A narrowing trend in recent federal polling has come to an abrupt halt with this week’s Essential Research survey, which shows Labor’s lead blowing out from 57-43 to 61-39. Supplementary questions find the punters anticipating budget misery and loving it – twice as many (38 per cent to 19 per cent) expect it to be bad for them personally as expect it to be good, while 49 per cent want tax cuts deferred against 35 per cent who want them to proceed. In other news, most support the government’s changes to the emissions trading scheme and oppose the commitment of further troops to Afghanistan.
1. Guarantee people’s savings and investments to stop a financial panic – done
2. Put money in people’s pockets right now so their spending sustains small business – done
3. Invest in infrastructure to sustain employment – done
4. Cut wasteful Howard pork out of the budget – coming tommorow
5. Work internationall to prevent retaliatory protectionism and for a global free trade agreement – doing
So this means you are in favour of higher income taxes to pay for it.
I’m sick of Liberals thinking that no one has to pay for government hand outs made by Liberal governments.
Glen you do ask a legitimate question. And we will hear the treasurer outline their plans at 7.30pm tomorrow.
Or 5.30pm in WA 🙂
No 31
It is rather amusing to see the Government blaming Mr Howard for the deficit LABOR created. It is similarly amusing that the Government admits to an alleged structural deficit whilst committing to tens of billions in new spending.
Showy, try a different customer.
But then Bob we’ll be in for 12 after that…deal? LOL
?? That’s the best you can do? Oh Glen, how sad.
That’s up there with Julie Bishop having a go at Julia for not wearing real pearls.
Rudd caused the GFC did he GP?
No 52
ShowsOn, you already favour higher income taxes by default given your support for gargantuan deficit spending that will take a generation to repay, if at all.
Reminds me of someone who had been on the dole for years and saw a tax refund cheque I got, “Why don’t I get one” was the complaint!
So you admit you’ll be in opposition for 13 years now?
Sweet 🙂
No 57
The only structural deficit in tomorrow’s budget is Wayne Swan, who’s too busy on youtube with his mother-in-law to bother with balanced budgets.
And here I thought you were in favour of infrastructure spending GP…
I didnt admit anything bob.
I suspect we’ll be back in government well before 2020.
Glen if your side and they private health fund mates think that cutting the rort that is the 30% rebate is the key to success, youre in for much disappointment. Have you heard the health experts say this will not have a major effect on the public system as many who are subsidised are young and dont use in anyway??
Next??
No, when tax revenues get flowing again and China starts buying our minerals, we’ll get out of deficit.
How do you think income tax must rise in order to pay debt? Did Howard do it?
Get real.
The Liberals ensured a STRUCTURAL deficit by creating a budget that assumed the mining boom would never end.
Tens of billions of dollars of spending THAT YOU SUPPORT. You have spent the last MONTH deriding the government for not spending enough on “major infrastructure projects”, now it proposes to do just that you condemn them for it! You can’t make your mind up.
Yes I do favour a higher tax rate for the top tax bracket. Because unlike you I don’t think money grows on trees.
And while youre at it Glen, do you think your policy should be to REINSTATE the rebate?? What?? More deficit and more debt?? Or which services will you slash to finance it? Pray tell
Their side doesn’t know what they support.
No 63
I do like infrastructure spending, but I don’t like Swan’s sudden tendency to blame Howard for the budget woes that come as a result of spending what you don’t have.
OK, GP, tell us how you would balance the budget in the face of a massive fall in reveue, without borrowing or raising taxes. We’re all ears.
Well done GP, now you and Glen have both covered off the Lib hit point. Well done.
Pathetic. He was the guy you were going to bring down in the first month. Now the best you can do is say that doing a youtube video is diverting his attention? (because yeah, they take heaps of time).
You really have got nothing.
Ha! So which department do you suggest the Government abolish? Health? Or what about Defence?
No, he only SAYS that, he doesn’t actually believe what he says.
Since Swan has enough time to make Youtube videos of himself one has to assume that Treasury has made up the budget on its own this time.
Why do you both defending Swan he is a complete hack and you know it!
Did anyone ever tell you, GP, that most houses are paid off in Australia in just over seven years even though they are initially mortgaged over much longer time frames.
