Tuesday 27 June 2006

Politics

Wow - this blog is almost at teh stage where it drives itself! Cool! i admit not to adding much recently, but hey, otehrs lives are more interesting anyway! Thanks for the post from South America Ange!

Politics seems to be generating a little bit of heated debate, although i know mick is a passionate person sometimes I think he just loves to throw his vocab around! Quite impressive.

i think Australian Politics is very interesting at the moment, and has been for some time. being a business person I do appreciate that Costello is possibly one of the best treasureres we have had and that under the Howard regime the economy has done very well. However, Allan Greenspan was claimed to also be one of the US reserve banks best chairman and he still managed to fall from graces with some terrible choices, particularly throwing his weight behind George Bush endorsed tax cuts to the wealthy. It cost him his job.

Similarly, Costello and Howard have made some choices which I believe go against the best interests of the majority of Australians, especially in regards to tax cuts which favour the upper middle class, and especially in the last year. Also of concern are the AWA's and the anti-terrorism laws which infringe on citizens privacy. International disasters and threats should not be used for political leverage and as such, should create common ground between political parties - we have not seen that in Australia.

I jsut wanted to touch on these topics and invite people to express their opinion of what they think Howard has done well and waht Howard has done bad. Personally I think his worst mistakes have been made in regard to immigration and environmental policy - and it extends beyond refugees to things like security, but most importantly our sense of national identity. Whilst I do agree with restricting immigration to 'acceptable' applicants, the definition of acceptable is definately debatable not to mention the process.

As an aside, I'm going to go see Coldplay tonight! Thanks to Mick and his great forward thinking!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

yes well we've certainly got the priorities right - billard table, coldplay tickets, whilst still eating off the floor and using and esky to keep the beer cold ( or on that sort of financial thinking maybe that should read champagne?)

D. said...

Well, anonymous knows me/us so well! This deserves some investigation! Who could you be - are you stalking us?

Talking of stalkers, does anybody agree that some girls like to invent/exagerate the fact that they have a guy that stalks them?

The poor guy probably lives next to them, but because he 'follows' them back from the station everyday, he is stalking her! Girls, if your that in need of attention that you have to invent a stalker my number is 0$0^7^0&9)

Anonymous said...

uh oh that stalker comment could open a can of worms - are you suggesting that girls who complain about stalkers are actually ASKING to be STALKED - a bit like the old RAPE cop out on the blokes part - " but your honour- she wore short skirts, high heels, red lipstick, yada yada, she WAS ASKING for it!" what a crock - i am disullusioned and dishearted

D. said...

No. I just think girls sometimes like to mention the fact that they have a 'stalker' as if they deserve some kind of Kudos... not suggesting girls are either complaining about or asking to be stalked.

Complaining implies a severely negative tone and is probably not acompanied with a deep (chesty) sigh and toss of the hair...

How do you asked to be stalked? By portraying it as if you like it might give some (stupid) guys the impression you like it. This is totaly different to the wearing a short skirt argument, which I thought was more of a 'deserves' it rather then 'asking' for it argument.

Anonymous said...

'better the devil you know than the devil you dont' is often seen as a sfae cop out - but if your feeling threatend or insecure its often the best option.

I agree with mick - Beazley is not the option, labour needs to find someone who can give constructive alternatives to howards policies - people are tired of the same old rhetoric of slamming the oppositions policies for the sake of it - until labour gives us some strong constructive alternative arguments & policies they are not going to get into government, even if johnnie decides to retire.

as for foreign policy and indonesia in particular i think howard tries to stick with the ideal - treat others as you would like to be treated yourself - with respect and dignity. and while he continues to portray australia as a country that holds that ideal ( and doesnt resort to the arrogance of bush)i think we will reap the benefits of good relations with our neighbouring countries.

Anonymous said...

I agree that liberal/conservative Govt is better of only 2 party options available.Howard and Costello have been very successful at engineering policy decisions to get re-elected. A drovers dog could have run the country successfully in the last few years.
Parliament is a wank and waste of money.All policy decisions are made in camera in the party room,we never hear the decent debates vis backbencher revolt on processing of refugees.