Oz Federal Election 2013 - Discussion and Comments

[Pushka]

I think the word for Rudd's behaviour is Gloat! Can't say I blame him either. The manner in which he was dispatched was ruthless.

 

[Skyring]

Lets look at it from a different point of view. If the government were flying the airliner, there would be a struggle in the coughpit, with the appalled passengers listening over the intercom as the plane lurches across the sky.

"We have full tanks," says co-pilot Swan, "Plenty of reserves, everything's in good shape. Uh-oh!"

 

[straitman]

And maybe one day Tony Abbott will have some policies to discuss.

With the way Labor is spiralling out of control and self destructing the coalition does not need policies.

Lets look at it from a different point of view. If the government were flying the airliner, there would be a struggle in the coughpit, with the appalled passengers listening over the intercom as the plane lurches across the sky.

"We have full tanks," says co-pilot Swan, "Plenty of reserves, everything's in good shape. Uh-oh!"

I should go and find the joke I posted about this.


....found it

If I flight planned like the Federal Budget.
Firstly I'd assume that I had an highly unlikely tailwind. Then I'd remove my variable reserve (don't need that) and I'd reduce my fixed reserve to a razor thin margin. Despite being on a tight plan I'd pick a higher fuel flow than I needed and include discretionary diversions that use more fuel.
Once I got airborne and discovered that I didn't have the tailwind required I wouldn't reduce to range power because that would be 'irresponsible'.
I would however blame the previous crew for burning excessive fuel (which they did) even though they handed the aircraft over with fuel in the tank. Of course I wouldn't let anybody know that I had a fuel issue until I could no longer hide the fact that we couldn't get to the destination.
In the end the result would probably be the same though, I'd be out of a job by the end of Sept.​

 

[comehither]

Is the consensus that the Gillard Govt has actually had good policy? I don't think NBN would have occurred with the Libs? Obvious that Libs are coming in though. I'm still not sure which way I will vote.

 

[Moody]

Is the consensus that the Gillard Govt has actually had good policy? I don't think NBN would have occurred with the Libs? Obvious that Libs are coming in though. I'm still not sure which way I will vote.

The consensus is that the policies were mostly good, but the execution was poor and the marketing was woeful.

BTW - that's not the consensus on this particular forum, for obvious reasons ....

 

[Pushka]

The consensus is that the policies were mostly good, but the execution was poor and the marketing was woeful.

BTW - that's not the consensus on this particular forum, for obvious reasons ....

Actually that second paragraph demonstrates your inability to comprehend much of what has been said in this thread.

 

[Skyring]

Is the consensus that the Gillard Govt has actually had good policy? I don't think NBN would have occurred with the Libs? Obvious that Libs are coming in though. I'm still not sure which way I will vote.

I wouldn't call NBN good policy. What will the average Australian use 200 Gb per month for?

Downloading video and playing games. It's senseless to believe that the average person in an average home in an average suburb is going to find a desire to build their own startup internet business, consult a doctor, educate the kids or go 3D shopping to the tune of 7 Gb a day.

If people used the Internet for such things, assuming that the experience came close to the real deal, then we would need to see changes in behaviour to justify the expense. People would have to sit in front of a computer to consume the bandwidth, rather than exercising, working, or socialising.

Not just a few people here and there, but everyone. And they would have to pay for it.

It's like the periodic calls for a high speed train to Canberra. To justify the expense, every single road and air visitor would have to take the train, and half of Canberra's population would have to make weekly trips to Sydney or Melbourne. And pay several hundred dollars for a ticket. That's the only way to have the thing make a profit.

 

[Moody]

Actually that second paragraph demonstrates your inability to comprehend much of what has been said in this thread.

I certainly have an inability to comprehend that comment. Could you expand on it or otherwise explain your meaning?

 

[Moody]

I wouldn't call NBN good policy. What will the average Australian use 200 Gb per month for?

Downloading video and playing games. It's senseless to believe that the average person in an average home in an average suburb is going to find a desire to build their own startup internet business, consult a doctor, educate the kids or go 3D shopping to the tune of 7 Gb a day.

If people used the Internet for such things, assuming that the experience came close to the real deal, then we would need to see changes in behaviour to justify the expense. People would have to sit in front of a computer to consume the bandwidth, rather than exercising, working, or socialising.

Not just a few people here and there, but everyone. And they would have to pay for it.

It's like the periodic calls for a high speed train to Canberra. To justify the expense, every single road and air visitor would have to take the train, and half of Canberra's population would have to make weekly trips to Sydney or Melbourne. And pay several hundred dollars for a ticket. That's the only way to have the thing make a profit.

All analogies eventually break down, Skyring, but this one barely rose to its knees in the first place!

My first plan was 3 hours dial-up ..... a month. When we bit the bullet and went for a cable modem I thought that a 200MB plan was more than adequate. I was quickly proved wrong and we had to double it. Now we are on 25GB/month and get "shaped" about half the time. My wife wants to go to 50GB but I am trying to resist.

That is for a typical family of 4 who mostly use internet for what it was initially designed. Sure the wife watches the occasional TV episode on iView and my son likes to watch some YouTube tripe, but we don't download movies or use file sharing software. We are a low-use houshold as far as I know - we have friends on plans 10 times the size of ours.

And it's not just about the total volume, speed is of the essence .... or do you favour a horse and cart when you visit Canberra?

 

[Pushka]

I certainly have an inability to comprehend that comment. Could you expand on it or otherwise explain your meaning?

Simply your opinion that you think most of us here think all Gillard's policies were rubbish and poorly executed.

