The carbon tax is wonderful

[damian]

So people in your neck of the woods have stopped breeding ?

71, 83, 2007, sounds like a generational trend to me.

[Vernonv]

So people in your neck of the woods have stopped breeding ?

71, 83, 2007, sounds like a generational trend to me.

Sure they would eventually get back in, for 1 term, but then would be out again for a long, long time (I'd guess maybe 30 or 40 years or longer) ... so how exactly does that in any way reflect reality.

[Dropcat]

nor has my partner, but she routinely drives 20 over

Ohh, it's one of those 'spot the odd one' out games.

Me - Zero tickets
Your wife - Zero tickets
You - 6 disputed ticket out of ? total tickets.

Gosh, which one could it be? But yeah, it's someone else's fault. Just like CO2, someone else's problem.

Always makes me laugh that science can't be questioned if it supports your view...
...but getting past the politics and the personality, the religeon and prejudice...

Awesome coming from someone who has "You can choose to agree with me, or you can choose to be wrong" on the bottom of every message. So that's what an open mind looks like.

[Dropcat]

71, 83, 2007, sounds like a generational trend to me.

As does the opposite... Liberals losing their faith...? nah...

[damian]

Sure they would eventually get back in, for 1 term, but then would be out again for a long, long time (I'd guess maybe 30 or 40 years or longer) ... so how exactly does that in any way reflect reality.

Slow learners ?

Working backwards and rounding up to the nearest year:

Labour 4 years so far
Liberal 12 (edit sorry I miscounted 13)
Labour 13
Liberal 7 1/2 or 8 if you prefer
Labour 3
Coalition including a brief stint by the then country party: near enough to 23 years.
labour: lets call it 8

That takes us to 1941, beyond which it all gets a bit messy.

Of course the Menzies era was facilitated by the DLP but likewise the Hawke era was facilitated by the Howard/Peakcock nonesense.

I suppose I must be a liberal tragic, afterall I never voted for Howard, never voted coalition at the state level apart from once in the 80's when they took the parties off the ballot paper, and the last election just because anything has to be better than Bligh. I have voted liberal at council level but that's because our councillor is tremendous and gets 87 - 92% of the primary vote every election. I don't THINK I ever voted liberal prior to Howard but can't be 100% certain.

I do know I've never voted labour. Occasionally they will get up the ranks above the most lunatic fringe candidates, but they are always well buried in the big numbers.

I'd never suggest the coalition achieve GOOD government, but compared to the basket cases we've got at state and federal level now a pack of rabid dingoes would be better.

Anyway....

[Vernonv]

Damien, I'm not exactly sure what your point is in that last bit, but you seem to be saying that your original quote (below) doesn't hold water and the figures you quoted don't even support it.

I'm sorry mate, but that pearl of "wisdom" reminds me of those emails everyone gets every now and then espousing the virtues of the "good old days" or how welfare recipients make out like bandits or some other such "wisdom". It might give you a warm fuzzy feeling, or a sense of smugness, or whatever, but unfortunately it doesn't stand up to any sort of close scrutiny.

A member of this forum, who I shall not name, said to me the other day that he thought young people voted labour because they had never suffered under a labour government. Once they experienced one they woke up and switched. I thought at the time those were extremely wise words. The more I think about it the more I think he was bang on.

[damian]

Damien, I'm not exactly sure what your point is in that last bit, but you seem to be saying that your original quote (below) doesn't hold water and the figures you quoted don't even support it.

I'm sorry mate, but that pearl of "wisdom" reminds me of those emails everyone gets every now and then espousing the virtues of the "good old days" or how welfare recipients make out like bandits or some other such "wisdom". It might give you a warm fuzzy feeling, or a sense of smugness, or whatever, but unfortunately it doesn't stand up to any sort of close scrutiny.

No worries. I often don't explain myself as well as I could. I was making 2 points.

The first is that since the war the coalition has held government for much longer than labour. Further I would contend that the periods under the coalition have been more stable than those under labour. I didn't state that specifically and to detail the evidence for that assertion would take a while.

My second point is that I'm far from a one eyed coalition supporter. In fact I'd very much like a third (better?) force to arise in Australian politics. For a while it might have been the democrats but we know how that ended. It certainly won't be the greens unless they get a total group brain transplant.

