Gillard for PM?

[southee]

It's just a stunt obviously the funny part was him contradicting himself later in the same interview.

Unelectable.

Im sure if Gillard gets in the asylum seekers issue with do a big 360 degree turn......

We shall see I quess

[redandblack]

Squawk, you haven't heard "great, big, new tax"

[Squawk]

Squawk, you haven't heard "great, big, new tax"

Yes, I have!

But I think there's been a lot of them - not just the ETS and RSPT but other "great, new taxes" that have been brought in by stealth and given sexy names under an umbrella splattered with the words "policy announcement" - aka "policy shift to slug the financial lifeblood out of hard working Australians to fund more announcements so that it looks like we are always busy doing something for working families and hard working Australians and creating an Australia where nobody earns more than 10% more than anyone else or it comes straight to the Treasury coffers for redistribution to working families and hard working Australians". Who on earth are these people, if it isn't everyone? Because everyone certainly doesn't see it.

[Q.]

Well it's happened. Tony has publicly signed a contract saying Work Choices is dead, buried and cremated, (or words to that effect).

Dumb political stunt.



TONY Abbott has signed a "contract" promising that Work Choices is dead and buried but he continues to muddle his message on the controversial laws.

“Give me a bit of paper, I'll sign it here,” Mr Abbott said to 3AW host Neil Mitchell as he tried to end questions about John Howard's divisive workplace laws.

But pressed again by Mitchell, Mr Abbott said: “I can't give an absolute guarantee about every single aspect of workplace relations.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/tony-abbott-signs-contract-on-work-choices-but-muddles-message-on-workplace-laws/story-fn59niix-1225893906267

[Psyber]

Only a devoted Laborite would try to whip up the idea that there is any conflict between a promise not to bring back Work Choices, and not promising there would be no changes to industrial policy at some time.
Everything has to be subject to review after a period of trial, as Julie Bishop pointed out on Q&A last night.

[redandblack]

Random points:

1 Squawk, this nonsense about all people earning within 10% of each other lets your usual sensible posts down. Why are you so worried about what others get, when you're in the top bracket of earners yourself?

2 How can you cremate something that's already buried?

3 Only a devoted Liberal (there's a misuse of a word's meaning) would think Tony Abbott isn't going to use regulatiions to change working conditions.

[Psyber]

3 Only a devoted Liberal (there's a misuse of a word's meaning) would think Tony Abbott isn't going to use regulations to change working conditions.

Of course he may modify industrial policy, if in time he thinks it is necessary after seeing how it goes, but he has promised not to in the first term.
So will Julia, who has not made the same promise about her first term, if her union affiliations require it, and so will the Greens if they end up with the balance of power.
What he has promised not to do is reintroduce the Work Choices package that was in place under the Howard government, which Labor were trying to scare people by saying he would do automatically and immediately.

[I thought that package went too far, too, and said so in writing to several Liberal leaders, including Downer, Abbott, and Costello, at the time.]

[Squawk]

Random points:

1 Squawk, this nonsense about all people earning within 10% of each other lets your usual sensible posts down. 10% was a throw away line - realistically, it would be a figure between zero and $150k. The average wage is around $55k so relatively speaking the gap is fairly narrow. Why are you so worried about what others get, when you're in the top bracket of earners yourself? I'm not in the top bracket by any stretch, and now fall in to the category of working poor (IMHO) having lost one full time income in our household and gaining an extra mouth to feed. I'm annoyed that having been encouraged to go forth and do good, I have limited ability to enjoy any rewards for those endeavours. There has to be some incentives in this world to climb out of modesty or misfortune and find a place of comfortability (not necessarily excess).

2 How can you cremate something that's already buried? Exhumation?

3 Only a devoted Liberal (there's a misuse of a word's meaning) would think Tony Abbott isn't going to use regulatiions to change working conditions. Interestingly, Labor has been silent on what changes it might make, or not make. I'm simply trying to make the point that no matter if the guy writes something in blood and promises to lock his whole family up in Goulbourn SuperMax if he does make any changes, the fear campaign wont be dropped. Probably ever. Labor called the "Great Big New Tax" in the context of the ETS and the RSPT a fear campaign and didn't like it. In fact, they postponed the ETS and negotiated the RSPT with the mining lobby. If only we were all given the opportunity to negotiate our tax!

[Psyber]

The average wage is around $55k

The average income figures people quote always amaze me - in my last two years as a medical specialist in private practice, admittedly on a 30 hour week [plus about 6 hours a week unpaid work for the government bureaucrats, and collating and sending subpoenaed records to courts] my taxable income was $49K, and I was paying off a $360K mortgage, and shunting back and forth between Melbourne and Adelaide frequently for family reasons.

I concede that in the later 1970s I was making $19K when the average was about $6k I think - since then costs went up dramatically.and the Medicare rebate shrank dramatically relative to CPI and AWE.
I looked at going back into the public system in the late 1980s when the rot really set in and several hospital CEOs said they'd like to take me on, and had vacant positions, but had no funds to fill the vacancies.
That was when I made the move into WorkCover and Medico-Legal practice, which I'd phased out again in the later years leading towards retiring.

That is a factor in current health policy - AMA Surveys suggest that most young medical graduates now only want to work part time in a practice run by someone else while they focus on other interests.
The devotion to patient care, being available for continuing care, and covering after hours is going, and that is the source of the push for "Superclinics", practice nurses, but it is unlikely to help rural locations much.

By the way, only 13% of GP practices have declared any interest in employing nurse practitioners under Labor's policy as they fear being held responsible for those employees' decisions while they will not be paid for taking time off from seeing patients to provide supervision for the nurses and review cases with them, nor for the paperwork in paying them then applying for the government funds after the fact.
So, it is a promise that will not have to be delivered, and I suspect the government know that and figure they can always blame the "uncooperative" doctors.

[Thiele]

Julia is moving forward http://player.video.news.com.au/adelaidenow/#1548591375

[southee]

Julia is moving forward http://player.video.news.com.au/adelaidenow/#1548591375

Yep...thats right...Julia sounding like a scratched, broken down record.

[Leaping Lindner]

Triple M - the home of comic geniuses.

[southee]

Triple M - the home of comic geniuses.

I know ....I laughed so much I fell off my chair!!!

Great minds thinking that one up......

[Gozu]

I know ....I laughed so much I fell off my chair!!!

You want laughs southee, did you just see Joe Hockey's performance on the 7.30 Report? The former minister for WorkChoices was still being beaten around the head with their own policy and then near the end said Labor hadn't delivered a budget suplus since 1989! Swan delivered a surplus of more than $23 Billion right before the GFC struck (which of course never happened in Liberal Party land).

Sloppy Joe is truly an imbecile.

[redden whites]

That was sheer champagne comedy

[southee]

I know ....I laughed so much I fell off my chair!!!

You want laughs southee, did you just see Joe Hockey's performance on the 7.30 Report? The former minister for WorkChoices was still being beaten around the head with their own policy and then near the end said Labor hadn't delivered a budget suplus since 1989! Swan delivered a surplus of more than $23 Billion right before the GFC struck (which of course never happened in Liberal Party land).

Sloppy Joe is truly an imbecile.

No mate, missed it. Try not to look at the media at the moment with their pre - Labour spin on things at present.
Some unbiased reporting would not hurt for once

[Q.]

[redandblack]

[Leaping Lindner]

[southee]

...and the Labour supporters laugh!!

Settle boys.....