labour market have benefited under these new laws.

2) On taxation, labor has committed to the coalitions' terms. Potentially gone overboard. One thing the coalition has done well is to introduce Tax Reform (other than GST) in a progressive fashion. This allows for the economy to adjust and not see a 'price to wage' spiral effect. **
- One downside to coalition, the compliance that it introduce with both the GST and Work Choices f***ed business initially
- One upside to coalition, they listened to the business community and rectified the compliance costs to business reasonably efficiently (work choices quicker than GST... ie so they have improved!)

** I really fear for labor's costings they have promised a s*** load with out really specifying when they will deliver the reform. On top of that their Tax Reform reduces the income tax revenue by a s***load by dropping the extra bracket. I would just like to see some independent costings of each parties policies to date. It may be out there but I have not come across it.

3) Housing, again the policies are inconsequential here, although I do not like the CGT exemption for parents buying property for children (coalition policy). Need to have a dis-incentive for people buying "lots of" residential property as an investment tool. However, positive aspect with regard to the policy (and labor's), if I read them correctly, effectively the housing savings accounts amount to people being able to have a taxable income of 45-47k (instead of 35-37k) taxed at 15% which is awesome! Not taking into account tax free threshold.

4) Education (non tertiary), Health, Transport, are state issues and have failed time and time again, state after state, regardless of party persuasion. Coalition coming in with Transport policies look great (only looked at SEQ but agreed with the development) and I will blindly accept the others but really 'other state people' need to analyse it for their own benefit.
Health and Education policies have not been a major focus yet. I would like to see that primary and secondary kids get tested not only for academia but also get tested for physical abilities. ie. tackle obesity in kids at a younger age.

5) Climate change: SERIOUSLY we have 1% of ALL greenhouse emissions in THE world. Who the f*** cares if we completely stop ALL our emissions!!!??? within 6 months I am sure china will have wiped that little milestone off our faces! The best idea is to MASSIVELY invest in technology that will reduce greenhouse gases whether or not it will directly help our plight. I would like to think that we can benefit more in reducing China's (India, etc...) emissions by our technology than what we can do in signing a non binding protocol that means f*** all on paper as it does in practice! This rhetoric above all else, pisses me off the most. Stick to entertainment PG!

6) Debt: This is mainly to you SFB, and this may have been answered but I would like to reiterate. Private Debt is completely different to Government debt, at least in theory. And one that I subscribe to!
Basically any dollar that the govt can invest the private market will invest that dollar more efficiently (whether debt or equity), and hence, yes a debt/equity split may be more productive, but it is only really "realised" in the private market. The simple reason is the allocation of risk.
This is a dilemma that has plagued many recent 'administrations' (an amercian term I know) as there is an increasing demand in utilising PPPs (Private Public Partnerships) in delivering policies, however they are very hard to, allocate risk to, and hence, assign costs and responsibilities to. Also, they are near to impossible to administer without extreme scrutiny. With increasing scrutiny comes an increasing rate of compliance costs. Primarily, this is as a result of different demand expectation in returns i) taxpayer's money vs ii) shareholders investment.
So Debt is an efficient way of increasing ones wealth but not necessarily in the hands of the government.
Although, imo, there is a need to step in to markets (even when efficiency is in operation) so not to completely ruin the community at large, and imo where the market has failed in this in recent times, is in the residential property market (SEQ).

I have a whole lot on "Defence" but I think that maybe a little too radical for this forum. Essentially, imo, IRAQ was good policy based on the wrong idea and there are other such places that need as much attention, if not more, from Australia's pro democracy, "high moral standards", especially in and around the region of Australia!

Do you work for Telstra too Ara?

I have never been employed by Telstra.

The shelving of LLADSL would have more to do with not wanting to roll the product out for competitors and Telstra's upcoming FTTN/FTTP plans then anything to do with NextG.

This is why I am not understanding your arguement.

even if there was a FTTN network wouldn't download limits be the same because the wholesale cost of buying the data would still be the same?

taggs: When there is a FTTN, there will be a new DSL platform to support vdsl.
Data will cost a damn sight less, but Telstra would still make like thieves in relative proportion to the carriage cost.

i dunno if i phrased that question right, i mean like the australian ISPs buy data from overseas companies right? the transcontinental companies that sell them the data on the giant tubes (NOT TRUCKS) that link australia to rest of the world or something. so how would the cost of that data change with an internal FTTN network? wouldn't we have faster speeds but the same download limits?

also, twat is on the money regarding debt. not to mention government debt crowds out private investment. i usually wouldn't recommend using wikipedia for anything economics related as most of it is pretty wrong but that's an okay explanation.

edit: <-- noob cant use html tags right LOL

last edited by taggs at 14:24:42 14/Nov/07

mongie, you should get together with infi and have liberal babies

"So if you want to see a well-managed national economy, put a Queenslander in charge of it," she said.

haha, from smh.

if only there was another country that we could steal tax revenue from it could fix all our problems.

dRanged, I know for a fact that Telstra "can" turn on ADSL2+ at all of their exchanges within 48 hours... for that is what they have promised should they get the rights to a FTTN.

I'm over the BB thing... Ara, Users of the LLADSL trial were offered NextG after the LLADSL trial, and that is what users are told to connect to when they can't get ADSL.

The sitting government isn't planning FTTN throughout country australia (where LLADSL was trialed) and since Optus will be running the rural wifi network, I doubt thats the reason.

As for the access regime, well since its a mini-dslam, other companies would be forced to install their own mini-dslam on their own copper line (this comes back to the forced cutover issues with the G9 FTTN plan)

The sitting government isn't planning FTTN throughout country australia (where LLADSL was trialed) and since Optus will be running the rural wifi network, I doubt thats the reason.

Current government isn't planning any FTTN. Telstra want to do it but not unless they can run it for themselves and let others build their own if they want access to a FTTN network. G9/11 aren't happy about that and want the government to FUND them to build the network and compell Telstra to join their group.

As for the access regime, well since its a mini-dslam, other companies would be forced to install their own mini-dslam on their own copper line

No, you see other companies could be doing this already if they wanted to for uses who get subpar speeds on their ADSL2 kit but they don't. Similarly, if telstra did it for their customers other companies would demand the same treatment for their customers using telstra wholesale. At present, it is unlikely that either Telstra or the others will recover the costs of their DSLAM rollouts before FTTN, so I can't see more rollouts happening.

(this comes back to the forced cutover issues with the G9 FTTN plan)

It is a myth that DSLAM infrastructure already deployed in exchanges will be stranded if FTTN is rolled out. It is a myth propergated by G9/11 to scare users into support their single and open FTTN rollout. There is no reason why the installation of a node would require all lines back to the exchange to be ripped out. It may be a different matter if users go to FTTN and then wish to switch back but it isn't the instant breaking of current deployments that G9/11 make it out to be.

last edited by ara at 15:16:13 14/Nov/07

So much arguing.

But seriously, be you Labor, Liberal, Green, Free-Marijuana or independent.

Do you HONESTLY think the coalition have even a snowflake's chance next week?


Didn't think so..

so, whats your point typo? they shoudlnt bother?

No, my point is that we shouldn’t expect the same broadband features of countries that have cities that have anywhere from half to more than our entire national population. We can’t even hijack rich countries backbone cheaply.

mate, im not saying we should be the fastest in the world, but check where we are on the graph, for a country that uses internets as much as we do, thats a disgrace

Have you noticed the population densities of those nations, and who they border? I think 20 nations on that list are Europe, which means that they can hijack the f*** out of rich countries bandwidth. Not to mention that Telecommunications companies can afford to run a line out to bum f*** nowhere as a loss leader excersise.

The remainder of your nations are some of the richest, or most populous nations in the world. I’d love to see that graph rationalised with GDP, Population Density and geographic assistance.

how does population density stop a new company from providing decent bandwidth to sydney / brisbane / melbourne residents?

summary there are more people to purchase s*** per square kilometre.

The vast majority of countries on that list have multiple cities that make Australian cities look quite small and meek. Let’s pick one at random: London has 4,761/km², while Melbourne has 479.6/km². That’s right, London has an order of magnitude more people than Melbourne city has.

In fact, while we are on this exercise, let’s compare national population density. The entire UK has a population density of 246/km², while Australia has 2.6/km². That’s right, the UK has two orders of magnitude more people per kilometre square than Australia does.

Now what does that mean? Well, first of all it means that if a Telecommunications company wants to build something in any random part of the UK, there is going to be, on average, two orders of magnitude more people will be available to purchase their crappy product than they would if they decided to build something in any random part of Australia.

Now what does that really mean? Imagine you want to give totally sex internet provisions to someone in the city of Dundee Scotland, but you have to dig a big f***ing trench from London to provision it.
1) Before you start, you can make a metric f***on of money just provisioning London.
2) You’ll dig your trench so you can provision as many high density locations a long the way as possible. Which, by the way is a f***ing lot of them.
3) Even in places that don’t have a lot of people, there will probably be enough people to help mitigate, or totally negate your investment costs in the long term.

Now, what happens if I want to provision Mt Isa with totally sex internet provisioning.
1) You’ll be making a f***load less money than someone in a high density country simply because there’s less people who want to purchase your s***.
2) There’s f*** all high population density locations along the way. So there’s nothing to mitigate any of your costs.
3) When you get there, there are even less people who might want to purchase your s***ty product than there was where you started.

especially when other cities with populations comprable to those have it.

For two reasons:
A) We have to drop a few thousand kilometres of cable every time we want to increase our national capacity.
B) Most other nations have a national population density that helps mitigate the costs.
C) People in the bush don’t understand why they don’t deserve phat sex internet and cry like wounded fags.
D) Australian Capital Cities are f***ing tiny compared to the rest of the world. f***, our capital cities are smaller than most Rural centres in many parts of the USA or Europe. s***, there are some small cities in the UK that have more people per square kilometre than any city in Australia.

The reality is that government decisions that force Telstra to almost give away its infrastructure has far more impact then population density. Why bother paying to roll out a cable out to whoop whoop when you have to lend some of that to a rival company. So instead Telstra do little and wait. They can because no one else is going to do it in any big way.

Yeah, because Telecom was such a wonder of speed and efficiency when it came to rolling out new fangled technology … However, I do agree that the Government selling off the infrastructure arm of Telstra was the worst thing they could have done.

Geez to think of it Telstra has been quiet lately haven't they

makes you wonder what Kev and Sol have buddied up on.