Maybe it was shot in the free time he had BETWEEN doing work on the Budget ? Ort do you want Swan to be working on it 24/7 ??
ANY extra money the government spent over the last financial year was going to be borrowing! The Government is receiving $70 billion a year less in tax out of a budget of $300 billion.
Your problem is you want all this infrastructure spending to be FREE. You are as bad as Glen, you think if Liberal government’s spend money, that it doesn’t actually have to be paid for!
Well fine, dislike his selling, but I guess that’s a big tick from you on the policies. 🙂
I think him blaming Howard is a tough sell (it’s true, but that’s irrelevant) – it’s too subtle, and requires understanding of what makes a budget.
You dodged the point completely.
His point is he supports everything the Howard government did, EVEN when what they did was WRONG.
Whereas I think the currently legislated income tax cuts should be repealed, because the government can’t currently afford them. I’m willing to admit a government that I generally support has made a mistake.
Give it a rest – I haven’t even seen this video you speak of, so I doubt many others have either (give me a link will you – can;t find it on his site, or youtube). You might as well criticise Costello for going for a jog each morning instead of getting up and going straight to work on the Budget.
It;s a bit rich for a liberal supporter to criticise an ALP treasurer for not working hard enough. Even Liberal MPs know (and admit in private) that Costello was lazy.
Geez I love seeing Collingwood getting slaughtered.
Me too Grog 🙂
No 67
Rubbish. The Liberals were seasoned economic managers with several surpluses under their belt before the mining boom even began. Even if some of the spending was needlessly generous in the latter years of their term, you can hardly blame the previous Government for failing to predict a collapse of the world’s premier financial institutions, some of which were in existence for 150 years prior, causing a worldwide economic meltdown.
I only support the infrastructure elements of their policies. Please don’t verbal me.
What I don’t support is Swan blaming Howard. Swan plunged the budget into severe deficit by his own reckoning. He, along with the PM, also promised to end the blame game, but it seems that game has become a newfound pass-time for the Rudd Government.
Oh, but you think it does grows on trees for those who are unfortunate enough to have 47.5% of their incomes (over 150,000) removed each year?
Wayne Swan – Behind the budget
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu6YFgI4AX0
I agree – then again I thought they should have been scrapped last year, and I have to admit I was wrong.
I would seriously like to know if there has been any real difference to the quality of the public health system since the Liberals have offered the 30% rebate for private cover. From what I can tell there has been no difference at all in NSW. Both major parties are still squibbling and playing cheap politics over health like ever before.
Diogs, if you are there, what is your opinion?
No 81
Rubbish. If repeating Keating lines is the best you can do, I have much sympathy for you.
GP your so called seasoned economic managers got thrown out and your hero PM lost his own seat. You need a new hymn sheet to sing from.
What GP’s and Glen’s posts show though is how mired in the past they are, how intent on attack attack attack and no plan for policy for the future. Sounds like a great way to stay in opposition. Keep it up guys
I’m waiting for GP to explain how he would balance the budget without borrowing or raising taxes. If you’re going to be a pure Gladstonian you have to have the courage of your convictions and say what massive spending cuts you would make to balance the budget when your revenue base has collapsed.
I don’t think so, many were getting sick of the welfare for the rich.
The 30% health rebate that supported the share price, profits, giveaways like cd’s, running shoes, 5 star accomodation but didn’t do much about the gap payments when actual health care was needed.
The ones sending their kids to private schools, enjoying regular holidays abroad and getting family tax benefit A and B because they could structure their tax affairs right.
The “battling” mums and dads who owned eight investment houses also eligible for family payments.
Buy Telstra shares, sink a million into super tax free, borrow against your house I’ve increased its value, we’re all rich and its going to last forever.
And I think another great way to stay in opposition is BLAME THE LEADER. The polls have shifted through three leaders- Howard, Nelson and Turnbull, but heck, bring on the next guy…Hockey??
Cheers Oz – great stuff.
I guess GP and Glen actually think Swannie is doing the editing and camera work as well. Otherwise it looks like his contribution was about 2 minutes.
Yeah Grog but how many Takes for Swanny to get his lines right LOL!
I’m not, I’m reapeating things said to me by people who worked as advisors for Howard govt ministers.
😀 pay that.
The last bit of narrowing seems to have been caused by the boat people issue and the various dog whistling on that issue. Maybe that has worn off.
In any case a single poll showing a movement the other way needs only hints at a movement the other way.
No 90
Adam, as you will remember, I have detailed my list of cuts before. Among them was cancelling auto industry assistance and slashing welfare spending, except for the elderly, sick and disabled.
Err that is still Tens of Billions…
Christian Kerr, do you suffer from the journalistic version of beak and feather disease?
Whose credibility is on the line here: Garrett’s or your’s?
You have uncritically reported a serious of statements without bothering to check whether they are true or make any sense. You accept it all uncritically and use it to make an assessment of Garrett’s credibility.
Here you are in today’s Australian:
‘THREE years after the orange-bellied parrot embroiled Coalition environment minister Ian Campbell in an almighty row, another pesky psittacus is pecking away at the credibility of his successor Peter Garrett.’
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25460867-2702,00.html
Does you have any critical faculties? Here are some of the statements made in the article:
‘But the bans have left local timber workers worried about their prospects. They say 1000 jobs and the future of the town of Deniliquin have been put at risk.’
Come on Christian, you could reasonably have pointed out that Deni is basically an irrigation/tourism/service town and not basically a timber town. Deni does well out its nature-based tourism – not worth a mention, eh Christian?
Sure, Deni’s future is at a huge risk right now but the risk is that the water has stopped falling out of the sky in the Murray Darling Basin, possibly because of global warming. Not worth the context, eh Christian?
Also not worth including the tree deaths that are occurring as Red Gum forests along the Murray/Murrumbidgee rivers because of drought and salinity, and the potential impact of this on forestry operations?
‘1000 jobs’ eh, Christian? Any journo worth his salt would have the BS antennae quivering around that number. But not you, eh Christian?
How about this?
‘NSW Forest Products Association director Russell Ainley said the superb parrot nested in trees along the edge of the forest and fed in the grasslands and that logging did not disrupt its habitat.’ Really, Christian, why not test that one for scientific balance? You could not bother to check out the Superb Parrot extinction drivers? Ah,you just accepted the words of an interested party?
Christian, do you really expect us to believe that any Minister is going to buy a fight with the forestry industry that is not based on the best scientific information?
Well, Christian, how about this?
“We’re all for helping the parrot, but we care for workers jobs,” he said. “Mr Garrett has made a decision to put 1000 workers out of their jobs in rural NSW. Mr Garrett has to be overruled by the Prime Minister.”
There’s two bits of crap here. Hunt knows it. You know it. The first bit of crap is the bit about ‘we’re all for helping the parrot’. Self-evidently, they are not. They are all for helping the parrot on its way to extinction in order to glean a vote or two. The second bit of rubbish from Hunt: those ‘1,000 workers’ again. Hunt is at least sort of doing his job in confusing the issues and trying to extract some electoral mileage. So, what is your excuse?
Then Christian, you come up with this:
‘Federal Liberal MP Sussan Ley, whose Farrer electorate includes the wetlands where the parrots are located, said there were 11 timber mills on the NSW of the Murray River.’
Really, Christian, were your BS atennae still asleep?
The NSW part of the Murray river starts at the great divide a long, long way to the east of the range of the Superb Parrot. After flowing through an area of Superb Parrot habitat, it continues to flow in NSW for some distance before it reaches the South Australian border. Christian, Christian, such sloppiness! How many of the timber mills are actually in Superb Parrot habitat? How many of them depend critically on the timber supplies harvested from Superb Parrot habitat? Do the mills that actually occur in Superb Parrot habitat really have 1000 workers to lose? You don’t know the answers? Well, you should if you are using this information to make a claim that this is ‘pecking away at the credibility’ of Garrett.
(BTW, you left out the word ‘side’ after NSW and your subbie did not pick it out.)
Of course, Christian, apart from your competence and/or credibility, there is also the question about your balanced approach to the issue:
No mention of the Act under which the Minister must operate?
No quotes from scientists on the future of the Superb Parrot and the role of forestry in its possible extinction?
No quote from the Minister indicating why the decision had to be made?
Christian, there is a serious general policy and political issue here. It revolves around the question of whether Australia should accept the extinction of a species in order to save local jobs. Unfortunately, you have contributed nothing but uncritical, unbalanced rubbish to this important policy discussion.