I agree, better for them to pass the budget policies they agree with (e.g. debt levy) and block the things they don't (like the medicare co-payment, no dole for the under 30s etc). Give the Libs just enough no noose to hang themselves. The Libs cannot get their policies through by calling a DD, even if they hold government we'll probably end up with more PUP and Greens senators.

Can't see them getting rid of Shorten either unfortunately, that perception of leadership instability is too strong. He never should have won the leadership in the first place and shows (as imonfourfourtwo commented) they really need to keep reforming the party.

Tony Abbott is a disaster, but Bill Shorten is not the answer.

We need a reset switch asap.

Its the second option, is nowhere near good enough to be a troll.

-PB

SocaWho is either a troll or so socially retarded that it's impossible to have any kind of meaningful discourse.

Either way, he gets ignored.

Also, its full of uni students with a massive HECS debt that are doing their 5th degree and have been unemployed for years but have time to sit around the uni quadrangle bludging all day.

I don't think you're giving Abbott much of a chance to implement things...he's barely being in the job.
He is a bit extreme but after 6 years of Labor and 2 changes in Prime Ministership , I'd be loathed to go back to Labor again.
Small business has confidence when the Libs are in ....meaning that they will invest and create jobs...whereas when Labor are in Small business have to worry about Fair Work / high wages so they dont employ people full time...but rather as casuals or part time.

I imagine we'd retain our AAA credit rating that we inherited from the last Labor administration (which only 12 other countries have) and still be one of the countries with the least national debt in the developed world, so I'd say nothing terribly bad.

Edited by paladisious: 19/5/2014 12:55:38 AM

Tony Abbott is a disaster, but Bill Shorten is not the answer.

We need a reset switch asap.

lets suppose a double dissolution happens and Labor get back in and as you would expect they would start spending again at an exponential rate, handing out money like it was monopoly money and not paying any debt back.

What are you predictions will happen?

This is what your typical labor voter looks like.

Wow, The coalition have been absolutely massacred in Newspoll and Nielsen. Labor is on 55% and 56% respectively.

Coalition primary is down on 36pc (below Labor on 38), Abbott's approval (-9) and disapproval (+12) at near records, and Shorten is now preferred PM.

People very, very unhappy.

:o We might actually agree on something :lol:

I don't know if anyone thinks Hockey is an extremist, this budget does pay off some favours to their political masters though and attacks portions of society that Labor/Greens traditionally support.


I don't think you'll have much luck with that. I think right now they should do one of 2 things:
1. Stick to their values and pass the budget measures that fit that and vote against the rest. Start working on policy that fit those values so that by next election they're a credible alternate government
2. In collusion with the Greens and PUP, block supply and force an election.

Personally I'd rather 1, they need a proper point of difference.

if Hockey cut harder it would have represented a shock to the economy

Can only hope the Labor party man up and cut the real wastes of money, the superannuation, negative gearing and mining subsidy rorts.

While I don't agree with Chris Berg's ideology, it's good to see at least one conservative calling out the government out on their bullshit.

What about Howard's comments?

While I don't agree with Chris Berg's ideology, it's good to see at least one conservative calling out the government out on their bullshit.

Budget won't slow government spending

For all the fire and brimstone that accompanied last week's commentary on the budget, the bottom line is simple: under the Coalition, government spending is going up, not down.
This is the long-term significance of Joe Hockey's first budget.
A modest 1.7 per cent real reduction in expenditure next financial year will be more than offset by 0.4 per cent growth the year after, 2.1 per cent growth the year after that, and 2.6 per cent growth in the 2017-18 financial year (the end of the Treasury's forward projections).
And tax? Well, while this year the government will collect $363 billion, by 2017-18 it plans to collect $467 billion. That's a jump in the tax take from 23 per cent of GDP to 24.9 per cent.
Yes, the budget does things like abolish 70 government bodies and 230 programs. Some of that is great.
But, ultimately, a party which was elected promising to reduce the size of government and reduce taxes, will preside over large expenditure growth and is hiking, not axing, tax.
It's widely appreciated that deep down Tony Abbott is a tax-and-spend conservative. Now we know his is a tax-and-spend government.
But there's a lot of trickery in the budget to conceal that fact.
The most controversial policies (like the "learn or earn" welfare changes, the increase in the pension age, and the university reforms) sound like classic austerity measures but in truth don't alter the fiscal equation all that much. They're social reforms being smuggled in under the cover of a budgetary crisis.
And most of the big spending cuts to health and education have been punted far into the future – beyond the next election, and many out past the Treasury’s forward estimates.
Hockey says it would hurt the economy to cut hard immediately. Here's a more cynical explanation. He's hedging. The Treasurer is pledging but delaying cuts in the hope the Coalition will be able to rescind those cuts for future election sweeteners.
The budget is also full of policies that superficially look like aggressive cost reductions but are in fact new spending.
For instance, the $7 GP co-payment is, astonishingly, being poured into a huge new medical research fund. It will apparently be the biggest in the world.
This is a bizarre decision. The policy case for a co-payment is that introducing price signals will give patients a financial stake in their healthcare choices. But using that money to fund an entirely new government program makes the $7 charge look less like a co-payment and more like a research tax.
Likewise, the reindexation of the fuel excise isn't to fix the budget emergency, but for new road projects. This is so Tony Abbott can live up to his self-applied "infrastructure prime minister'' nickname.
Abbott said in August, 2013 that "the only party which is going to increase taxes after the election is the Labor Party". It's worrying the Coalition now pretends no such commitment was made.
In opposition Coalition spruikers said Abbott offered two things: the integrity Julia Gillard lacked, and the fiscal discipline Kevin Rudd lacked. After this budget, what's left?
So this is a significant budget. In opposition, the Coalition was rhetorically committed to reducing the size of government – probably more so than any opposition since the time of John Hewson.
But now it has power, it can't bring itself to make significant long-term change.
Abbott is no Gough Whitlam-of-the-right. He has no plan to redefine the relationship between state and citizen, despite his stirring oratory from opposition.
Nor, contrary to Joe Hockey's assertions, has the age of entitlement come to an end. The paid parental leave scheme puts a lie to that little fantasy.
Governments think election to election. But Australia's fiscal problem is measured in decades, not electoral cycles. Political logic means spending is popular and taxing is not. This encourages governments to go into deficit.
When the next economic crisis arrives, it seems unlikely a government of whatever stripe will be able to resist the calls for deficit-financed stimulus.
If the budget has not recovered by then – if we do not have the sort of surplus that was available to Kevin Rudd in 2008 – we're going to be in trouble. The European fiscal death-spiral was driven by the fact that their budgets were ruined before the Global Financial Crisis hit.
Politically, however, Joe Hockey's budget may work. At least for a bit.
Until now the Abbott government has lacked that patina of authority which marks a confident government. Things like reintroducing imperial honours have made the Coalition look indulgent.
The budget itself will be unpopular but it has at least given the government a purpose.
But the question the Coalition needs to ask is this: how will voters respond when they realise that, for all the harsh measures in the budget, it's for very little? All that pain, and still both spending and taxation are going up.
Chris Berg is Policy Director at the Institute of Public Affairs.
Twitter: @chrisberg

I thought they were all latte sipping elitists?

This is what your typical labor voter looks like.

...socialist...fruity ...bad hygiene...

Normally they don't turn up to Q+A....or if they do theres hardly any.