From a technical standpoint, I reckon they should cut everything off at the knees, none of this mid-point injection rubbish

There's talk of getting up to a gig over copper at short distances with some ninja frequency hopping, if you have to include exchange based deployments it'll bone any chances of a long-term homogeneous (cheap!) rollout

Current government isn't planning any FTTN. Telstra want to do it but not unless they can run it for themselves and let others build their own if they want access to a FTTN network. G9/11 aren't happy about that and want the government to FUND them to build the network and compell Telstra to join their group.

This is completely untrue.

http://www.dcita.gov.au/communications_for_consumers/funding_programs__and__support/australia_connected/expert_taskforce

Do you remember the "expert taskforce" who are currently reviewing Telstra and G9 along with other tenders to build a FTTN?

The G9's original SAU (Special Access Undertaking) which was released before the government actually got into the issue, required cutting the line at the node between the exchange, so they would disconnect your line from the exchange and connect it up to the node, physically. They also required Telstra to join their network (obviously) and overbuild protection for 10 years.

Since the SAU was launched, the Government started an open tender process, and the G9 has submitted other plans.

I've already posted this info like 3 times in this thread!

Typo, what about New Zealand?

Their population density is around 15/km2, and they have a far lower population than australia, and yet they can build a FTTN network!

typo: you're being misleading using Australias overally population density.

Sure if you divide our population by our surface area we have a really low figure because we have a large country with a small population.

*However* we're also one of the most urbanised countries in the world. If not the most (possible exceptions with places like Vatican City etc) urbanised.

A large majority of our population live in our cities or large towns.

A lot of other countries on the other hand have people spread out all over the place. They don't all live in big cities or a few large towns.

Sure we have a small population living out in hard to reach spaces. But the large majority live in relatively small areas (though sure we're not all as crowded together as in places like London).

how would the cost of that data change with an internal FTTN network?

Well I guess the more you buy, the less you pay, right? Also most of the ongoing cost is in the interfaces, and you can always upgrade the underlying dwdm transmission (current tech is 192 wavelengths @ 1G per fiber) when necessary. Even better if you roll your own.

The truth is, FTTN won't bring data prices down dramatically.

We need more international capacity. Currently there are only two major links. The AJC (Australia -> Japan) and SXC (Australia - Hawaii - US)

Optus owns most of SXC and Telstra owns AJC. Pipe are llooking at making a new cable to Guam, which will help, but we need a lot more options to stimulate pricing

Thought this was interesting... Mind you, it could have been tampered with (you can keep voting if you clear cookies)

http://mongie.com/ulimages/viu1195019933t.JPG

Do you remember the "expert taskforce" who are currently reviewing Telstra and G9 along with other tenders to build a FTTN?

But this isn't the government planning to build one. It is the government reviewing who they are going to let build it. Telstra was way ahead of the curve with this. The G9/11 and government movement has all be reactionary to Telstra's initial proposals. Which was for them to build a FTTN fully funded by Telstra on the proviso that they don't have to let their competitors use it.

The G9's original SAU (Special Access Undertaking) which was released before the government actually got into the issue, required cutting the line at the node between the exchange, so they would disconnect your line from the exchange and connect it up to the node, physically.

Exactly. G9 propergate the idea that the cable must be cut, which doesn't need to happen unless you want FTTN. Otherwise you can just go ahead with whatever you are currently using.

They also required Telstra to join their network (obviously) and overbuild protection for 10 years.

Ofcourse. They cry about lack of competition in the infrastructure space and then don't want anyone to compete with their infrastructure proposal. Also, they don't have the knowledge or skillbase to roll something like this out without Telstra/NDC being involved.

mongie - Labor voters probably don't read the news.

Nor use the internets :D

You'll notice the past tense in the last two statements.

You cut out the part where I said "since the SAU, the Government has formalised the tender process and the G9 has submitted plans that do not require the cutover, or Telstra.

YOU ALSO SAID THAT THE G9 WANTED THE GOVERNMENT TO PAY FOR IT, WHICH IS COMPLETELY WRONG.

Optus owns most of SXC and Telstra owns AJC. Pipe are llooking at making a new cable to Guam, which will help, but we need a lot more options to stimulate pricing

Optus only own 40% of SXC, 50% is owned by TNZ and 10% is owned by Verizon.

AJC is owned by Reach, which is 50% owned by Telstra, but I think Telstra bought PWWC's share after PWWC wrote it off due to massive losses.

You are leaving out SEA-ME-WE 3.

YOU ALSO SAID THAT THE G9 WANTED THE GOVERNMENT TO PAY FOR IT, WHICH IS COMPLETELY WRONG.

Are you telling me G9/11 want no money from the government to build their FTTN network? None?

Are you telling me G9/11 want no money from the government to build their FTTN network? None?

Yes, yes I am. Unless you can prove otherwise. The G9 plan was to bring in external investors, not to get monies from the Government, cause the Government isn't giving out any monies!

Also, SEA-ME-WE 3 is not really used that much, it goes to Perth doesn't it? and its slow as s***!

The G9 plan was to bring in external investors, not to get monies from the Government, cause the Government isn't giving out any monies!

What about tax breaks and subsidies?

3) Housing, again the policies are inconsequential here, although I do not like the CGT exemption for parents buying property for children (coalition policy). Need to have a dis-incentive for people buying "lots of" residential property as an investment tool.

what? this is a great policy.

