Tuesday last week I praised Kevin Rudd for his principled opposition to the pokies and for his claim that alternative sources of state revenue will need to be found to replace pokie taxes. His opposition, a week later, seems to have softened a bit – the states really need the revenues he stated yesterday and it is difficult to find revenue alternatives – anyway, it is all a matter for the states who decide these things.
One wonders if pressures have been brought to bear on Rudd by ex Labor pollies and political hacks taking backhanders and lucrative consultancies from the pokie and pub industry. There are plenty of them - come to Victoria! The Commonwealth could fill any revenue gap with predicted budget surpluses. The difficulty is, of course, that the pokie industry and the pubs won't like this.
In other news Rudd has refused to announce the Labor Party’s tax policy which is just as well – he needs to learn first what our tax scales are.
A Federal Labor Government with a ‘me too’ Prime Minister, a lacklustre policy team of ex entertainers and union hacks - and particularly with Wayne Swann as Treasurer - will not be something that provides quality government for Australia. Would they just devolve government to 500 hack-stacked committees?
Thursday, September 20, 2007
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3 comments:
Whay have you get against Swan? He may lack imagination, but so does Costello. He looks like the type who can master a brief, just like Costello. Swan will be a safe if boring pair of hands.
I disagree with your assessment of Costello - I think he has humour, intelligence and is a strong parliamentary performer. Swan seems like a total hack who can never offer anything other than a carping party-line negativity.
I am interested, Spiros, that as a Labor supporter you (not me) see him as an unimaginative clone of someone else you have no regard for. Why then go out of your way to support him?
But a lot of people are doing what you are doing.
It's the big picture Harry.
On the whole Labor is better than the Coalition. Rudd is better than Howard. These are the comparisons that get all the weight, in my opinion.
That doesn't mean every element of Labor is better than every element of the Coalition. I'd happily take Malcolm Turnbull in a Labor Cabinet ahead of many shadow existing shadow ministers.
As for Swan's negativity, as a general rule, negativity is what Oppositions do. It certainly is what the Liberals do when they are in opposition. However, interestingly, since Rudd took over hte leadership, Swan has gone out of his way not to be negative. He has theme has been that the economy is doing very well, but the government is squandering opportunities to cement in place long term prosperity, a theme that finds agreement in the unlikeliest of places, like the editorial columns of the Australian and the Financial Review.
I reckon you haven't been listening carefully to Swan, because you don't like Labor people per se, so you assume he's just being carping and negative.
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