We certainly think the latter but in some cases the policies were ok. Some of them were contrary to her traditional labor values, but otherwise ok. NDIS was excellent but she tried to play politics on the timing of that one and that backfired. And it still isn't properly funded and there is no detail about who qualifies.

And then there are the outright lies but which some here insist on calling 'the realities of a minority government'.

NBN doesn't worry me. We aren't even on the list for implementation by 2018. By which time the technology will be useless.

 

[Pukka]

I wouldn't call NBN good policy. What will the average Australian use 200 Gb per month for?

Downloading video and playing games. It's senseless to believe that the average person in an average home in an average suburb is going to find a desire to build their own startup internet business, consult a doctor, educate the kids or go 3D shopping to the tune of 7 Gb a day.

If people used the Internet for such things, assuming that the experience came close to the real deal, then we would need to see changes in behaviour to justify the expense. People would have to sit in front of a computer to consume the bandwidth, rather than exercising, working, or socialising.

Not just a few people here and there, but everyone. And they would have to pay for it.

It's like the periodic calls for a high speed train to Canberra. To justify the expense, every single road and air visitor would have to take the train, and half of Canberra's population would have to make weekly trips to Sydney or Melbourne. And pay several hundred dollars for a ticket. That's the only way to have the thing make a profit.

You would be surprised how much a family can use per month especially with the move to HD my kids download HD movies from iTunes and they can be 7GB each then if you look at the move towards on demand TV streamed from iPads etc you could easily get up there.

I'm not saying I'm the average Australian family because there are 4 of us that use iPads Internet etc etc but usage is only going one way and that's up rapidly.

It's like anything though it comes down to cost I would happily pay $200pm for it but there will be plenty others that won't want to pay anything like that.

 

[Pukka]

And high speed rail would be fantastic but I think it's a luxury Australia can't afford. The place is simply too big with a small population and extreme weather. The infrastructure would be way too expensive to maintain let alone build.

It works In Japan though the bullet train is fantastic

 

[Pushka]

We just don't have the population for transport initiatives like that. Adelaide suffers a lot from spread out population that requires infrastructure to service. Our loony state Gvt just announced the spread of another population hub way north of Adelaide. Several teensy issues. It's our food bowl and full of market gardens. There is little employment way out there. There is no large medical centre/hospital. There is no transport. No schools that have any capacity to increase. And hey, in three years time the Govt will be whinging that they have no money for infrastructure. Yeah. We're labor here. But hopefully to change next March.

 

[medhead]

The point of the NBN is not just quantity of data. In fact, all the commentary around back haul and such (of which I have no technical knowledge) suggest the amount of data is a different issue. The point is speed. Killing that annoying "A" in ADSL.

And then there are the outright lies but which some here insist on calling 'the realities of a minority government'.

You're opinion on this would mean something if you bothered to rant about the lies of the self confessed liar Abbott. You don't. If Abbott was PM of a minority government he would have had to change in response to that reality or he could do nothing.

 

[Pushka]

Abbots never been PM. If he's lied then they don't have any impact on me. Can't say the same for Gillard's lies.

 

[medhead]

Abbots never been PM. If he's lied then they don't have any impact on me. Can't say the same for Gillard's lies.

Talk about double standards. Lying about his views now in order to get elected (saying anything to get power) will have an impact when he does the complete opposite once elected. If you can't understand the importance of Abbott's truthfulness at this point in time, and brush it off with such glib reasoning then I despair for Australia.

 

[Pushka]

Talk about double standards. Lying about his views now in order to get elected (saying anything to get power) will have an impact when he does the complete opposite once elected. If you can't understand the importance of Abbott's truthfulness at this point in time, and brush it off with such glib reasoning then I despair for Australia.

Medhead, you are not making sense.

Abbott isn't in power so he hasn't actually lied yet then, has he? You are simply assuming he will, prolly coz that's exactly what Gillard did. Sheesh.

 

[medhead]

Medhead, you are not making sense.

Abbott isn't in power so he hasn't actually lied yet then, has he? You are simply assuming he will, prolly coz that's exactly what Gillard did. Sheesh.

No but he will be in power. Im not assuming anything. He is a self confessed liar. He has outright said not to trust a word he says. Now he is also on record reneging on a written pledge.

I see that the liberal supporters are all hanging on the $ a vote thing but conveniently ignore what else went with the payment. A significant increase in reporting requirements for donations. In this case it was the best outcome the government could achieve to act on their policy to reduce the reporting threshold to $1000. So they compromised from the coalitions position of keeping the status quo. No doubt that compromise also involved the payment per vote demanding by another party. Sure the government stuffed up the politics. But their long standing policy on donations is good and they worked to achieve the best they could to enact their policy to increase transparency around donations. We've lost that improvement because Abbott lied. I think he probably plays politics on this to make the government look like they were after the cash payment. Certainly the whole donation thing has been lost in the reporting. Personally I prefer a government that is working to improve things like transparency of the politically process, even if they can't play the politics, over a man who reneges on his agreements to score points.

The man is a walking time bomb. Who has yet to prove he is fit to lead this country.

Anyway, he will be the next PM and it doesn't make sense is being wrapped up in the past on yesterday's hero, Gillard. I'm sorry if looking to the future doesn't make sense.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

The man is a walking time bomb. Who has yet to prove he is fit to lead this country.

One could argue that Gillard is yet to prove the same.

 

[Pukka]

One could argue that Gillard is yet to prove the same.

Personally I think she's already proved she's not fit