Its not just for parents to buy their kids lots of houses. It's if a parent takes shared equity in their childs FIRST home, they are not liable for CGT if the kid decides to sell up. So you are limited to doing it once per child and it needs to be shared equity.

This is a fantastic policy, one of the better ones actually.

spidz, i think it would be good in different circumstances. It is not doing much to free up the housing supply, just increasing the demand by incentivising people that have the money, most likely those with greater wealth, to buy more houses.

Thought this was interesting... Mind you, it could have been tampered with (you can keep voting if you clear cookies)

940 votes is statistically insignificant and only right wing fascists read and believe anything on news.com.au

I'll be voting Liberty and Democracy Party as my first choice as they are the only true libertarian choice we have. but i know they have f*** all chance of winning because australian politics is retarded so i'll have to figure out who to preference

taggs:

they are actually hoping for a NSW senate seat (!?) they reckon they only need 0.22% of the vote to get a seat because of the way preferences will pan out. they are also handing out the beggers hat and running a pledge drive. LDP - "left of cheech and chong and right of ghengis khan"

spidz, i think it would be good in different circumstances. It is not doing much to free up the housing supply, just increasing the demand by incentivising people that have the money, most likely those with greater wealth, to buy more houses.

sure, but Costello announced the land release policy back in June, then Rudd announced the same thing on opening day of the election campaign.

This particular policy isn't encouraging the wealthy to buy more houses, they can only take shared equity, it has to be their child they share it with and it has to be their kids first home.

Sure there will be people that use it as a tax haven (they could consider capping it at a certain house value to minimise this) but the overwhelming majority will use it for the purpose intended, to help their children into their first home, without the threat of CGT as a thankyou.

Housing affordability is really only a massive issue for people over 40. The rest of the population over 40 with half a brain are swimming in piles of equity they don't know what to do with.

that should be people 'under' 40 btw !

fyi trog, nielsen polls are done with around 1000 people.

940 votes is statistically insignificant and only right wing fascists read and believe anything on news.com.au

agreed.
ive been watching news.com.au election coverage and its the s***test media hyped up crap ive ever seen, just read the comments on the articles by some of there readers and you will understand why they pimp so much trivial s***.

and mongie, linking to news.com.au to prove your point or back up information discredits it imo, which is a shame cause you point sounds quite valid.

honestly though the bb debate is now such a small issue considering what labour and the libs have now brought to the table. i'm really not concerned if $5bil or $1bil gets spent on an fttn anymore.

rudd just continues to paint himself an idiot.

To suggest Howards $9 billion spending announcment from yesterday is inflationary is quite remarkable, given its a miniscule % of our TRILLION dollar economy.

Rudd is a f***ing idiot who will say anything to get in.
A guy who can talk, and that is all.

Rudd is a f***ing idiot who will say anything to get in.
A guy who can talk, and that is all.

like howard doesnt.

howard is the biggest propaganda spin bulls***ter this country has ever seen, rudd clearly dominates howard in everyway, even if rudds policies seem like a howard copy i have more faith in him to actually hold true to what he says, unlike howard, who promised interest rates wouldnt rise, stupid promise sure. but he was dumb enough to say it in the first place. but more importatly there are things he didnt say, like work choices. regardless if you are for work choices or against them, he didnt bother bringing them up last election, instead he put in place a policy that australia may not have wanted and now leaves it to the next government to clean it up/fine tune it.

ive seen enough evidence which suggest howard is a f*** up to point me in every other voting direction.

I think i'll vote for the Libs. It seems all the rich c***s want the Libs to win and I want to be like them. f*** all the povo working class.

he also brought in the GST and most of hewsons previous policies without the public directly voting on it. (labor at the time saying they'd roll it back)

yet hes been vindicated on that as he got re-elected 3 more times after it, and labor now agrees with it. (tax policies are ~identical after all)

workchoices and how it was brought to the people isn't the reason for the backlash, old mate was real popular right up until krudd came to lead long after they implemented wc.

hey mr rudd, me too!

hey mr infi heres some free monies for your business! oh thanks for voting for me, who would have thought?

s*** Greyden, you talk about news.com.au being over hyped, and yet you've grabbed onto all of the incorrect information.

howard is the biggest propaganda spin bulls***ter this country has ever seen, rudd clearly dominates howard in everyway, even if rudds policies seem like a howard copy i have more faith in him to actually hold true to what he says,

a.

if we get in, we'll change it all.

Do you know who said this? Peter Garret, and hes the future Environment Minister. Its now said that he was joking, but if you read John Howard being interviewed on the ABC's Insiders you will see that its not the first time its been said.

unlike howard, who promised interest rates wouldnt rise, stupid promise sure.

Howard promised to "Keep interest rates at record lows". Personally, while all interest rate rises are annoying, I don't think that 6.75% is particularly high. Maybe not a record low, but hey, everyone makes mistakes.

I feel that JH has the balls to implement good policy even if it is unpopular. I don't see Kevin Rudd being able to do that .

Kevin Rudd can't sneeze without permission from the union heavies. Is that the type of person you want running the country?

It is very hard to blame JH for interest rates and inflation. Anyone who knows anything knows that our economy is dependant on the $US. When the $US struggles naturally the $AU will struggle too.

This is largely a consequence of the credit crunch and has already been much discussed in the news. What’s notable here is that while the US Federal Reserve moved short-term interest rates down in the States, the market moved long-term interest rates—including 30-year mortgage rates—up.


And even IF you still want to blame JH, compared to the rest of the developed world our inflation (and hence interest rates) are consistent.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Inflation_rate_world_2007.png/800px-Inflation_rate_world_2007.png

While we're posting colourful graphs let's look at the red countries that didn't really care about the Kyoto protocol. The main reason I don't want Howard in again is that I'm sick of the way we're becoming a mini-U.S:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2005.png/800px-Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2005.png

US Elections are coming up next year, GWB can't get re-elected... It couldn't possibly get any worse.

yes, it can. Hillary could get elected.

chortle.

http://boortz.com/images/funny/lifes_a_bitch_sticker.jpg

Random Raging

Interest rate palava

In the governments pre Hawke, interest rates were regulated (ie. fixed/controlled).

In reality under Fraser, inflation was higher than under Hawke, and if the same controls were in place then that Hawke brought in, hypothetically interest rates would have been higher. (ps. John Howard was Treasurer for part of that) If Hawke had chosen to keep Howard's model he too could have kept interest rates low, he could have made them anything he wanted to, and as a result would never have arrested inflation. So the very mechanism that let us ride out the Asian meltdown, are the same ones that caused interest rates to rise under labor as the fixed a mess created Whitlam and Fraser. Because of those changes, no government can truely claim to keep them low, they can minimise their impact by reducing government spending. But global influences have way more effect. eg. Global inflation is affected by such random things as War... it is expensive, oil prices ... they are going up. These are things, neither leader can control.

The above map is pretty, but lacks the important comparison between interest rate and inflation, and even as comparison to global inflation. It also doesn't show the countries where the economy is very regulated (eg. China). It does however show countries you should not invest in.

Taxes

According to Forbes we are the 10th most taxed nation in the world.
We don't have the 10th best infrastructures (of any form) in the world.
Tax us less and let us drive on s***ty road and have water rationing, or improve the services (maybe spend less on providing plasmas for 18year old single mums).


Unions Run!
We spend too much on health primarily because of a health professional shortage created by the Liberal budies, the AMA ... the union you have when you don't have a union.

Vote 1 for an alien overlord, preferably one that eats Work place health and safety officers and Laywers.... damn fun killers.

GWB can't get re-elected... It couldn't possibly get any worse.

Well actually it could, if Rudy Giuliani gets in. He's known to tie everything to Sep 11:

WHY DID YOU FLIP ON GUN CONTROL?

"There are some major intervening events - Sept. 11 - which cast somewhat of a different light on the Second Amendment."

- Giuliani's September speech to the NRA

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS?

"I need God's help for everything, and I probably feel that the most when I'm in crisis and under pressure, like Sept. 11, when I was dealing with prostate cancer, or when I'm trying to explain death to people."

- September interview with CBN News.

WHY DID YOU INTERRUPT THAT SPEECH TO TAKE A CALL FROM JUDI?

"Since Sept. 11, most of the time when we get on a plane we talk to each other and just reaffirm the fact that we love each other"

- September interview with CBN News

(Source )

Tee hee:

Rudy is a champion. I'd love to see Colin Powell as the US President, but he's ruled out running for the office. Mike Huckabee is a good choice, except he supports creationism. Which is a requirement to be a US politicians i guess.

Parabol, how many of those meet their Kyoto emission output targets? Slim to nil. At least Australia under Howard meets it's targets.

what did howard or the coalition change with our power industry &/or any other industry to meet kyoto requirements? as far as i have seen nothing has changed in the power generation industry since before the kyoto treaty was brought forward.

At least Australia under Howard meets it's targets.

What targets? I'm sure you can meet any target if you raise and dilute it enough.

All I hear Howard whinging about in regards to emission targets is "it'll hurt the economy". Hint: that is exactly Bush's argument.

last edited by parabol at 12:43:46 15/Nov/07

All I hear Howard whinging about in regards to emission targets is "it'll hurt the economy".

It's not like we don't have huge resources of coal or anything of the sort...

All I hear Howard whinging about in regards to emission targets is "it'll hurt the economy". Hint: that is exactly Bush's argument.

pointless to mention that bush said it. you'll find that 90% of the kyoto leaders have probably also said it.

its pretty simple economics, energy in australia is cheap and we use a lot of it. if you double the cost of energy by the replacement of coal fired plants with nuclear, or by throwing on a blanket carbon tax you've probably added 50% to the cost of exports. exports fall over. not to mention the result that primary production cost increases would have on inflation, etc.

setting a target of 20% reduction on current levels is stupid, especially in isolation from the rest of the world. you could ban ever car, bus or truck from the road and you'd only get a ~13% reduction of course, nobody could get anywhere then.

another way to look at it would be to switch off the electricity to NSW, VIC and QLD entirely. that'd be about 20%.

even then it wouldn't be enough to stop or reduce global warming (that needs about a 40% reduction).

people need to stop thinking of global warming as a short term problem, its not. its a long term problem in the extreme. think 2100 not 2010. whats needed is long term solutions, not immediate action.

mate, im not saying we should be the fastest in the world, but check where we are on the graph, for a country that uses internets as much as we do, thats a disgrace

When you factor in the average number of people per square kilometre and how much they, on average, earn, you get a chart that looks a little like this.

