True, we can discuss it, and I agree with your brilliant and accurate description of the Bracks process!Leaping Lindner wrote: Yes. But we can discuss
Firstly Bracks would have trotted out any evidence after forming a committee to look into forming a committee that would look into forming a committee that would consult a committee not too far down the track at the end of the day in the fullness of time.
Just for the record....
"Ted Baillieu was forced into a dramatic defence last night over revelations he directly profited
from the Kennett government's decision to close more than 300 Victorian schools.....a real estate agency part-owned by Mr Baillieu was given a contract to sell 48 schools during the 1990s.Mr Baillieu, who was Liberal Party president during the Kennett government's reign from 1992-99, last night admitted to having a financial interestin the parent company of the agency, BaillieuKnight Frank." - The Herald Sun 3/11/2006
And that's the HUN the champion of the Liberals in this state.
As for fixing an ecomonic mess. Yes fair point. But don't turn around and slash jobs and services in the name of "the common good" and "fixing the ecomony" and then pour $40 million a year into a car race that loses money , God knows how many millions into a casino and the crowning turd in the sewer pipe give yourself a pay rise!!!!!
But Jeff's a new man these days. After all he is chairman for Beyond Blue. Pity he didn't have the same compassion when he was in government.
I have always seen the The Hun as decidedly Laborite - there's perspective for you. That statement by a down market paper [We read The Age!
] doesn't establish that Ted Baillieu had a hand in that 14% of the sales work going to a firm he part owned. If he were going to interfere in the process you would have thought he'd have gone for a higher percentage and make it worth while! So, I suspect it was fairly innocent and reflected market share among the major firms. [I would agree it would have been politically wise to exclude the firm, but perhaps unfair to his partners.]I agree about the car race, the casino, and the pay rise.
Lyn Arnold, Labor Premier SA, was wise to let Adelaide's Grand Prix be quietly "stolen" from SA and thus dodge the flack for dumping it that would have come from the SA minority who liked the race being there. [I went to the last one in SA, but only because we got in free, and it was the last.]
The slashing jobs and services in Victoria, and to a lesser extent in SA, was driven by the need to get rid of unfunded superannuation liabilities which effectively doubled the more openly known huge debts in the state banks. Privatising services and transferring the staff also transferred the future superannuation liability and at the same time sold to foreigners a lot of worthless - because of these liabilities - assetts. I don't think Connex for example now think they got a good deal - Jeff conned them for Victoria! Personally I didn't like Jeff much - his arrogance annoyed me although I never met him personally, only Robert Doyle later in 1999 - but I got on well with John Olsen and discussed the same issues with him when I lived in his electorate and he was the new Premier in SA.
Don Dunstan, SA Premier in the 1970s, openly admitted spending the state superannuation fund during his Premiership. He said, " It doesn't matter, we are the Government, we'll just put it back when it is required!" That didn't allow for the loss of earnings over the years and a future Bannon government spending themselves into a situation where they couldn't "put it back".
Mind you Paul Keating, it appeared, encouraged both state governments to trust in his "J-curve" and keep spending in deficit to stimulate the expected recovery, so perhaps it is unfair to lay all the blaim on the state governments. That's why I'm a little nervous about our present federal government's proposed second "stimulus package", though I supported the first.
[I'd like to have seen it linked to a permanent ban on futures trading and short selling though! I think these forms of gambling increase market fragility.]
