This, unfortunately most of the candidates were sprouting either state or federal issues as election platforms. This is why most councils struggle.
Nelmes platform though seems to be to spend, spend, spend. I can tell you after working in local government for 12 years that, that cash will come out of something or the council will have to borrow more.
Not my LGA though, so I will sit back with the popcorn and watch the hilarity as the basket case continues. Sad thing is, of all the platforms I heard, I am glad I wasn't voting in there as it all seemed to be rubbish from the lot. More badmouthing other candidates than pushing issues, straight from the Abbott Govt school of politics.
the big thing is developers can donate to fed but not state... But there are no provisions on how much unions can donate...
and the figures involved has been laughable..
oh well back to the basket case that is newcastle council and nelmes......
Amigos Aarau
Politics at all levels is a popularity contest (cc K.Rudd).
Gone are the days when people begrudgingly voted for your Keatings and your Howard's cause at least they got some real shit done.
Yanks are even voting republican again, that's how bad Obama has cocked things up within 6 years.
Whilst anyone can donate to a political party the thing is corrupt to the core.
A business donates money to a political party and the favour can easily be returned by a decision to implement/not implement something or the reduction of a tax by 0.05% and the bribe can be repaid 1000 times over and the this is considered legit.
You try slipping some bureaucrat a couple of bucks to get something fast tracked that they were gonna do anyway but in there own time and you are a criminal and going to jail.
Yet the streets are full of thugs drug dealers and thieves
Go Figure
Jaliens gives me the horn
People are too stupid to know any better.
Example: Which would be better for the economy?
The Abbott government running a budget surplus equal to 5% of GDP; or
The non government sector running a deficit equal to 5% of GDP ?
Anyone that actually thinks one proposition is better than the other should kill themselves now as the two components must always sum to zero.
The coalition do not understand this and neither do Labour or the Greens.
At the G20 Abbott has abandoned Liberalism for mercantilism. He want more growth and more jobs. yet at the same time he wants to cut spending. ?
Problem. National accounting identities do not lie and as such spending is always equal to income [Consumption + Investment + Government Spending = Income]
Hence by the above identity and holding all components equal Abbott thinks that by reducing government spending income will rise.
Unless the rules of arithmetic have changed since I did my PhD I think this khunt has entirely lost the plot.
Lucky for him Bill Shorten is too stupid to have even noticed that Abbotts statements are incorrect.
Problem with modern politics is that we no longer have experienced people running for office.
You can virtually go through all the ranks of the parties and find that they filled with accountants and lawyers who were recruited by the political parties whilst in university. They then go and work for either a business group, union or the political party themselves. As a result they have zero experience on how the real world ****ing works.
Add to this, it's all about the party machine. And to hell with policy.
so i guess tomorrow we can wake up to read the australian telling us how this is labors fault
listened to question time in the car home from footy last night, fmd what an absolute shamozzle
how long can the libs seriously keep up the same droning narrative? there will have to come a time when they stand on their own feet and can't blame their predecessors for the state the country is in.
I'm currently going through a bit of a soul search in terms of what i actually believe politics-wise. at one point in time i thought i liked liberal, at others not sure. I loved Clive Palmer sending me a Titanic DVD, and find myself easily persuaded by various promises of any politician.
Obviously Liberal have just lied on their promises, and done exactly what they said they wouldn't.
But my question is - just say Labour was re-elected, and not Liberal and Abbott, in that last election. What would Labour be doing right now - budget wise, policy wise? Would they be continually spending into debt, like Liberal say they did, and would we just be heading to some dreaded debt? And how bad truly is that debt that we were/are in? Isn't there a certain level of sustainable debt that most countries cruise in? I find politics to be very reactionary - a lot of the time parties will just argue against ideas of others, rather than for their own ideas. I feel like that is partly because Liberal AND Labour are both centre-right parties, as opposed to a true leftVright. If Labour were in charge, and didn't feel the need to argue against whatever Liberal were doing and could just do their own thing - what would they be doing, and how would that be going down?
OK
I have a fundamental problem with the "debt is bad" philosophy in both parties at the moment.
if I'm building an asset today that will last for say 100 years, it will generally outlast all but the newest babies, therefore future generations will be the beneficiaries of the asset. it therefore seems reasonable to me that the future generations help to pay for the asset, which can only be done through the raising of debt (with the future generations, including myself, into the future paying taxes to reduce the debt over time). it appears to me that neither party thinks it is reasonable (saddling our kids and grandkids with debt was a common theme in the past few elections).
I laugh (or is it cry?) whenever I hear the libs going on about debt and deficit while they are simultaneously saddling our kids and grandkids with the biggest liability imaginable - uncontrolled climate change.
What happens when the Libs have nomore public assets to sell?
Go jetties