Pretty much all polls have Labor in front now, including NewsPoll.
The poll aggregator, Poll Bludger, now has Labor in front 50.6 to 49.4
The ReachTel Poll which is the first of the post budget polls, saw no budget bounce for the Libs
Can Turnbull do a Howard 98 and win the election with less than 50% of the vote?
All I can say is we now know why Abbott has stayed in politics.....:lol: :lol: :lol:

Gotta say I'm surprised the right wing have any policy at all, considering global warming doesn't exist.
Anyway, even if there was global warming, it's ok cause god wouldn't allow it to happen...

The best part of Bill Shorten's budget reply was right at the end of the speech, when he got to the heart(lessness) of the right wing ideology:
"...the Liberals have never given up on the idea that it's up to each individual to fend for themselves and those who fall behind get left behind..."

Insightful. Erudite.

In an ideal society everyone should be self sufficient. Far too many people rely on the government these days. I'm happy to help people in genuine need, not people with too many bloody kids or middle class or corporate welfare.

It's a sign of the times that the government has become a credit card for a growing number of Australians.

And it will only get worse if Shorten wins.

And don't forget all those corporate dudes with their Panama/Seychelles/Bermuda/Swiss offshore trusts et all.

Fucking lol at the LNP ads, Morrisons face :lol:

-PB

Pyney has had his corflutes up for 2 days already which is illegal. Doubt anything will happen though.

"Pyne Delivers" :oops:

♪ Oh Election Day, Oh Election Day... ♪

To the tune of this->

[youtube]JiUKIWSqqDM[/youtube]



Edited by condemned666: 8/5/2016 05:22:07 PM

I might consider that if they have a candidate in my seat. Had a read of his website and I like what he stands for.

I might put him first and Liberals second, with Labor last.

Last thing this country needs is a Labor Government. :roll:

The nut job who denies science.
Yep, he'll get votes from the simpletons.

What did science ever do for us?

Libertarians are unwilling to accept or understand that Libertarianism fails when we don't have a pure market. Libertarianism fails in a quasi market system, where profit driven members 'cheat the system' because they can get away with it. Additionally, libertarianism ignores all the market failures that occur in a pure market (economic theory).

Interesting that the Libs have broken a whopping 25% of their pre-election promises

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-08/promise-tracker-how-does-the-coalitions-record-stack-up/7379572

VoteCompass if anyone is interested

https://votecompass.abc.net.au

Greens last, Labor second to last for me.

Liberal Democrats look like they possess a lot of common sense which is lacking from Labor/Greens. Thanks for letting us know about them.

Election 2016: Could the campaign dent the economy?

Date May 7, 2016 - 9:20PM
Peter Martin

An election is coming up so let's remember the good times, bad times and the downright ugly of the last two and a half years.

Malcolm Turnbull may have sown the seeds of his own destruction.

There's something odd about election campaigns. The more uncertain the outcome, the worse the economy performs; and the longer they go on, the more that bad performance gets noticed, making the outcome even less certain.


The possibility that their own campaign could damage the economy and hurt their chances may not have occurred to them.

The research team at the Reserve Bank uncovered the mechanism earlier this year in a groundbreaking discussion paper entitled Measuring Economic Uncertainty and its Effects.

The author, Angus Moore, believes that uncertainty is as real as any other phenomenon and has predictable consequences. Shortly after his index of uncertainty climbs, consumer confidence falls, retail sales grow more slowly and job growth slips. Disturbingly he finds little evidence to suggest that later on when uncertainty subsides, jobs growth rebounds enough to make up for the jobs that weren't created.

Which stands to reason. Why make a decision that's costly to reverse if you don't know how things are going to turn out? Such decisions include big purchases and putting on workers.

His index is one of the strangest ever to come out of the bank. Much of it is made up of articles from The Australian Financial Review, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age going back to the 1980s. To be regarded as a sign of uncertainty the article needs to contain both the words "economy" and "uncertain" plus at least one of the words "budget", "policy", "legislation", "Parliament", "Senate'" or "Reserve Bank".

Measured as a proportion of the total articles, this part of the index jumps at predictable times, including at and before elections. The papers most likely to spout uncertainty are the Financial Review, and the Australian. The rest of the index is made up of sharemarket volatility and the dispersion of sharemarket analysts' forecasts. They move pretty much in line with stories about uncertainty in the newspapers.

Election-generated uncertainty was at its highest in the tightly contested elections of 2010 and 1998. In 2010 with the outcome uncertain even after the vote, the uncertainty dragged on, as it will this time during the eight-week campaign.