The reason I think the origional suggestion is correct is that at least in my life time the periods under federal labour seem to have been filled with economic and social upheval, negative outcomes for the majority of people. It's easy, really easy, to dislike coalition leaders. I couldn't type here what I think of Fraser for example, but I think in my experience they make far better more equitable governments, and I think each generation of the electorate after experimenting with a labour government for a term or two go back.

Prepared to believe I'm wrong but from 41 on the coalition have been in far more than out, and while I haven't counted I think that's true even if you discount Menzies.

I agree with you about those emails, but I see them as a laugh not a reliable historical document and it's always good to remind young people they didn't invent sex, recycling, fun..or whatever they are laying claim to this week.

[Dropcat]

Further I would contend that the periods under the coalition have been more stable than those under labour.

...and I would point out that it doesn't matter who's running the country, much of the stability/unstability is simply due to timing.

WWII? Bloody National Party. Ah, Liberals again. And Labour won WWII, awesome.
Vietnam? Liberals. Always starting bloody wars.
Oil shock? Damn Liberals. Probably Labor. Hell, blame both of them.
GFC? That was Labor's fault, wasn't it?

Not that that stops any of them from taking credit or blaming the other lot.

[Ashore]

[QUOTE=Dropcat;1366238
Vietnam? Liberals. Always starting bloody wars.
.[/QUOTE]

Mister the liberal party didn't start the veitnam war and my guess is that you didn't have any involvement there

I lost mates there and I don't like your throwaway line that the Australian liberal party started that war, to me that is offencive

[Dropcat]

Mister the liberal party didn't start the veitnam war

Nor did they start WWII. World events are out of our control.

[jimbur]

To simplify things: no political party is to blame when things go wrong - it is always outside their control. All political parties take the credit when things go right - because either they are in power or did the right thing when they were in power.
Cheers,
Jim

[Col]

Isn't the Carbon Tax just a GST rise by stealth. They cannot increase the GST, All the money in reserve has been doled out to buy big screen tvs so to get some back the Gov't and the Reds I mean Greens have come up with a fantasy to tug at the heart strings and come up with the Carbon Tax. The country is buggered and will only get worse with this lot of dictatorial nungas running the show. We were all going to die from the hole in the ozone layer a few years ago and the Y2K bug meant certain doom.
Come in suckers..............

I feel better now.

Col.

[Dropcat]

They cannot increase the GST,
We were all going to die from the hole in the ozone layer a few years ago
Y2K bug meant certain doom.
Come in suckers.....
I feel better now.

Having a good crap does that.

There is nothing stopping anyone changing GST (up or down).

The hole in the ozone layer is still there. Banning CFC stopped the hole getting bigger. It it gradually getting smaller after the ban (~1985-1995).

Y2K would had stuffed your day, but you would have survived it. Eventually. I fixed quite a bit of stuff.

Good job bringing up the ozone layer damage, the denial arguments against it were exactly the same as against CO2 now, and by the same people even (Google James Singer).

[damian]

Dropcat,

Please don't misunderstand my intent. Your entirely entitled to your opinion and I of all people are in no position to to tell someone not to express it ..

but:

It would be very much better all round if you would read carefully the posts your responding to, understand what people are and are not saying and respond accordingly.

I am prepared to believe I am misreading your posts but it just seems to me you are reading things into what people are trying to say and responding fairly bluntly to that.

I don't own this forum, I am not a moderator, I have no power and I am not trying to put you down.

It is possible your fairly new here and don't understand the history of some of the discussions. Many of the people here sort of "know" one another and where we are coming from. We were having a chat, a bit of a dig, and tossing some ideas around.

I had taken the approach of ignoring your posts hoping you'd catch on eventually, but some others are responding and I'd rather this didn't become unhappy. The trouble with type is you only get a small part of the communication you'd get with tone and body language so it doesn't always come across as intended.

Just a thought.

[damian]

To simplify things: no political party is to blame when things go wrong - it is always outside their control. All political parties take the credit when things go right - because either they are in power or did the right thing when they were in power.
Cheers,
Jim

Chuckles. Quite right, that's how they would like it.

Having said that though like steering a boat you do have some control even when the currents are strong and how well you prepare and react are legitimate issues for the electorate to judge. Also of course if a government does take credit for the successes then it's perfectly legitimate to judge them on failures.