I hope Rudd is even just half as competent as what he pretends to be. Australia took a while to grow up after the Hawke-Keating years (granted, Hawke and Keating were both tenacious politicians). Values and principles mean nothing if they can't be put into action without jeopardy. I get the feeling the whole Labor campaign is based on embracing people's desire for change and something new, but essentially without a lot of substance.

I'll miss ol' Johnny Howard. I remember him from the days he fought for Coalition leadership with Andrew Peacock. Now that Rudd is in power, I really hope for Australia's sake that he does as good a job.

^ I felt a little sad for john when I saw this photo
http://blogs.abc.net.au/photos/uncat...p1020304_2.jpg

I guess people like clever slogans and T-shirts more than full employment and a thriving economy!!!


Im disagree with Howard on a number of Issues (eg monarchy ) but I respect him as a very good political leader.

BUT

KEVIN07 gives me the total creeps... the campaign was all smoke and mirrors - man behind the curtain stuff.... "An educational revolution"...wow....wtf does that even mean...oh and my personal fav.....faster broadband...wait...did you hear the words "faster broadband"kids...im a rock star!!!! And guess what the kiddies buy into it. get ur kevino7 shirts on line!


Its like the episode of the Simpsons when homer makes runs for sanitation commissioner... makes a bunch of crazy promises then fills the town full of crap..


oh well, let the interest rates sky rocket...(and btw in my line of work ill be reaping all the benefits)

^ yeah seriously, you guys just got Tony Blair mark 2, enjoy the spin

sigh

maybe my biggest problem with this whole election was howard losing his seat to maxine mckew

voting out a politician with 30 years experience and a successful career as prime minister in favour of a journalist with exactly zero years political experience made me lose faith in the country all over again. the mind boggles.

man

just watch australia turn to shit

I have to agree with you there. It's only the second time ever a PM has lost his seat.

well, just to even out the political spectrum a bit, i did put liberal as my last preference

i dont really see labour as being any better/worse than liberal, but it'd be nice to see the leader of our country give a shit about something other than making us all rich

during the entire month of campaigning, howard and costello couldnt open their bloody mouths without mentioning 'interest rates' or the 'economy'

Why do people still fall for this.

i was very happy with this result.

i'm not sure why some people here, even if they may not agree with the hate for john howard, surely they understand it.

a man who did not listen to the people who cared enough to speak out for change.

i'm glad he is gone. to quote paul dempsey from last night's show:

"ding dong, the witch is dead!"

as a topical yet totally unrelated aside, has the australian government (under howard or otherwise) ever apologised to the aborginies?

stop stalking sfk

NO they haven't, and this morning/last night Julia Guilard (Deputy PM for all you non-Aussies) would not commit to a timeframe, when the question was posed

i'm glad i'm not the only one who feels that rudd's campaign was based on shit. and i also felt sad watching howard's speech.

i'm also amazed (well maybe disappointed but not surprised) that howard lost his seat to maxine mckew. i used to live in bennelong (howard's seat) a couple elections ago before the boundaries were redrawn. (now that house is in "north sydney").

i hated the KEVIN07 t-shirts. how tacky can you be.

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr the economy duuuuuuur interest rates mrurusuruurrur unions.

I was a couple of months of being able to vote in the election but if i could've i would've given the edge to Rudd (2 party preferred). I don't think either choices are particularly rad, but i think it'd be a little weird for anyone to be behind a politician 100%.

Howard pretty much ignored the entire reconciliation issue. Paul Keating said this:

http://apology.west.net.au/redfern.html
"It begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.

It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me? "

Yeah man, fucking 'economy'

You can take a horse to water but you cant make it appreciate honest politics when the other guy stops talking about policies and starts talking about 'values' and 'visions'.

Free oats and sugar cubes!

politics (and policies) involves more than just money!

sure it has mostly been about money in the past, as unfortunatley a lot of people care a hell of a lot about money in this world.

but it's not normally of great concern, as most of the time the governing party doesn't makes stupid ethical/moral/values based decisions. but when they do, i think that becomes a lot more important than money. and many others agree.

the issues i've mentioned are current topical issues that most parties have addressed in some way, and for which policies exist.

have a read of the greens policies on their website for examples.

i don't think there are such things as "stupid" ethical/moral decisions. but there are stupid economic decisions. everything can boil down to economics, especially environmental issues these days. (hence why i lean towards the green vote in australia but on 2 party preferred, labor will always be last.)

a lot of people care a lot about money but once they start taking economic prosperity and fiscal management for granted they will be swayed by pollie talk of visions and a new bright future etc. i don't think for a moment any of the swing voters thought "hey i value k-rudd's insight and kyoto more than my paycheck". they're thinking they can have both. maybe they can - we'll see.

and john howard was not an attractive man in the slightest, i think people just got sick of the sight of him.

lolz. The Liberal Party is running scared:

Malcolm Turnbull: Not ratifying Kyoto is fucking retarded.

Joe Hockey: Work Choices is fucking retarded.

lucky howard and costello stayed behind to help clean up the mess


meanwhile, the prospect of tony abbot taking a senior position in the party is quite bothersome....

your right, they can only be right or wrong:
-reconciliation with aborigines.
-equality for homosexuals.
-safety/preservation of the current and future flora and fauna at proposed nuclear waste storage sites.

you can argue that money means more to you than those issues, that just makes you selfish.

but you can't argue that the current stance of the government was "right" or anywhere close, that is just stupid.

Caring about money doesn't just mean people trying to fill up their Scrooge McDuck money bin - the economy's about how the country functions as a system and internationally, it's a slightly important issue.

And the 'moral' issues are more complicated than just saying 'ideally this is how things should be, so let's do it' - and yes the economy comes into that again. I mean just as an example, when you mentioned that australia produces 1.5% of the world's carbon emissions but it only has 0.32% of the world's population, you are taking into account the varying levels of industrialization across the world, right?

yes the economy is a slightly important issue, just not as important as these other issues. it's about priorities.

and i'm not saying that the solutions are easy, or inexpensive. the previous government had 11 years, and on many of these issues made no progress, if not made them worse.

i know industrialization is a reason for our high emissions, but it's not an excuse. using that logic excuses most environmental damage, and sooner or later people, coutries, leaders need to suck it up and take responsibility for the unfairly high damage they are causing wqyually to the world and it's total population

.there are alternatives. not dreams, real, here now, alternatives that can be implemented right away, and has been that way for many years. it's got to the point where they've only done the absolute minimum required and nothing more (because they truly don't care, not as much as votes or money)

:rock_on:

get a job trev

ROLF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Don't worry kiddy, they only people who will be ''getting rich'', will kevin's front bench...

jeeeezzzz...The ALP don't care about money :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Do you live in NSW ?? or have you read about the NSW state government???? it's so corrupt it make The Sopranos look like 7th heaven

they've totally fucked up the state, roads, hospitals ...and your telling me there bleeding hearts...i'm sorry but :rofl: :rofl: