I suppose the positive bit of this news is that in spite of what many women think about Tony Abbott’s views on women, they will vote for him anyway to become the next Prime Minister. That this mysogynist notion carries any weight at all is a disgrace – to the question is Tony Abbot a misogynist, 25% say “yes” with another 31% “uncommitted” – but the politics of tribalism and personal identification remains as one of the most powerful forces in modern democracies. Perhaps it was ever thus, but if so it was ever problematic.
The data show the Coalition ahead of Labor 53%-47% amongst women which seems near enough the male ratio. For me, however, those 47%, male or female, are a conundrum that passes all understanding. We have the most incompetent government in our history led by the most incompetent Prime Minister in our history and even in spite of everything, virtually half the population would be willing to return these people to government. And with the certainty that when an election is really called it will only get closer, I do not leave a close result out of the equation and even leave room for that small but by no means insignificant possibility that these people could come back again for another three years.
I wish someone would run a poll about what these Labor voters are worried about should a Coalition Government actually be elected. Are they afraid that abortion will become unavailable? That contraceptives will be banned? That the welfare state will deprive them of some of those goodies they are accustomed to? That they will actually have to work for a living and not sponge off the rest of us? That union power to wreck our livelihoods will be diminished? That entrepreneurs will make more money? That profits will rise? That the boats will stop coming? That the government will stop spending our money on unproductive activities. Just what is it? This I would like to know because nothing is obvious even when paying attention to those media types who cannot stop their anti-Abbott rants. They never make either the case against Abbott or the case for Labor. Just tribal and infantile but no substance that I can see anywhere.
And in discussing this, let me mention something I came across the other day about the Pragmatic philosopher, Charles Sanders Pierce.
The heart of the epistemology of Pierce can be formulated as the claim that sticking to old beliefs is a man’s normal inclination [a woman's too, I'd imagine] and that this is in fact rational. In order to learn, we update old beliefs with a certain unwillingness in the face of counterevidence, facts that we stumble upon daily. The updating process runs via hypothesis making: inference to the best explanation. What counts as the best explanation depends not only on the newly encountered facts, but just as much – or even more – on our old beliefs. Again, this is rational.
By all means stick to old beliefs until circumstances force you to re-evaluate and think things through again. But unless one has a positive death wish for our economic prosperity and the continued good fortune of this country, I cannot for the life of me see why anyone would even consider voting these people back in again.
Maybe John Quiggan could be encouraged to hold such a poll?
Alternatively, just run one here. Include a voting intention question so we can filter out the results.
If people used reason then the ALP would have long gone the way of the dinosaurs.
If I extrapolate from my group of friends and acquaintances, there is a large component of the community that simply do not think about issues. They hold a primitive belief that was formed some time back and that is it. One friend has a humanities doctorate and she commented recently “I love Julia Gillard, she can do no wrong” As I understand it, to shake a primitive belief takes something quite jolting. Maybe the slapper being charged over the AWU fraud. But then I have read that there were people that believed in Stalin to the end.
Dunno, everybody I speak to can’t wait to see the back of them. The closest I’ve come across to the ‘other side’ are 2 comments.
1. I can’t vote for Abbott because he’s a Catholic lunatic. (A lot of poeple out there have been brainwashed to truly despise Christianity).
2. A recent student, now worker, said he used to support Labor because they guaranteed handouts. Now he supports the Coalition because he pays too much tax. It’s all about ‘me’. Our society is becoming increasingly fractured.
The majority have fairly strong political views, and changing them fundamentally does not happen often or easily. I myself have made the change only once. For most of the time I supported Labor it was hard to imagine changing. Now I vote Liberal, and it is similarly difficult to imagine changing (except maybe in the case of Ted Baillieu).
It also involves an admission of error, a real problem for many of us.
If you are wondering how it is so many could still support Labor, ask yourself how bad things would have to get before you voted against conservatives.
Don’t think it’s really about Mr Abbott.
ALP voters do seem to strongly pass their belief system down from generation to generation, without even questioning it. Ms Gillard could ruin the economy and go to jail for her shonky union lawyering, and some won’t care, as long as it’s Labor, they must vote Labor.
heh.
This is not surprising.
The PM herself declared Abbott, in parliament, to be a misogynist. Point blank and to his face. As unpopular as she may be, she’s the PM and her words carry weight.
Mind you, the speech had its own costs. You can only go emotionally nuclear once. Losing it once is explicable as a woman pushed to the brink. Twice would look like a habit.
And one of them has a seat in the Australian Senate.
DD
It is a little surprising considering the fact that it came from the Lying Slapper who thinks married women are prostitutes.
The Right haven’t attacked the Slapper hard enough for what she said.
WTF?
Maybe it’s time to get deep underground.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/9875149/Fireballs-reported-in-skies-above-Cuba-and-California.html
47%, let me make a stab at the demographic…
Me dad voted Labor, me grand-dad voted Labor, I’m voting Labor.
Stuck-in-the-19thC militant Unionists.
Chip-on-the-shoulder aggrieved groups:
- Feminist activists
- Aboriginal activists
- Homosexual activists
- Equal-rights for gay-whales activists
Dependent upon the Government groups:
- Asylum seekers and their extended kinships
- Generational welfare families
- Public servants
- Intellectuals
- The ABC (and other parasites including the host of global warming spawned leeches)
Immature and brainwashed university students.
Time-poor citizens trusting Left-wing media sound bytes to base their vote on.
The deranged.
So, did I miss anyone?
47% – wasn’t that Mitt Romney’s favourite number? The universality of that number is the problem – it is too damn high. Personally, I was an ALP supporter when I was a net beneficiary of government largesse, and became a Liberal supporter once I found myself cross-subsidising the lifestyles of…well…indolent bastards like the former me!
If they asked “Was Tony Abbott spawned by the devil?” you’re going to quite a few affirmatives. Rusted ons, Greens etc.
Whever someone admits to me they vote Labor I always retort “Yeah, I used to young and stupid once too.”
My hope is that between now and the election the coalition keep applying “Liberal” amounts of WD40 to those Labor nuts that are not too rusted on to be turned.
I have a family member who is completely insane with support for Underbelly Labor.Totally nuts. I asked why Tony Abbott was hated so much to get a rant that leaves Gillard’s misogyny speech looking rational and controlled. un-effing-believable basically told me I was hated because I have conservative views and hung up on.–then next time I meet my beloved sibling it’s as if nothing happened. I know I know you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your relatives wherein acceptance kicks in and we raise a glass of vino, get out the pane, formaggio e proscuitto — and foegedd-abowdit.
Perhaps they are afraid that Abbott won’t worry about the 47%?
G’day,
Steve & Co you are not understanding the numbers. Have a look at the actual poll results not the article:
http://resources.news.com.au/files/2013/02/16/1226579/518416-galaxy-poll.pdf
Only shows only 36% of women plan to vote Labor 46% for the Liberals 10% for the Greens and the rest for someone else. So about two thirds do certainly understand we have a hopeless government. As always its not enough to just point out the government is bad, the Opposition has to convince the public it can do a better job. They have only really started the positive campaign a few weeks ago.
You may also want to look at this article, as I have been saying for months it will be us Westies who will get Abbott in. The girls out here like him.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/abbott-has-already-won-over-ladies-of-the-west/story-fndo28a5-1226579506562
Ralph
Yeah, Grey, because we all know that Labor governs for the community as a whole!!
Ralph, can’t wait to see David Bradbury get destroyed in Lindsay. It’s been too long…………
I’ve been forced to contemplate this unpleasant fact following catching up with two of my mates during the week (in Sydney).
One is a Rustadon – grew up in Banky, used to be a member of the pardee, always voted laybore, hates ‘conservatives’ and considers them a joke, etc, etc. the other one is a stock broker, FFS – he and his wife are literally worth $millions.
I used to be of them, politically, at least. I was a rabid leftist, hated howard and costello with a passion and regarded all conservatives as beyond contempt.
September 11 was when the scales started to fall from the eyes. I’d hated organised religion with an undying passion since school and it struck me as very odd that the left were sucking up to islam, which as some people would know, I’ve always regarded as an utterly vile misogynist, Jew hating, medieval death cult.
As if that wasn’t unacceptable enough, I then started to have a good long look at the way my contemporaries and I lived our lives. One of my sisters is also a rabid leftist – she and her hubby (leftist as well) are again, literally worth $millions.
In the meantime, I’d started reading political blogs, particularly the mighty Timbo Blair.
At that point, things began to get seriously weird. I literally woke up one morning and realised to my horror, that I was a dishonest hypocrite.
I’ve considered myself a conservative ever since.
P.S. I was a conservative up until I was about 20 and then a rabid leftist until about the age of 40. Funny how things work out.
Apologies for the length.
I know people who keep telling me that they vote Labor because they believe on ‘social justice’ and Labor is the party of ‘social justice’. No amount of corruption exposed at ICAC or AWU investigations or sheer incompetence seems to dislodge the view that Labor is the party of social justice. When we were discussing all of the latter issues recently the told me that they would still vote Labor because there are good people in the Labor party; they can’t name those good people, or tell you what the unnamed good people have done for ‘social justice’ but they still believe in and will vote for them. Its depressing; these are educated intelligent and articulate people, and they are well and truly duped.
Another reason why I’m glad I’m no longer a leftist – my mates were actually reduced to defending the actions and credibility of oakeshitt and windbore.
The shame.
Charlie Manson wearing a clown’s nose could be leading Labor and they’d still be scoring a 2PP in the 40s.
These people are mindless drones or selfish to a degree that would make any right thinking person puke. The latter are those who are heavily unionised and/or in the public service or vote Labor because that’s just what you do. The former are the welfare bludgers and the arty farty media class elite morons with too much time on their hands and an overbearing yearning to ram their idea of fairness and equality down your throat.
In the office where I work with under 100 employees (architects), about 70% will vote Labor or the Greens.
At times, when the subject of politics comes up, it can be quite suffocating. Fortunately this doesn’t happen often.
Those that actually follow politics more deeply than the 6 o’clock news would probably poll in much higher numbers
I was telling someone recently about the whole AWU story and also about the large numbers of “illegal maritime arrivals” and they were quite shocked. Her response was. “Why isn’t this on the evening news? Thats where most people get their information from”
And that simple explanation actually answers the question. Most people are busy and the only politics they get to hear is from the TV in the evening time-slot. If the media took more responsibility for informing the public and explained the stuff ups and how it is impacting on us all, I am sure the message would eventually get through.
But in the meantime most people hear more about the weather or some sports person’s ankle injury or whatever, and they are not being informed about the things that SHOULD matter.
The Falklands war began my turn from the Left. The socialists I ran with all supported the right wing military dictatorship because they opposed thatcher. They hated Anglo democracy so much that they supported the generals. It took another ten years for me to completely disconnect from the left, but I figured out they were not nice people, that power was more important to them than moral principle.
Australians largely want a government who will run the show without them having to pay attention. They are willing to cede a fair bit of power to government if they believe they can get this effect.
Unfortunately this is exactly why we have mediocre, unaccountable, ineffective, dysfunctional government like NSW Labor. While this is an acceptable way to view your government, you can’t make it work this way without strong standing limitations on what government can do and strong legal protection for individual rights. Even more unfortunately, Australia pretty much has neither.
I was about to paraphrase the Major as in: ‘no I won’t have that — there was one back in ’72′.
But on second thoughts they were competently reckless.
Don’t they have any will of their own to go out and be successful?
The ALP caring about the working class is the greatest hoax ever perpetuated in Australian political history.
” people that believed in Stalin to the end.”
FFS, the problem is they didn’t believe in him. Then or now.
They believed in a cuddly Russian Bear father figure, not the crazed kill-junky pig-f-er that he was .
It’s cretins like the Labor and Green Senators that love him and the socialism that selected him…. it is they that deserve contempt.
JC,
WTF?
Maybe it’s time to get deep underground.
Actually the fireballs are coming from Daimler’s testing of the new car aircon refrigerant that Brussels wants to impose on the EU car makers in honour of the CO2 God. A mix of this new gas plus aircon lube sprayed onto a hot manifold causes an explosion, instant fire and emission of Hydrogen Fluride, an acutely toxic substance – causes glass to quickly go milky Exploding cars.
Must be serious if its getting into the atmosphere as well.
The ALP primary vote has fallen to 26% or thereabouts in the last year. That’s sort of promising.
The shocking thing is that the Greens vote has only dropped down from the 2010 election to a low of around 8%.
If only the 2PP was around 35% or less for the ALP.
Hodrogen fluoride dissolves in wate, blood for example, to make hydrofluoric acid. The preferentially attacks the bones, corroding them and killing the living cells in them
If you are a car owner, and thus evil in their eyes, the greens want to use acid to eat away the bones from inside your children, turning them into a skin bag of salty mush.
When I see Penny Wong smiling at a Greens Senator, I wonder how comfortable she is with that knowledge.
The legal profession.
ALL of the electronic news media is owned by the left. They consider it their mission to make sure NOTHING about what’s really going on in politics makes it into the evening news except 10-second grabs of Gillard shrieking abuse at Abbott in Question Time.
Their attempts to brown-nose the Lying Slapper are actually turning people off her. People — Australians especially — are acutely aware of when they’re being bullshitted.
Whale, that is one truly monstrous gravatar…
Maybe, but it sure takes them a long time to work it out.
How the hell did Labor get close enough last election to actually form government?
I looked. Now I cannot unlook. Ye Gods.
G’day,
May I suggest that those of you who are complaining about the government the most start to actively support the Opposition? I don’t mean just voting for them either but helping out by handing out flyers or volunteering to help man (or woman) a booth? Not just in nice safe Liberal seats either. How about helping in though Dept of Housing seats were you are likely to be spat at or those trendy inner city seats were Greens and Labor louts yell abuse at you?
I can assure you the candidates in those seats would appreciate your assistance.
ta
Ralph
Like many, I leaned left when I was younger and more or less through my undergrad years. What turned me away from them came down to two things:
1, Behaviour of lefty student politicians (in particular, though the young Libs weren’t a lot better) and what a bunch of grubs they were. That actually turned me off party politics altogether, but especially anything to do with the radical left.
2, Working for a living and paying proper taxes for the first time.
It’s amazing how your perspective changes when you have money being taken from your pay cheque and you see how it’s used. With that said, over time I came to appreciate the economic liberalism push from Keating during my teenage years and then the good work Costello did shoring up the nations fiscal situation. They were both very good things indeed. This is of course all being undone by the most incompetent and spiteful set of economic vandals we’ve seen for 40 years.
That’s public servants and welfare recipients (BIRM).
This is why the ENTIRE strategy of leftist parties like the ALP is to increase public spending. The aim is to client-ise the entire population – effectively, to create a one party state wherein advocates for the private and the market are denounced as ‘extremists’ who want to ‘claw back’ (Jenny Macklin’s favourite phrase) people’s ‘entitlements.’ All of this emphasises with crystal clear clarity how vital it is that an incoming non-entitlement party ruthlessly shred and destroy the preponderant dominance of the public sector.
I think a decade of leftist hysteria is getting to you, JC.
ralph,
With respect, you have got to be joking.
The coalition are big gubberment socialists.
The performance of o’barrell and flailieu has been utterly abysmal.
No thanks.
Ralph
The Liberal Party can stop being churlish and give the LDP a better deal on preferences. They’d get a lot of helpers if they were prepared to do that.
The prescription is simple for Libertarians: preference the Greens and ALP last and second last depending on who is more likely to win the seat, and then vote 1 LDP and then the LNP 2 then vore from the least authoritarian to the most, then put the Greens or the ALP last and second last.
Conservatives only need to go 1 LNP and 2 LDP then put the Alliance last and second last, depending on if the ALP or Green wing is more likely to win the seat.
I’m prepared to donate (only a modest amount) of money to see the Libs having really brutal attack ads on the Greens and ALP this election.
I know Abbot is trying to rebrand himself against a hostile media, but with the ALP getting 40%+ in 2PP polling – it is disturbing and the public needs an education campaign. The LNP should be aiming for a win with a 70%:30% 2PP electoral result.
These voters are frightened of Da Abbott and what he might do to Da Equality. That’s all. They will vote for barbarians so long as there is lots of redistribution.
As for the academics and gubbmit wuckers, they love taking liberties away, crushing free speech and destroying industries. Those people get off on that stuff.
I admit to voting ALP in my first federal election in 1987, it was whilst I was at Flinders Uni and the Young Liberals Club there was full of yuppy tossers and being a big country lad from the bush, I couldn’t cope with the arrogance. I changed my view after joining the Police Service in 89 and articles started appearing in the local rag about how people on benefits actually had more spending power than identical families on less than the average wage. This and the knifing of Hawke by Keating turned me against the ALP, I sort of liked Hawke as he portrayed himself as one of the people but Keatings arrogance and nastiness turned me right off of the party, so in 1993 I voted Coalition for the first time. I studied Australian Politics at TAFE for my promotional studies in 1995 and found that after learning more about the ideologies of the parties, I now find myself leaning even more to the right than I did when Keating was PM. Unlike most, I have seen the direct result of left wing policies in places like Elizabeth and Hackham West where there are inter-generational welfare dependent families relying on taxpayer benefits paid for by yours truely (and other Catallaxians too) Now that I have reached a level in my career where I am now part of the top 10% of income earners, I find that the ALP’s policies of wealth redistribution abhorrent as all it basically is doing is taking from those who have worked all their life and worked their way into their peak earning years and giving it to those who are just starting out in life. So in other words, stealing from one generation to give to a younger generation.
AS FOR FRANCHISE
I think a simple IQ/general knowledge test isn’t that bad to be administered before you get to vote.
10 simple civics questions you might ask a kid at the end of primary school.
Less than 8/10 and your ballot is cast with void marks and you have voted informally.
It’s also a test basically to weed out the senile, mildly retarded and drug addled, along with the ignorant.
It must be hard for the feminists and the Emily’s list phonies (who are not interested in feminism but socialism) to read the poll. They think that they own what females think.
On the political views discussion, when you only start becoming interested in politics over the past 3 years like myself, it is obvious that you are not going to support the left.
A jounalist told me that one of the independents wouldn’t have a bar of Abbot because he was a Catholic. He told me, why hasn’t he told a the rest of us?
The dynamics of the relationship between Gillard and Abbott smack of “a woman scorned”, coming from the days when she used to flirt outrageously with Abbott on morning TV. She oozes resentment. She is a moral vacuum. She is an embarrassment. She makes me feel ashamed even as she is incapable of shame.
Disgusting. Equating Julia Gillard with Stalin and Manson is about par for the course for you fascist right wingers. Ugh!
It is shocking that a journalist has uncovered evidence of a religious test for public office, but not informed the public.
Hammygar, equating Gillard with Stalin is a compliment in your books. You have admitted to being a strong supporter of the Soviet Union.
Gillard has killed more people than Manson and fewer than Stalin. What’s your problem? She’s worse than Manson but not as bad as Stalin?
Perhaps we should use Idi Amin instead.
Dude,
We just had a significantly sized rock casually traverse us at about the same distance as stationary satellites.
Russia was plastered with a meteor shower the other day…. and now Cuba?
I’m not a worry wart but….
I think Labor got just over 47% of the 2PP vote in 2004 under Mark Latham. So it is probably fair to say that around that level of support on a 2PP basis is a kind of reflexive, moronic vote.
I also believe that over the past few decades or so, the demographic composition of the electorate has probably shifted a few points towards the ALP and against the LNP. Partly this is because of some increase in the proportion of the electorate composed of certain constituencies that favour the ALP (such as NESB populations, single parents etc.), but also because the generation born prior to WW2 (who are slightly more pro-LNP and anti-ALP than the baby boom generation) are dying off. There has probably been a natural Labor majority for many years now, with the Labor Party only losing office when they comprehensively screw up.
Yea, Kero boy. You love Stalinist Russia and all it represented, why the sudden bout of horror in equating the Lying Slapper with Stalin. You ought see it as a good thing.
Truth be told, The Slapper wouldn’t hold a candle to ol’ Joe. She’d fuck up the mass-executions like she fucks up everything else this midas-in-reverse touches. I have no doubt she’d end up starving/shooting her own supporters in error.
Idi wasn’t as stupid.
Then stop worrying, Squire!
Such fear is beneath you.
Dot,
No need for such complications. The value of your vote should be (taxes paid – benefits received) / 1000.
Or better yet, google sortition.
FFS, don’t get him started on that topic…
Dude,
It’s always been a pet fear of mine. Something falling from the sky and whacking me dead.
oops sorry wrong fred to be talking about giant rocks hitting. Should all have been the open fred.
I read a lot of comments from ALP supporters on variouis websites, and I can see that they truly believe that this is a great government. The meme they constatntly repeat is that Swannie got us through the GFC without a recession, that the deficit and the government debt are lower than those of other countries. unemployment is low and interest rates are low. Then they rant about how awful Tony Abbott is.
It is all a philosophical issue for them. They don’t care how poor the ALP is in Government, they point is that Labor cares about the worker and the downtrodden. The Coalition only care about the rich. In any case, the ALP supporteres realy think that Julia has done brilliantly and it is only the Murdoch press which is preventing that brilliance form being appreiciated by the voters who are all dumb bastards mesmerised by Tony Abbott who mis both a total moron and an evil genius at the same time.
You’re right, hammygar. I’m only half accurate. Julia’s nothing like Charlie.
Yet during that era of Labor Governments, the second longest serving PM, John Howard served this country for 11.5 years. Certainly not pro-ALP.
Why on earth would you? Why?
Some people just aren’t informed by anything other than the mainstream press.
I have some fairly well educated friends who come from a an ex-education background.
When I ask ‘what’s wrong with Abbott?’, I get the labor-pushed anti-woman line. I ask ‘please explain! (best done with a Pauline voice)’ – there’s no rational explanation forthcoming.
They had never heard that Gillard was a serial mistress and family breaker, nor that Bruce Wilson had a family when she was involved with him.
Details of the AWU affair like the Boulder funds ripoff and POA were completely new to them.
Hand of God?
Seriously, Squire – there are other things you should be more afraid of – like being eaten by a crocodile, for instance!
My 7000 page book on sortition can be found on http://www.sortition-systems.com !
Sortition for the Senate is a seriously good idea. I would like to see it more widely applied.
Elections ought to be a Hunger Games for wannabe rulers.
The perfect formula would have IQ as a parameter too.
JC
I read them because they are so funny. The attcacks on Tony Abbott are the most amusing. In one breath these people would have you believe that Abbott is Cardinal Richlieu de nos jours with manya cunning plan to enslave us all under the auspices of Cardinal Pell. In the next breath they are telling you that Abbott has an IQ so low that a snake’s arse seems high in comparison.
They say that: Julia can still win easily, because Abbott is unelectable; the polls are all lies and will change, as they have done in the past when governments have been this far behind, the economy is in fantastic shape under Labor; and that all these wonderful progressive policies announced by Labor are just what the country needs. It’s hilarious.
Which includes me. But the reasoning is right, why should I vote for a party that if its ideology is carried out in full would see me with a substantial pay cut?
I provide an essential service so if privatised I would still have a job. But my job is not highly skilled and I am sure the private sector could get someone to do it for a lot less than the modest 55 000 the government pays me. So obviously I am going to vote for the party that is committed to making sure I get a decent wage.
And since you guys are all so wealthy and productive I am sure you don’t mind be taxed to keep me at a modest but comfortable $55,000.
Seriously, does anyone really begrudge their taxes when it goes to such a worthy cause?
grey – As much as I hate to admit it, you’re obviously not a dummy, Squire.
Get thee into the rapidly expanding field of electrical pedagogy, toot sweet!
Fair point, RL. They must be hysterical.
‘
Sure do, fucker. No one guarantees me a wage or earnings I’m accustomed to. Why should you?
In any event if you’re job is so essential then why expect there to be wage cut if the sector went free market?
Greys,
what so you actually do. My bet is that you’re a male nurse, right?
The value of your vote should be (taxes paid – benefits received) / 1000
In Qld under Joh, your vote was proprtional to how many miles you lived from a city.
It was a wonderful time to have lived. A police force that bashed Greenies and Socialists. Ther really were ‘Good ole days’
As for what I said at 5.08 pm today.
The benefit of such a system is it would not require constitutional change and it would lift the target market of political parties away from the senile, the drug addled and generational welfare families who consider getting a dole cheque a job – also it would give cause to ignore the absolutely stupid moonbeams who give the Greens a few per cent of the national vote tally for free.
Professional lefties would still get to vote, but their camp followers, thralls and villeins would no longer give them proxy votes.
You are punching below your weight if that’s what you’re on. Change your career, take your skills to a more productive field, and you too will be yelling about moochers and undesirables taking your hard-earned $$$.
“Professional lefties would still get to vote”
I thought we agreed we were upgrading from TLS to Idi?
Where does the voting bit fit in with Idi’s management style?
He probably works in the same ward as JamesK. You can see the two of them sitting in the cafeteria between shifts, furiously tapping away on the Cat without even knowing who the other guy is.
They fear Abbott, yet he has not killed anyone yet. He even is reluctant to kill the easy-to-kill … foetuses.
TLS has drowned a thousand refugees, so is only one third as bad as Pinochet. But still stands far above Abbott and any convicted Aussie serial killer. So their fear of Abbott seems to be that he will NOT be a crazed killer.
Strange voters abound.
Der Untergang comparisons
Der Untergang 1945: Hitler orders the flooding of subways drowning many thousands of old people when they thought they were safe.
Der Untergang 2013: Labor changes superanuation rules to drown self funded retirees when they thought they were safe.
‘Suddenly,
HitlerGillard began to make one ofhisher characteristic speeches: “Everyone has lied to me, everyone has deceived me, no one has told me the truth. Thearmed forcesCaucus have lied to me and now theSSUnions have left me in the lurch. TheGerman peopleLabor Party has not fought heroically, it deserves to perish. It is not I who have lost thewarelection , but theGerman peopletrue believers”.Lol
If JamesK found out he’d jump over the table and try to strangle him. Of that I’m certain.
Splat, that is excellent.
They could make a movie out of it so easily.
Kevin could be the one with the bomb in the briefcase.
Similar story here. For a while I used to blame the change on me becoming cynical. After all that is how I used to view conservatives myself. It took a while for me to feel comfortable with myself and to stop apologising to myself lol.
Roccoco, you muist stop visiting old Bob Ellis’ site. It is bad for your mental health.
Also, he is a mendacious old fart with a richly undeserved superiority complex.
Enquiries I have gently made of maybe a few dozen people over the last three years have turned up a significant number of people whose stated opinion is “Labor is crap but I just could not bring myself to vote for Abbott”
Many cited virtually a word for word version of the Abbott narrative as portrayed by ABC and Fairfax. And these are solidly conservative professional people, small business people and trades people, some of whom I have known for decades and all of whom I wrongly assumed would be very comfortable with the ‘free enterprise’ ethic which (we are told), is a Liberal Party core belief.
In three cases I found people (in safe Lib seats it should be said) who even after conceding their lifelong allegiance to the Conservative side of politics, voted in 2010 either Green or Independent so as to not deliver votes to the Coalition.
It was about then that I realised that like Steve, I also had a clusterfuck on my hands so what to do?
Seems reasonable to expect a large part of the 47% is people who pay little attention to politics but have a permanent voting habit. What of the rest?
My current pet theory is to do with the ABC and Fairfax and it goes something like this..
You grew up in the last third of last century when both the output of both Fairfax and the ABC were not only much better balanced journalistically but also more conservative in outlook. They were not the left looking organisations we know today. You follow politics a little, but your not an obsessive, and you continue to rely on your predigested commentary from Aunty and Fauxfacts. You fail to notice that their tone has changed somewhat, and bit by bit you come to accept that amongst other things, Abbott is unremittingly negative, hostile to women’s rights, has only shallowly concealed anger issues and really doesn’t have much of a national plan that he is capable of announcing and explaining in media grabs of more than two sentences. He is a disgusting reactionary whose attacks on the Prime Minister have been shameful. In short you fail to appreciate that your head has been comprehensively done in.
Looked at in this light, the conversion of ABC/Fairfax is a tactical masterstroke by the left which took years to plan and implement and has already yielded strong returns for the left by eroding the traditional Liberal support base.
When you put this group together with the rusted on voters, then add on people who vote for whoever promises more money, there is perhaps little of the 47% whose voting intentions constitute a conundrum.
Labor supporters are starting to run out of polls they claim to “believe”……
Although Newspoll has been so volatile, it might well give Labor a good result this week by sheer dumb luck….
I only voted Labor once as I thought Fraser was a pompous git (well that at least was right). I had spent the previous three years as an apprentice working in an engineering firm with mainly WW2 and Korea vets winding down to retirement. We would spend smoko’s and lunch talking politics and how the Libs screw the workers.
One day I looked at these men and saw my future.Working for over 40 years in a dirty fab shop and still bitching about life under a coalition Government.I decided then that the only way for me to better myself was to do post trade certificates, seek promotion, and surround myself with other like minded people. This extended into buying the cheapest house in an expensive suburb.There is a lot to be said for the old saying “birds of a feather” as I found that
This doesn’t deal with the Grey situation where its actually public servants driving de Toqueville’s dilemma.
Look up Bruno Frey’s FOCJ. Every government service can be provided under competition, with the right constitutional design. This eliminates the issue.
Err no. There reached a point a few years ago on my conversion to conservatism that I finally became so disgusted with Fauxfacts* (I’d been taught to read on Heralds by my Dad) that I threw a copy of the SMH (that I’d paid for) in the bin and decreed:
One can only take so much leftist bullshit for so long.
*A piece by barkin’ betty farrelly, as I remember…
Luckily the ward is equipped with excellent restraints. Usually they are not necessary, I just say “Doctor, James is raving about socialist scum and the lying slapper again, I think its time we upped his medication.” and after that he is like a little lamb.
@ jupes
I did miss one. I guess I had naively hoped that our legal eagles weren’t wholly compromised, but I guess that is another Australian institution that has fallen victim to the insidious cancer that is the Left.
I suppose I ought to add the teaching profession as well, for if the legal profession is wholly compromised, then so is education – at least, in Government schools where the brainwashing of our children is very evident.
If the Coalition gets back in, they’ll have a herculean job ahead of them clearing out the socialist cancer from our society.
p.s. Grey – our household’s combined income is less than yours. Oh, and we don’t take a cent from the Government in welfare either. We’re Conservatives, we pay our own way, we take responsibility for our life.
In general all that happens is the wage salary pyramid structure is redistributed with more money flowing to the top echelon and a cream being skimmed off by the shareholders and everyone else getting less. So there results in very few real savings to the public purse and the economy has to readjust itself to deal with the fact that most people have a lot less spending power and a few people have a lot more.
It is a bit like the different paths taken to economic development by Britain and France in the Industrial Revolution. Britain concentrated on mass production that meant increasing the pool of consumers able to buy their productions. France geared its production to luxury production which didn’t require a mass market base in order to drive it – and wound up with a revolution and the guillotine. Basic Marxist Theory 101 – did none of you do Cultural Studies?
Having ordinary people on good wages actually benefits the wealthy – even if most of them have too much bone between the ears to realize it.
This extended into buying the cheapest house in an expensive suburb.There is a lot to be said for the old saying “birds of a feather” as I found that just like Saul of Tarsus, once the scales have been lifted there is no going back.
Unfortunately it is inexperience of worldly affairs and idealism that the left capture first and not many break free. Those that do stay rusted on lefties are the ones that A Lurker so eloquently categorised.
The other point I would like to raise is that the conversion rate to the other wing always seems to be one way. I never hear of any long time rusted on conservatives ever proclaiming they became Labor voters because they think the policies and ideology is somehow superior to that of the right.
Swinging voters (of either persuation)should be treated with utter contempt as they are only motivated by personal self interest.
How? We are talking about tendering out government jobs here. The savings can simply be given back to the taxpayer.
The abc has a lot to answer for; but there is a more frightening explanation; which is, free of natural exigencies, humans breed towards a left/green mentality; a sort of inherent population check since the left/green attribute is intrinsically self-destructive and massively ironic.
Steve from Brisbane is one. Howard voter in 2007, Gillard in 2010.
I am sorry to hear that because although I find my income quite comfortable for me, I wouldn’t like to try and raise a family on it.
This is why we need strong unions to ensure working people get a decent deal.
You might find that at your income level you are getting a lot of services subsidized by wealthier taxpayers without realizing it. In my view, that is the way it should be.
Quite so. I have done the same and get the same answer. I then asked then what it is in particular they don’t like about Abbott, and get this rather stunned look, a pause and then either a stammer or at best “RU486″ (this from young girls). It’s clear they haven’t thought about it much, and just absorbed the McTernan meme.
it’s the vibe, you see.
I cancelled delivery of the Courier Mail when they ramped up the anti Newman propaganda prior to the State election. Their idea of balance was to have spot articles by Laurie Oakes dumping even more shit on Newman than even the local hacks like Syvet, Wardill,and Atkins.
I only have one personal experience of that happening. In this case the existing government service provider had the lowest bid over the competing private bid. However, as there was an ideological reason behind the process (ie the government funder didnt want the existing government service provider to win) the process was simply annulled and restarted.
Second time round the private provider – now knowing what the government service provider’s bid was – just managed to undercut it.
Of course the amount they undercut was miniscule, they now have not exactly a monopoly position – other private firms can bid every 5 years or so – but a highly privileged position which they can slowly wind up prices. It is difficult to imagine the state ever reestablishing anything.
The reason that the private provider couldn’t manage to undercut the government service provider on the first bid were the reasons I outlined. They paid a small number of people a lot, and a large number of people a lot less, plus they had to give a return to investors.
Personally I cannot see where. We are both taxpayers, and despite the cost, we even have health insurance. We pay full price for everything. I don’t see any evidence of subsidies.
As for the Unions…
I know all about Unions courtesy of Gillard’s little activities back in the mid-90′s. I wouldn’t trust a Union further than I could throw one, and if someone told me I had to join one, then I’d tell them to bugger off. Unions may have had their moment decades ago, but nowadays they just exist as a money trough for corrupt officials to feed at.
To be a lefty is easy – believe that you can always get something for nothing. There truly believe in the free lunch. It’s their absolute guiding philosophy.
whoops, there should be they.
I was on my first school cadet camp when Whitlam stopped cadets in schools. That was the end.
No one ever moves from Tory to Labor, only the other way. The left is doomed.
You’re amusing Grey but don’t overreach. Noone can compete with the government in terms of expenditure. Quality, efficiency and value for money are entirely another thing; eg; the BER, Pink Batts and the NBN.
Whale, I like your monstrous new avatar.
One minor nitpick, tho. Bobby Brown’s hugging the wrong side of the Lying Slapper.
Yes but you pay so little tax at that income level. I am not inquiring about your personal circumstances but assuming your income is split equally between you – ie 27000 dollars each (considerably less than the minimum wage for full time employment). This means you paid $3150 tax each. Presumably you agree to you need to pay a share of police and defense, customs, your health insurance which you nobly (or foolishly?) insist on paying doesn’t cover all your health security – you will be shunted over to the public system if ever something really serious happens. Fire service, roads, infrastructure.
If you have children you will get all kinds of tax breaks and subsidies (as you should). I expect you will tell me you insist on sending your kids to a private school, but even that gets a government handout (as it should).
Oh, I nearly forgot, you get to enjoy the excellent ABC.
I think everyone on this income level is a net beneficiary.
Add competence. Swan would have been sacked by now if he was the CFO in a private company.
“I provide an essential service so if privatised I would still have a job. But my job is not highly skilled and I am sure the private sector could get someone to do it for a lot less than the modest 55 000 the government pays me. So obviously I am going to vote for the party that is committed to making sure I get a decent wage.” – Grey
So essentially it is a welfare measure that society should guarantee you an income of at least $55,000, even though you could not earn it in a competitive market. There is no way society could afford a minimum income guarantee of $55,000 for the entire population without the cost bankrupting the country. And there is no way the country could afford an equivalent wage subsidy to bring all low-skill, low-wage workers up to a similar income, without the cost also sinking us.
So I guess you are just more special and deserving than everyone else. Or else you just don’t care about the objective merits of it. You are just in it for what you can get from the system.
If anything, I can appreciate your honesty and candour regarding your narrow self-interest and lack of concern for the bigger picture.
women has been moving to the Left since the 1960s.
Those are politically driven programs of handing largesse. But compare the unit output per dollar spent of public versus private health and the public system wins hands down.
I changed to voting conservative when John Howard took power because he had a nice aura of positiveness and being trustworthy and being fair, knowing what he was doing, and because there were budget surpluses as saving for a rainy day is important to me.
Sure does. It takes heaps more public money to produce the same output. But that’s a weird definition of a “win”.
I think both are true.
I AM more special and deserving than everyone else [I am glad finally someone has noticed]. And if my $55000 is a rort I am the happy rorter milking the system for all its worth.
Suck it up next time you are paying your 45% income bracket taxes.
So, Gheyboy, you are an APS 3.2 or a 4.1
This is only achieved by force contributions via the Medicare levy. No comparison.
Honestly.. how stupid do they think we are?
Latest policy.. remove $1B in tax reductions on “oystraliars biggest companees” and pump it into a scheme to save “bloo collar jobs”.
Where the f’ do they think jobs come from? Yet another scheme to churn money and generate handouts.
The reason people vote for labor is obvious when you consider that the majority of the population know nothing about politics or the government. Just reading blogs like this pushes us into 1 in 1000 out liners.
If you ask an average person, they won’t be able to tell you even the most trivialv details of the MRRT or carbon tax, let alone the current financial state of the government.
I would say that less than 1 in 100,000 people even read or understand any legislation the federal government passes. Some legislation can go through the comment process with just 50 individuals responding.
Most people vote labor because most Australians live week to week, pay check to pay check. They have no understanding at all of the future value of anything. Any economics more complicated than how much money they will get instantly does not compute in their brains. Even studies have shown most lefts are more likly to do ridiculous things like take $10,000 instead of $15,000 in one years time.
We avoid the ABC. I understand however what you say about the hidden things we benefit from – but everyone gets benefit from those, whether they pay, or have paid tax or not.
However, enough of our situation, I’m just illustrating that it’s not just the wealthy who are Conservatives or Libertarians, but also ordinary people as well – I think we’re called the ‘working poor’ (as distasteful a title as that may be).
There are ordinary folk doing it tough, yet are honourably not fronting up and begging for handouts, but sorting out their lives quietly and without fuss, and without asking for Government bribes and interference in their lives.
No, for example a hip replacement in the public system costs 24 000 dollars (according to The Australian) and RT Health says it costs them 36 000 dollars.
Grey is a psych nurse NW of Melbourne.
Eat, drink, and be merry Grey. Your gravy train is waiting for you on platform Sept 2016.
He would have been sacked if he was running a pie van.
Not true. You’re lying or simply ignorant. You’re comparing apples with oranges, greys, you idiot.
No.
You forgot, in addition to income tax:
Stamp duties
GST
Excise taxes
Tariffs
Taxes on superannuation contributions and returns
Land rates
levies in addition to income tax
Fringe benefits taxes
An adult on the minimum wage basically sees half of the value of their output taken away as tax or from cost pressures arising from tax.
Run through an example yourself and see what figure you get.
Tsk. Equivalent.
Grey, best of luck with that. It will work out well until such a time as the money runs out and Atlas shrugs.
Wand would have been in jail by now or facing charges. However all this is highly hypothetical as Wand would never have made it to CFO in the private sector. He simply doesn’t have the ability.
The only way he got to where he is, is because shit floats to the top in the Liars Party.
You are referring to an oft quoted US study on healthcare costs.
The private system has lower marginal and average costs, but higher overheads. The overheads are the cost of better administration.
The private system is better.
My first impression of most Psych nurses that I have meet is that they should be in the bed not next to it. Grey’s ramblings confirm this theory to be true.
You do it, I’m too busy kacking myself at your comments; and your hip comparison is spurious since, as others have pointed out, the public system is much more heavily subsidised.
“I’m just illustrating that it’s not just the wealthy who are Conservatives or Libertarians, but also ordinary people as well – I think we’re called the ‘working poor’ (as distasteful a title as that may be).”
That’s so true, A Lurker, tho’ I prefer the term ‘conservative working class’.
yet are honourably not fronting up and begging for handouts, but sorting out their lives quietly and without fuss, and without asking for Government bribes and interference in their lives.
As honourable as that is, it just perpetuates the situation. We should all be trying to exploit every handout we can, minimise every tax loophole we can, buying everything sales-tax free from oversees that we can, seeking every cushy government job that we can and then offering to fix the situation by making the necessary changes via the ballot box. This is the only way to change. For every handout or overpaid lurk you decline another ingrate will step and and assure you they absolutely need it while you go and pay some more tax. It’s only fair, y’see.
I am glad someone agrees with me that Tony Abbott is Australia’s greatest opposition leader.
So people keep telling me. You may be surprised to learn I am actually Graham Richardson and it appears the NSW police have some incident report they threaten to leak whenever I say something they don’t like
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2013/02/graham-richardsons-column-in-the-australian-today-should-cost-him-and-news-limited-a-new-house-for-a/comments/page/4/#comments
I thought that was hilarious. I tried to reply that the was never any proof concerning the incident with the alpaca, unfortunately the straight laced Mr Smith did not allow it through.
Grey, the main way that government health systems are able to contain costs is by effectively rationing care particularly through long waiting lists. But this is a kind of false economy, because having to wait longer for something is a real effective cost to the consumer.
It would be like saying that you can buy coffee from two places. One place costs $3.50 and is served in minutes. The other place it only costs $3.00, but you have to wait hours before getting your coffee. It would be silly to say ‘oh well, you are getting such a great deal here. Only paying $3.00, when it is $3.50 next door’.
What It Feels Like Being A Conservative On The Internet
It’s tough… but hey, somebody’s gotta have some sense.
I changed to voting conservative when John Howard took power because he had a nice aura of positiveness and being trustworthy and being fair
Big government middle-class welfare freedom-hating c*Nt!!!!
FOCJ can incorporate measures for equality, Frey discussed these at length.
In addition to being compatible with capitalism, it can also be used with distributist systems, which do not have shareholders.
Under ideal FOCJ, there is no public purse.
If you give birth in a public hospital they try and kick you out as soon as possible – are you seriously trying to tell me that unit costs per birth are cheaper in the private system?
Because I guarantee you are wrong.
He’s definitely in a psych ward. Not sure if he’s a nurse though.
Link please.
Private schooling and private healthcare is so superior to anything the public system offers we should be looking at closing other government departments to ensure everyone has access to these value-adding services. There is no justification for the Department of Climate Change when we are sending lots of our kids to the government shitholes that are often state schools.
Lol apparently this is a “win” for state run healthcare. Have a baby and they “kick you out” immediately… “See public healthcare is cheaper per unit win!”.
The private system is not attempting to compete with the public one, you goose. They offer a different package of services attracting different clientele.
Look fuck knuckle, what you and other leftwing idiots seem to think is that the laws of supply and demand/ competition stop at the doctor or hospital door. They don’t. They are prevented from working effectively because of the massive soviet model which is the public system.
Look around you… there are day procedure hospitals operating out on office suites in suburban areas to remove cataracts etc. These enterprises are very effective and not costly at all.
If we had a fully privatized system it would eventually look like nothing we have today.
I had a couple of kids under the private system (well, my wife did). She also had complications. The care was superb. I imagine this did cost more than the 20-in-a-tiny-room government production line.
However, there are so many bureaucrats in the public system (my wife has been one, and will probably be one again) it would not surprise me that it costs the same for worse care.
“He’s definitely in a psych ward. Not sure if he’s a nurse though.”
That’s true JC. Witness his post @8:48p.m. Not sure who he is addressing. Must be the nemesis inside his head.
“are you seriously trying to tell me that unit costs per birth are cheaper in the private system?”
Grey, if you are actually capable of reading, you would see that I never specifically disputed the claim that notional monetary costs may be lower in the public system. I just pointed out that this is an imperfect measurement of real costs/benefits.
Dont allow yourself to be verballed by somebody who doesn’t understand that the federal government and doesn’t build roads, run fire stations, police or build useful infrastructure outside of the walls of that wee little lilly white low crime capital. You pay GST, stamp duty, and various state levies for all of that.
These enterprises are very effective and not costly at all.
And that’s the thing. Yes, you have to pay more yourself but the value you are getting goes up by multiples. If money got tight in my family I would take a second job to maintain my kids in private schools and keep health insurance. It’s worth the extra money (at least at the moment. I’m sure this government could fuck it up).
One of our litter was born in NYC Mount Sinai.
When wifey was spread eagled and the kid about to pop out I counted 12 people in the room. They were doubling up in case of lawsuits I’m guessing.
There were two anesthetists backing each other up. It was unreal.
Our older kid was born in Sydney and there was midwife and the doc. That’s it.
If it had turned really serious she would have been transferred to the public hospital.
Thank f*ck that didn’t happen, eh. They might have lost her in the bureaucracy.
It’s a running joke but it’s actually very difficult to tell psych nurses and the patients apart.
Often the patients seem the saner in fact.
I am not saying either system is good or bad, I am just saying the public one is more efficient. If you can afford to pay 12 highly skilled professionals in the room, why not? Many of us can’t
When wifey was spread eagled and the kid about to pop out I counted 12 people in the room. They were doubling up in case of lawsuits I’m guessing.
There were two anesthetists backing each other up. It was unreal.
My experience in Canberra as well. Only one anesthetist, but gyno, paediatrician, specialist surgeon, plus supporting team. They all turned out. Extremely professional.
Like I said, this stuff matters. F*ck off the Department of Climate Change, sack another 5,000 public servants and forget foreign aid then offer this level of care to every pregnant mum for $500.
That’s a government that really cares.
Psych nurses are universally known as the weirdo staff of the hospital.
I suspect that for the care you get in the public hospital – little better than home birth but a touch closer to emergency facilities – the cost is grossly inflated.
Studies almost always show that any government run services cost much, much more for an inferior service.
The private health system rations on price, the public system rations via queues. Thank The Lord we have the choice in this country.
But it’s not. It is grossly mismanaged. The kind of service it finally does manage to offer should cost half, or less.
Err, no grey.
Being a high income earner I engage these colourless legends known as “accountants” to legally minimise my income tax.
I probably pay less income tax than you do.
But then, as you keep insisting, you are more heavily invested in the ongoing ‘success’ of the State, than myself.
500 dollars is what you pay when you spend 90 minutes at the dentist.
The excellent public health system just had my sister wait three years for a gall bladder removal until she finally nearly died a month ago so they then “gave” her one.
I’ve been on a waiting list for ten years to have the bar removed from my leg.
So I suppose if you don’t count all the people waiting and dying and nearly dying while waiting for their “turn” on paper public hospitals are “cheaper” as it is often cheaper to simply not serve many types of customer. Fortunately we who are denied service by the state can go to the wonderful private market who will joyously serve us in return for the offer of currency.
No.
Here you are complaining about the overall resourcing of the system.
This doesn’t change the fact that unit output per dollar is greater in the public system than the private. If the public was inefficient as the private system it would do even less.
Women’s suffrage was one of our biggest mistakes.
No.
Dentists are cheap.
Or at least Grey’s is.
That’s true enough twostix, and I thank you for your correction. One does tend to forget about all the hidden costs (oft-times paying for the hidden benefits) since you just get used to handing over cash day in, day out for something or other.
We may be poorer than someone like Grey, but we’re content with our lot, and I think I’d feel a lot less self-respect if I had to front up to the Government asking for welfare. Some people I know need it, and I feel for their situation. However I get angry about the rorters who don’t need it, but believe they have an innate right to it, just because the money is there. That is not honourable, but I guess values like honour and decent behaviour is becoming a thing of the past.
The private health system rations on price, the public system rations via queues.
That fact is so often forgotten. Yes, you’ll literally die waiting, but you can feel OK about it because you’ve got free healthcare.
It might help if you got a full time job. Minimum wage I think that nets you $31,000 these days.
Of course if you don’t like hard work, no reason why you should.
Lurker – these are conservative values.
They are not yet a thing of the past and if we have our way they never will be.
The public system is not more efficient than the private one. It just has few expensive machines or capabilities somewhere that the public system can’t make a cost/benefit case to cover.
Well, that’s its job. We should increase the costs on people for basic services, get rid of the bureaucracy and offer more of this critical stuff to that absolute minority of people who really do need it and can’t get it in the private system under 20% of their annual income.
That’s a decent attitude, very common for the pre-war generation. But it’s so unusual now. There is almost no stigma attached to being on welfare anymore. If there is any taboo worth reintroducing, it’s that one along with single parenting by choice.
grey – you’re hardly in a position to be casting nasturtiums – especially as you don’t know the full circumstances of the lurker and his kin.
He might be wilfully (I tells ya!) refusing gubberment largesse, because unlike you, he has some principles.
Lurker – these are conservative values.
The social democratic system is designed to exploit conservatives like suckers. You’ll do all the work, pay all the tax, take all the economic risks, die on all the battlefields or watch your kids do it, get none of the ‘free’ services and get told to suck it up.
Lurker is right; that notion is old fashioned. The time to be an old-school conservative is over, or at least you need to limit that behaviour only to people you have established as worthy.
Ah no. It’s easy and “efficient ” to deny the edge cases and run a mass production system. As if a soviet style bureaucracy, no matter how much money it had would ever be able to serve all the cases that the multitudes of private operators could. It can’t so it doesn’t.
Signing off, work tomorrow. Thanks all for the conversation.
p.s. I’m a she.
Great.
The narrative gets slightly recast…
Well all I can say is my personal experience when the government outsourced a service the savings were miniscule over what its fully owned and operated service provider had bid. They only received that slight saving because the auction process was corrupted to allow the government’s bid to leak out to the private bidder. And they are likely to see prices slowly increased over time as the private provider takes advantage of its near monopoly position.
As far as inside the organization went; the overall skill level decline somewhat (although remaining adequate to deliver on the contract), a few people at the top ended had significantly higher salaries, and salaries for people down the hierarchy were considerably lower and employment a lot less secure. On top of that a portion of the funds went to shareholders and another portion went to public relations, advertising and other such corporate related functions.
In other words, the savings you think will materialize didn’t and it had a socially negative impact in terms of increased inequality.
grey – you say that like it’s a bad thing…
Possibly not, but I have seen enough online biographies to know the majority of them are fake.
Except for mine, of course, everything I say is absolutely true. Aside from the story about the alpaca.
Bad for me. I am rational actor seeking my self-interest.
grey – Life is about winners and losers, FFS.
Under socialism, everyone (bar the nomenklatura) is a loser – the state makes it so.
Under free markets, people can determine their own destiny.
My brother ended up in a large public hospital and they frantically rang around the privates begging for access to some machine.
A friend was shunted from the public into a private hospital and had a heart operation all paid for by medicare. I wonder how such situations “count” in the “unit costs” of public vs private.
Grey is the Walther Hewel of Der Undergang 2013.
SFB and Monty have already left the bunker, taking off their clown suits and donning disguises so they can slip past the advancing armies. Grey is a “last cartridge man”. He will only disappear on Sunday 15th of September when hostilities formally cease.
In other words, the savings you think will materialize didn’t and it had a socially negative impact in terms of increased inequality.
I hear this crap all the time and it’s a load of shit. The private services provided to government in my area usually offer substantially more value to the taxpayer. The private companies invest a lot of money in developing employees.
With all due respect, Grey, a lot of the people who feel displaced by this stuff don’t see the whole picture. A lot of the risk that would have fallen on the Commonwealth – and let’s be honest, would almost certainly manifested itself somewhere as a budget blowout – falls on the contractor and they manage a whole lot better than government ever does. It is the duty of moral government to get the best deal for the taxpayer.
Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m convinced.
I’m butchering this adage, but I can’t remember exactly how it goes or who said it:
“A man who leans right in his youth has no heart; a man who leans left in adulthood has no brain.”
This really resonated with me when I re-examined my political beliefs. I went from identifying as Left-wing to simply judging each issue on its merits according to my conscience and how I could rationalise it, and accepted that others categorised those views as “Libertarian” or “Right-wing”.
I am afraid that is how it was. Perhaps we were unfortunate that we had a really bad contractor who just wanted to make a profit and wasn’t out to prove some neo-liberal theory, who knows?
It didn’t really affect me. I was working two jobs at the time, I just dropped that job and went full-time at the other one.
I’ve researched that quote a few times over the years and this is what I think are the best references I’ve found so far:
“If a man is not a socialist in his youth, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 30 he has no head” – Georges Clemenceau, Former French Prime Minister and one-time radical. (There are many versions of this saying and many attributions of it but the original utterance seems to have been by mid-nineteenth century French historian and politician Francois Guizot, who said: “Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head”. He was referring to the controversy over whether France should be a republic or a monarchy. France did of course have various experiments with monarchy even after the decapitation of Louis XVI. So foolish young people want Presidents and wiser old people want Kings? Maybe. As a monarchist happlily living in a monarchy, I think Guizot had a point.) – from the crazy guy John Jay Ray
If you’re not a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative at 40, you have no head – Winston Churchill (from Gales Quotations – Who Said What CD-ROM)
I think the ages are 17 and 19, IMO.
Personally, I am a heartless brainiac. But my fellow Catallaxians already knew that. I never went through any left wing phase. That was probably due to my upbringing in family of upper-middle class eccentics and bohemians. To them lefties were all sodomites with unpleasant accents.
Are you calling me a liar you fuckwit?
It’s definiately the fall back of leftists everyhwere in these sort of topics. They run numbers that inevitably come from the same bureaucracies that run the public hospitals demonstrating how wonderful public hospitals are (“tractor production is up 900% this month”) but when people bring in personal experiences it’s always “oh as if, now look, here, according to the non-partisan labor run and staffed department of X… you’re wrong”.
Grey says:
So Grey, would you say you are a Game Theorist or a practitioner of non-Aristotelian logic?
For what it’s worthy Grey, since 2009 I estimate I’ve personally tendered and negotiated about $300M of government work to the market. While it wasn’t medical stuff, I’ve costed, estimated, analysed and assessed risk for more than a few government contracts. (I understand plenty of people would not consider that to be a lot of money e.g. people in construction or finance etc).
It’s an area of personal interest and i’ve often pondered what is the right balance of outsourcing or keeping in-house generally, or keeping as government or outsourcing to the private sector. I’ve actually thought I might be able to do a research degree on it.
With you on that. I was open early on I suppose, but really never saw anything from Labor that was worth voting for.
Maybe if I’d been able to vote a few years earlier?
No, I am a Platonist. I believe in the Noble Lie, namely we should take a group of people and call them nobles and tell them they have been elevated because they are of superior quality. But with these superior quality that they possess comes obligations they need to met towards the less privileged orders.
The lie part comes about because they don’t really have any superior qualities, but by convincing them they have they will try to act the part. That should keep the inevitable decline of mankind into a dog-eat-dog Darwinian society in check for a couple of millenia – until someone can come up with a better plan.
That’s the triumph of hope over reason. History does show the ‘elite’ do have a tendency to misuse their power just like the Darwinians, y’know.
I believe in the Noble Lie, namely we should take a group of people and call them nobles and tell them they have been elevated because they are of superior quality.
Clearly the nobles get to enjoy a quality of life and wealth levels beyond those people they are ‘protecting’? How does Teh Left never see a contradiction with this?
Not to mention the issue with elites vs democracy?
The Noble Lie (bringing about good) is a childhood fantasy.
No one said it was a perfect solution. The ongoing dialectic between reaction and revelation versus progress and reason was, I think, not without its benefits.
The ALP and its supporters are like the Bourbons.
Grey is without doubt the best lefty this site has ever attracted. I don’t know how he can stand working with Shitfer and mUnty.
That is non-sensical.
Plato’s Republic is just another Leftist nivana where all the ‘little people’ are led by Dear Leader and the nomenklatura.
Socrates/Plato cannot be blamed for history repetitively proving them not only wrong but counter-productive to the interests of the arts, science and the well being of the common man.
The Noble Lie can only work if the appointers have a Null-A outlook; if they slip for a moment into the conniption of self-interest then as a matter of logic they will usurp the idiots nominally in charge.
The logic is ineluctable; if you are so superior and know it you would want to be in power not working through proxies; proxies who could stuff up monumentally if you take your eyes off them for a moment.
The other problem of course is if the Platonists are as stupid as the appointees.
This is of course what has happened with the Gillard government.
I note IT you didn’t include Hamster and the potato peeler in your accolade. Quite right too as they have only been awarded hero of the Soviet Union third class.
That’s not good!
That’s a stupid quote.
As Maggie Dearest said: “The facts of life conservative. Deal with it you lefty bitches.”
are conservative. Goddamn it.
As Maggie Dearest said: “The facts of life conservative. Deal with it you lefty bitches.”
Or as Pope Benedict said XVI allegedly said “Leftwingers are all c*nts, charity if for losers and mercy for the pissweak……oh f*ck it, I’m resigning!! Who wants to get pissed on creme de menthe?”.
Watching recorded version of Paul Murray live, spruiking a leaked neilson poll. Abbott @ 49% liberals @ 56% 2pp. Gillard officially fucked. Paul howes clip admitting awu had a corruption problem “several decades ago”.
“Disgusting. Equating Julia Gillard with Stalin and Manson is about par for the course for you fascist right wingers. Ugh!”
Nonsense. Manson could play guitar.
wait..RL, are you my brother?
Benedictine, not piss weak creme de menthe.
Not uncommon. Governments are also bad at acting like private concerns; most contractors smell blood in the water. They are rational actors, etc, etc.
That is for sure no such system exists in the world. Imagine all those disease ridden lower class suburbs.
Good to see around 31% didn’t know what the word meant, I think a lot more because I would ask the person doing the survey what does that mean whereas I suspect most would be too shy to admit they are not essentially university educated. I didn’t know until I looked it up (this could also be a reason why One Nation did so well xenophobic was the last word I didn’t know what it meant, they had much more seats in QLD than the current ALP does). See maybe if politicians actually talked to the average Joe they would do better. This line could have been used on many Labor voters I believe because they like me would wonder why the Prime Minister isn’t just talking common Australian english. Does she look down on people like me?
Then again I might be completely wrong and many people believe that someone who knows more words means they are capable of governing.
This is such an interesting and multi-faceted question. In simple terms:
1. 30-45% of people are ideologically social-democrats (or further to the left). They may love Gullard or hate her and believe the government is incompetent and corrupt but they will never vote or preference conservatives. Social democrats are not stupid. It is a viable ideology. I do not share it but I respect them.
2. I know if Catallaxy will make you believe that the Labor is the most incompletent and evil and all that. But really this is a middle of the road social democratic government. And Howard’s was a middle-of-the road social democratic government, just slightly to the right. Not a big difference.
3. Current government has scandal after scandal? Big deal. Who said that Abbott’s will be any different.
That sounds about right, of my observations of more centrist voters.
Actually I am yet to meet an enthusiastic Labor supporter. Most vote Labor because ‘Libs are even worse’. Or vice versa.
I vote libs because Labor is even worse. For me their anti-velification law is a red line. But I harbor no great hopes for a resurgence of liberalism under Abbott.
I think he’d crap his daks and slink away. And then write a very, very, VERY angry post in which people are stupid arseholes and bigots, by gosh, by golly.
Manson was able to attract and maintain a loyal following.
Is their assessment that Mr Abbott must be so much worse than the current, corrupt mob based on an assiduous but balanced analysis of the proceedings of Parliament, a careful scrutiny of policies of all the parties and a diligent investigation of the economic credentials thereof, or, would you think, might their dislike of Mr Abbott derive from a skewed and misleading portrayal of his character from those partisan media which have also, for example, deceitfully portrayed the Government as competent whilst willfully neglecting to report comprehensively on Ms Gillard’s alleged fraud and corruption?
Rent free inside the bigots head
Steve, the head shaking thin is when the HeraldSun asked people about their vote next election( in Victoria but Federal election) there were nut cases who would vote Labor or Greens for the simplistic reasons of ” I always vote labor ( orGreens)” and ” I don’t like Tony Abbott” (no reason given or at least printed)
It is frightening such idiots could decide the next election.(Reminds me of when Steve Bracks was rushed into Victorian labour and Joan Kirner forced out, then he overtook Brumby, and the Hun o vote Labour as Steve Bracks was ” so hot”
Democracy in action( sarc off)
ARRGH! “head shaking thing…”
double ARGGH! stiff old fingers wiped a sentence–
the Hun told us of females who intended to vote Labor cos Bracks was “so hot”
!!!
Oh well, at least that rambling thread confirmed Grey’s status as a rustadon shiny bum, complete with attitude of me, me, me.
Yes, in my experience. These critiques of Abbott such as they are, come straight out of the ABC/Fairfax playbook and often from people who are entirely capable of thinking things through more carefully.
The writing is already on the wall for Fairfax but the battle to reclaim a compromised ABC has yet to begin.
That is unfair to Manson you know. He only was able to kill a few before society stepped in to stop the psycopathic killins spree.
Like Stalin, Gillard has designed & signed off on policies which has resulted in the death of over 1000 people in the name of obtaining and maintaining power.
Too true, once Hegel arrived at his “conclusions”, the science was settled and the need for independent thinking was dispensed with.
From his quips it is clear Grey lives in a miserable world of his own making.
Sooner or later, we are going to have to have a conversation across most of the Western world about whether someone who receives government benefits and who has never earned a salary in their whole life has an absolute right to the vote.
You should get one, just one, free call once you turn eighteen. After that, IMO, anyone not a retiree who goes the entire three years between two elections unemployed on the government teat shouldn’t get a say in that second election without showing good cause. Exception – former servicepersons who have faced gunfire.
As it exists in actual policy in Australia it is not; it is incoherent and fundamentally ill-informed, and far too heavily influenced by Marx’s class struggle and outdated and incorrect theory of capital.
Successful social-democrat countries are not hostile to capital; they offset higher income taxes with more lenience to capital than the Right in Australia would be comfortable with.
Nope. Identifiably Marxist, not middle of the road. The problem being not that Marxism is “too left” but that it is simply and objectively wrong on almost every possible aspect of economics. No serious effort to implement and maintain explicitly Marxist economics has ever worked, because Marx’s basic ideas were 100 years out of date when he wrote them.
The difference, JamesK, is that the patients are better dressed.
Fisky,
without reading further, perhaps an analysis of the various data packaging and processes for govt tenders would be in order.
Obeid comes to mind as a small example of this phenomena.
Tinterella, I go to my family dinners and at a quiet time, say “That Tony Abbott is such a great community-minded person, the charity work he does for women in particular is wonderful”.
Sit back with a glass of red and wait for everyone to go psycho, what fun.
“This doesn’t change the fact that unit output per dollar is greater in the public system than the private. If the public was inefficient as the private system it would do even less.”
I think you are being somewhat selective about which costs you are counting there, Grey. If you exclude administration costs, you may well be right. Add in such costs as the health departments at state and federal level, and you will find the whole of service cost of the public health system not that efficient at all.
LOL. Kates again showing his strong grasp of Austrailan political history in the first quote above, and then reverting to his “if only everyone was as insightful as me” line in the second quote. Here’s a tip, Sever: maybe its not everyone else with the blindspot.
What are you doing here Braggs- Wanting another beating?
Still doing those Black Knight impersonations, JC.
As I said, given all your frothing, you’re invisible hand is obviously beating something, just not me.