Korea 35%
Japan 33%
the EU 24%
USA 4%
Australia 2%
NZ 1%

That really highlights two small flaws (Korea in relation to Japan and NZ in relation to AU). Japan has been building their infrastructure for decades, hell, they invented a lot of it, and it's obvious that NZ has been exporting their dial up users to Australia.

Actually, the size difference between AU and NZ would be enough to settle the differences between broadband adoption in the two countries.

So, it really isn't that surprising that Korea, Japan, anywhere in or near the EU have sex broadband. Just like it isn't surprising that the USA, Australia and NZ have gay-sex broadband.

At least america have FiOS

s*** Greyden, you talk about news.com.au being over hyped, and yet you've grabbed onto all of the incorrect information.

from where im standign you have grabbed on to all the wrong information.

and as for "if we get in we will change everything" i dont doubt it and i hope they do, the truth is labour puts on a liberal show to the public "hence the policy copying" and if they get in and run the country the way labour should then fantastic.

pointless to mention that bush said it.

No it's not considering my earlier point was that we're becoming a mini-U.S

you'll find that 90% of the kyoto leaders have probably also said it.

Ok cool, provide some links where they have said this publicly. Howard and Bush make it public that they are more interested in the economy than the environment. They don't even try to hide that attitude.

taggs:

they are actually hoping for a NSW senate seat (!?) they reckon they only need 0.22% of the vote to get a seat because of the way preferences will pan out. they are also handing out the beggers hat and running a pledge drive. LDP - "left of cheech and chong and right of ghengis khan"

f*** yeah, good on 'em. well i've already postal voted cause i'll be in thailand when the election is on and put them as my 1st prefence for both houses.

While we're posting colourful graphs let's look at the red countries that didn't really care about the Kyoto protocol.

I refer you to my previous post on this issue.

Both parties are interested in winning votes, but the coalition is also prepared to make tough symbolic decisions they believe in, even when they know they won't be popular. Work Choices is a good example and Kyoto is even better.

If Howard was interested in populist politics like rudd, he would have ratified Kyoto ages ago, as it is nothing more than a symbolic gesture.

Australia isn't a signatory to Kyoto, yet we have met the targets that Kyoto set for Australia in regards to emissions. Nearly ALL of the countries that did ratify Kyoto have FAILED to meet their targets! He could have signed it last month as a bit of a publicity grab in the knowledge that we have reached the targets anyway, but that would be the popular road to travel, not the right one.

Here is some ammo for you Greenies... We are soooooo bad... Number 1 country in CO2 emissions!! BBC Article Carma website

China is much cleaner, I am going to move there tomorrow!

Oh, but wait a second, our GDP per capita is ~4/5x that of China. phewww, back to not caring about the manipualted stats.

Seriously though, on a global scale Australia is not big enough to radicalise the way we produce our energy. The carbon emissions tax is not a bad way to see that those who contribute to the problem, invest in the solution.

Plus, greater spending on tertiary education in renewable research would be great.

We already have technology (well the russians) and a working prototype in QLD out south/west somewhere that is utilising brown coal resources for gasification process. With massive reserves of this we can use this as a local resource, produces about 0% emissions and/or export a liquified version, apparently.
With the other techs in the pipeline that will basically reduce the output of co2 in the current black coal market, I dont really see a problem with Australia's progress. Just keep on investing in people and R&D so we can be the experts in the technology. That is the key.

i don't see any coal solution being clean in the future. sure it can be cleaner then it is today, NSW has some of the uncleanest coal power plants in the world, but even clean power plants dump tonnes of carbon.

i don't see carbon capture ever really taking off because storing CO2 in underground cavities just isn't sustainable. until they develop a process of extracting carbon out of CO2 and storing it a physical, denser form then coal power will always be dirty.

instead of continuing to pump money into "clean coal" i would prefer the pumped that money into making solar cells more efficent, working more with geothermal which appears promising and looking at solar thermal supplimentation to existing coal powerstations.

i just did a postal vote for my home federal seat of lichardt and f**k me, there was 11 candidates!! 11 candidates for a federal seat that is practically Cairns. their was a lib, labor, nat, greens, dem, and family first candidate and the rest were independants.. its a mess i tell ya.

Posting in a QGL politics thread!

until they develop a process of extracting carbon out of CO2 and storing it a physical, denser form then coal power will always be dirty.

http://www.griffined.com/images/photosynthesis-overview.gif

sorry ara, I meant Underground coal gasification. Cheaper and much cleaner than normal coal powered plants. CSIRO quick guide PDF

SOLER POWER

the sun has a finite life as well... dumbass!

heh
I made the same joke on the gamearena forum and netted a juicy catch =]

twat.

Linc Energy are developing underground coal gasification technology, well actually they have developed it. Just fine tuning to make sure it works.

Basically they just turn it into diesel.

share price of 81c, jump on!

^^ Sounds like an expensive process? Seems you have a fairly defined set of geological constraints for when it's cost effective?

On solar, commerical solar CPV cells are up to near 40% (more in R&D) energy efficiency, at some ~300W solar output, or ~5KWh/m2/day assuming their efficiencies (800W/m2) are not optimistic. Would be pretty cool to buy one of these to park on the roof.

Looks like they are begging for EOI at the moment, but certainly a watch this space!


last edited by dRanged at 22:30:28 15/Nov/07

Ok cool, provide some links where they have said this publicly. Howard and Bush make it public that they are more interested in the economy than the environment. They don't even try to hide that attitude.

canada:

During his presentation to the committee, he said that meeting the Kyoto carbon emissions targets would "manufacture a recession" for Canada.

eu:

Gunter Verheugen, the EU's industry commissioner, has warned that by "going it alone" Europe is burdening its industries and consumers with soaring costs that are undermining Europe's international competitiveness.

just two i found with a quick google, and thats only refering to kyoto not the more serious targets that garrett was talking about.

your irrational hatred of americans is stupid and ignorant, it blinds you to the fact they as often correct with policy as any other country. australia setting tough emissions targets is worthless without getting developing countries involved. australia's stance on kyoto is right, as is america's. quite a lot of the countries to ratify the agreement aren't required to DO anything. only the us and canada have targets in whole of north and south america. no country in africa at all has targets. only japan in the whole of asia.

its a worthless agreement, and clearly its hurting europe competitively.

well actually, the russians (among others) have the technology, well at least the ones that they were origianlly using. They no longer have the same contacts, I am not sure who they are utilising. I believe there will be others entering into the market with the technology, I'll wait for now.

Plus they still need to build the pipes to the generators, and not sure how much/long the conversion from natural gas to syngas would be for the existing gas plants?

"By 2010, the net reduction in global emissions from Europe meeting the Kyoto Protocol will be only 0.1%," said Margo Thorning, "because all the growth is coming in places like India, China and Brazil."

^ further to nF's quote... hence owning the technologies / developing first / staying ahead of everyone else, creates greater wealth and has a greater impact because you can export, to developing countries that REALLY need to limit their impact, your expertise/technology.

your irrational hatred of americans is stupid and ignorant

Who said anything about hating Americans? I said we're becoming a mini U.S. which is true. I don't see any hatred nor irrationality with my observation. Though if it makes you feel better to try to label me as a hater of something, then knock yourself out.

it blinds you to the fact they as often correct with policy as any other country

The U.S., correct with policy recently? Sorry but with that comment of yours I can't take you seriously anymore. Seriously I wish I had what you were smoking. Have fun :)

hogfather, what happens when that tree dies?

Burn it to power computars

Who said anything about hating Americans? I said we're becoming a mini U.S. which is true. I don't see any hatred nor irrationality with my observation. Though if it makes you feel better to try to label me as a hater of something, then knock yourself out.

you're implying that based on a fairly small number of shared policies that australia is a mini-us, which is wrong for a start. and even if it was, it wouldn't be a bad thing.

australia has in recent years asserted itself in the region (aka south-east asia) which you could vaguely say was us-style. but thats lead to peace in east timor (after australia turned it back on it in 1975), and something like it in the solomon islands. theres a lot of instability in the region and isolationism doesn't work anymore.

with regards to iraq, a different government wouldn't have made a difference. labor supported the invasion after all.

gun control, its just about polar opposites. australia hasn't had a mass murder in 11 years. guns are in limited supply.

free-trade agreement, well having a FTA with the us is a good thing. the dmca scare tactics haven't happened here either.

parabol, I'd call you an ignorant twat. But plenty of facts have been placed right here in front of you, thus no longer making you ignorant.

Therefore, due to you blindly dismissing factual statements, you are no longer an ignorant twat and have been upgraded further, you now have the title of a complete f***ing idiot.

now run along.

Therefore, due to you blindly dismissing factual statements, you are no longer an ignorant twat and have been upgraded further, you now have the title of a complete f***ing idiot.

Yeah that's mature, buddy. Glad you got that out of your system now, hey?

just more factual statements.

Strangely, you chose not to ignore that one.

^^ No, I'd agree with parabol, we are becoming US-A-fied. The whole political spectrum has shifted so far to the right in recent years, I mean look at Kevin, he has to do a Whitlam and pretend he's the son-of-john to get elected. I mean nobody in their right mind takes the whole 'conservative labor' thing seriously, it's just we've been so right-wing conditioned it's the only thing Australians will buy right now.

Not that the US is a bad thing, they are our friends and while they are really f***ing things over at the moment, you can depend on them to do the right thing (eventually). I do not accept the whole fox news/starship troopers gated community perspective that seems to be gaining traction in recent years, and I suspect deep down most Australians feel this too.

last edited by dRanged at 23:42:47 15/Nov/07

there is a left party in the US too mate, just because we both have governments n power at the moment at are on the right, doesn't make us similar.

Apart from invading iraq and not signing kyoto, the political landscape and performance in each country is quite different.

Seeing as the iraq war had bipartisan support from the Labor party, its a bit of a non issue politically and the decision to not ratify kyoto has been proven time and time again to be non-consequential and unimportant.

^^ Well I'm not so sure.. Of the two lefts, Kevin is essentially selling himself as a carbon copy of Johnny only younger, better & faster, and the frontrunner Hillary has positioned herself as a 'wait and see' with iraq, so I'd say both are very close to each respective country's status quo on the major policy points.

Kyoto may well be a joke but we (as in industrialized nations) are not going to be able to lean on China and the like until our own backyards are tidy.

hogfather, what happens when that tree dies?

Do you know why they call coal and oil fossil fuels?

Its the perfect system :P

yeah, but pity we don't have the time or the water for it to work.