It's already started. Turnbull has claimed Labor's negative gearing policy would take a "sledgehammer" to the property market. His immigration minister Peter Dutton said it will bring the economy to a "shuddering halt" and make the sharemarket "crash". (Never mind that the best guesses are that would take a few percentage points off house prices, which is exactly what's needed to make houses more affordable.)

The possibility that their own campaign could dent the economy and hurt their chances might not have occurred to them. If that happens, there's a chance they will step up their rhetoric, and damage the economy further.

Between now and July 2 there will be two more sets of unemployment figures, one set of retail sales figures, one set of business investment figures and one set of economic growth figures, each collected in real time as the effects of the campaign and its build-up become apparent.

It wouldn't be a problem if the outcome of the election was certain (as it seemed to be when Turnbull took office). In another fascinating study entitled Better the Devil You Know: The Influence of Political Incumbency on Australian Financial Market Uncertainty Curtin University economist Lee Smales concludes that the more likely it looks that the incumbent will win (especially if it's the Coalition) the less likely the campaign is to do damage.

The campaign that's about to begin is as hard to predict as they get. Friday's 7News ReachTEL poll puts the two party preferred vote at 50:50.

If the rhetoric gets incredibly overblown,it might push the Reserve Bank over the edge and make it cut rates during the campaign. It's as good as certain to cut rates again (because of ultra-low inflation), and the market expects a cut by August. But one-third of the market now expects a cut in June, halfway through the campaign.

The logic is that if economic indicators falter in addition to the inflation indicators, the case is unarguable. To delay would itself be political. The bank moved rates in 2007 and 2013.

It would be cutting because the economy was weak and the campaign had made it weaker. The Prime Minister would say it was because he was doing a good job.



Peter Martin is economics editor of The Age.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/election-2016-could-the-campaign-dent-the-economy-20160506-gonvva.html#ixzz4839RrsBz
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

Nothing. I'm looking forward to Malcolm bringing creationism into schools, that his party & constituents so desperately want.

Looking forward to the results of education levels filtered by ideology & party voting preference..:cool: :cool: :cool:

Liberals are a very broad church. The majority do not want to introduce creationism at all.

The wets, or the Pyne Faction, is very Left of Centre and quite progressive and Atheistic.

However, what will get the backs up of the Conservative Faction is Safe Schools. And Rightfully so.

Edited by Aikhme: 8/5/2016 06:21:23 PM

My understanding is that he stands on a platform of Small Government, low taxation, and responsible fiscal policy and spending. Basically live within our means.

Very similar to the LNP in fact.

So I give him credence based on what I have read so far.

What I don't won't is irresponsible spending such as what we will get with Labor. The budget deficit and our debt will get out of control. I firmly believe that if the LNP get the next 2 terms in Government, that they will be able to make inroads into the deficit.

Edited by Aikhme: 8/5/2016 06:26:23 PM

Man I find it funny when I hear or read this statement
I can't remember if it was Howard or Turnbull to first use this phrase, but it's amazing how often I see it subsequently parroted by right wingers. It reinforces the perception they eat up whatever they're told.

Yes well I should know if you know what I mean.

Yes it is an extremely broad church - from the inner city yuppies and neo liberals, to the social liberals and then you have the Conservatives. The Conservatives are actually the smallest branch atm.

BTW, you may not know this, but the Labor Party actually has a Right Wing faction as well, which is every bit as Conservative as the Liberal dries (Right wing faction).

Edited by Aikhme: 8/5/2016 06:30:26 PM

The debt has skyrocketed under the Libs, with the economy now in far worse shape.
Won't matter to right wingers though. Facts rarely do.

Not quite true.

The Liberals were in office yes, but the policies inherited were from the 6 years of the Gillard/Rudd/Gillard debacle.

This is a first term Liberal Government and there was instability with the leadership spill, but it will take at least 2 terms before you can even imagine to see any results pointing towards a turn around. But the Liberals are willing to do it by addressing expenditure, and hopefully cutting some tax to address bracket creep.

The deficit is an expenditure problem.

There are actually Left Wingers in the LNP.

BTW, there are Right Wingers in the Labor Party as well, which are every bit as conservative as the Liberal Dries.

Edited by Aikhme: 8/5/2016 06:41:22 PM

So how much longer do we have to keep going with the "it was all Rudd/Gillards fault" tag line?

When will it start being the LNPs fault?

-PB

When labour says it , the press give them a hard time, the shock jocks have a go , but the lnp doit , nothing is said.

Seeing as though the LNP has been unable to get things through Senate, and the fact that this budget is an election budget, I would say they need at least another term.

Raising taxes to fuel spending is not going to be good for anyone.

Do what exactly?