Couldn't be bothered reading through 13 pages - just posting to say I have just cast my vote at the Australian High Commission in London. Go Kruddler!

where can my mrs vote if she is in ireland. is there a similar or same place in ireland (cork atm)

there is a left party in the US too

Yeah, they're called the Green party there too. Just like ours they also have no chance of coming to power.

Compared to a lot of other places around the world both parties in Australia and the US are on the right or at best in the centre at the moment.

ooooh, i see on the news massive rorts within the coalition!

Pork barelling bastards!!!!!

THE Auditor-General has exposed unprecedented government abuse of a $328 million grants program, undermining the Coalition's credentials as a careful financial manager nine days before the federal election.

these new reported rorts, are the biggest since infi got all that cash from his families buddy Santo!!!!

last edited by Spook at 09:43:52 16/Nov/07

Kyoto may well be a joke but we (as in industrialized nations) are not going to be able to lean on China and the like until our own backyards are tidy.

and bankrupt?

there is a left party in the US too mate, just because we both have governments n power at the moment at are on the right, doesn't make us similar.

absolutely, and look at labour in the uk. although they gained power what 10 years ago now, they were a left party who campaigned on being conservative essentially, and keeping the reforms of the previous conservative governments. so if anything rudd is trying to be blair. nobody complains about that though, cause theres nothing at all wrong with the uk.

Kevin Rudd has a heart attack, falls over and dies because the Accident and Emergency Ward at the nearest hospital is too understaffed to treat him in time.


So his soul arrives in Heaven and is met by Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates.


'Welcome to Heaven' says Saint Peter 'Before you settle in there seems to be a problem. We seldom see Labour people around these parts so we're not sure what to do with you'.


'No problem, just let me in. I'm a good Christian. I'm a believer' says Kevin.


'I'd like to just let you in, but I have orders from God himself. He says that since the implementation of his new Heaven Choices policy, you have to spend one day in Hell and one day in Heaven. Then you must choose where you'll live for eternity.'


'But I've already made up my mind. I want to be in Heaven' replies Kevin.


'I'm sorry, but we have our rules' says Saint Peter. And with that he escorts Kevin to an elevator and down and down it goes right into Hell.


The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a lush golf course. The sun is shining in a cloudless sky and it is a perfect 22 degrees.


Standing in front is Gough Whitlam and hundreds of Labour Party and union leaders who helped him out over the years, Jim Cairns, Bob Hawke, Bill Collins, Bill D'Arcy Paul Keating, Joan Kirner, Peter Beattie, Keith Wright, Gordon Nuttall, Wayne Goss - all good clean living Labour people and union officials were there, everyone was happy and laughing, casually but expensively dressed. They run to greet him and to reminisce about the good times they had getting rich at the expense of the suckers and peasants.


They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster and caviar.


The Devil himself comes up to Kevin with a frosty drink. 'Have a Tequila and relax'.


'Uh, I can't drink anymore, I took the pledge' says Kevin dejectedly.


'This is Hell, son. You can drink and eat all you want and not worry and it just gets better from there' says the Devil.


Kevin takes a drink and finds himself liking the Devil, who he thinks is a really friendly bloke who tells funny jokes like himself and pulls hilarious pranks, kind of like the ones Labour pulled. The 'recession we had to have', 'no child will live in poverty', 'Wolfdene Dam', 'no new interest rates below 19%' and promises like that.


They are having such a great time remembering 'The Good Times' before; suddenly Kevin realises that it is time to go. Everyone gives him a big hug and waves happily, as he enters the elevator and heads upward.


When the elevator doors open Saint Peter is there to greet him. 'Time to visit Heaven' he says as he opens the gate.


So for 24 hours Kevin is to hang out with a bunch of honest, good natured people, who enjoy each other's company, talk about things other than money and treat each other decently. Not a nasty prank or rude joke among them. No fancy country clubs here - while the food tastes great, it's not caviar or lobster. And these people are all poor. He doesn't see anybody he knows and he isn't even treated like someone special!


'Whoa.' Kevin says to himself 'Kim Beasley never prepared me for this'.


The day is done and Saint Peter returns and says to Kevin 'Well you've spent a day in Hell and a day in Heaven; now you must choose where you want to live for eternity'.


With the 'Deal or No Deal' theme playing softly in the background Kevin reflects for a minute and then answers 'Well I would never have thought I'd say this -I mean Heaven has been delightful and all - but I really think I belong in Hell with my friends.'

So Saint Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down all the way down to Hell.


The Doors open and he is in the middle of a barren scorched earth covered with garbage, toxic industrial waste, kind of like the eroded, rabbit and fox infested Australian Outback. Kevin is horrified to see all his friends dressed in rags and chained together, picking up the roadside rubbish and putting it into black plastic bags. They are groaning and moaning in pain and covered in grime and dust.


The Devil comes over to Kevin and puts an arm around his shoulder 'Welcome back Kev'. 'I don't understand' stammers Kevin in shock, 'yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a club house and we ate Lobster and Caviar and drank Tequila. We lazed around and had a great time. Now there is just a waste land and everyone looks miserable!'


The Devil looks at him slyly and purrs 'Why yesterday Kevin we were Campaigning, Today you voted for us!'

"Labor"

cause theres nothing at all wrong with the uk.

Except immigration. And crime. And traffic. And taxation.

hahaha, quite good spidz

Except immigration. And crime. And traffic. And taxation.

thanks, now i look like a right idiot as you've proven me wrong. unless of course i was using sarcasm.