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AusPoliGAF |OT| Boats? What Boats?

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W

wonzo

Banned
I doubt it's a level of hatred so strong it'd be ruled as a breach of anti-discrimination laws in court. Maybe Andrew Bolt himself can comment as he seems to be an expert on such matters. ( ≖‿≖)
 
O

Omikron

Member
Bolt is fucking amazing.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/...s-live-from-noon/story-fnho52qp-1226700420737

Allie Serafini asks via Facebook: why do the media hound the coalition for costings but never ask the same of Labor?

Andrew: It’s true the obsession with costings is a bit OTT.

It’s fair enough to worry about the cost of promised policies, and whether we can afford them.

But shouldn’t that concern lead you also damn to hell someone who told you their policies were so great that you’d get a Budget surplus, but then hand you an IOU for $30 billion?

If the concern about costings is genuine, it should be matched by a much more savage judgment about costs that blew out.
Click to expand...
 
F

Fredescu

Member
wonzo said:
I doubt it's a level of hatred so strong it'd be ruled as a breach of anti-discrimination laws in court. Maybe Andrew Bolt himself can comment as he seems to be an expert on such matters. ( ≖‿≖)
Click to expand...

Maybe his defence team forgot to mention that he watches TV.
 
F

Fredescu

Member
Speaking of cool TV Shows:

mtIFrBC.jpg
 
D

Dead Man

Member
http://www.afr.com/p/national/hockey_flags_severe_welfare_and_k97QJUdU66Ux04f3Os9XMM

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has warned that a Coalition government would implement drastic welfare and spending cuts and streamline government service delivery, but many of the details will not be finalised until after the federal election.

In a speech designed to put his own party on notice as much as the voting public, Mr Hockey built on a theme he outlined in London last year, saying “all developed countries are facing the end of the era of universal entitlement’’.

Mr Hockey, who was blocked by his shadow cabinet colleagues recently from supporting a Labor proposal to trim the baby bonus and deliver a $500 million structural saving, told the Institute of Public Affairs on Monday that “attacking spending” and “looking for structural saves’’ was increasingly urgent.

“The demographic pressures will only intensify over time, so if we can’t get control of the budget now, we never will,’’ he said.

Mr Hockey said the Coalition had already promised to abolish the $1.2 billion-a-year schoolkids bonus, a cash payment to families supposedly funded by the mining tax. But the bulk of the measures would emerge from the commission of audit the Coalition would conduct of the nation’s finances should it be elected.

Mr Hockey said there would be ­“genuine welfare reform to lift participation in work’’ and referred to previous Coalition election promises offering incentives and penalties to encourage people into work.
Plan to put Centrelink in post offices

Mr Hockey signalled a significant overhaul of Centrelink, Medicare and other service delivery agencies, saying they deliver in payments about 10 per cent of GDP “yet the procedures and rules used for customer interaction remain mired in mid-20th-century technology’’.

Mr Hockey wants to dramatically streamline the agencies, with one idea being to merge their front-office operations with post offices.

“The Coalition will be looking to improve engagement mechanisms with its customer base so that interaction with the Commonwealth is as easy and seamless as it is with many private sector, customer-focused businesses,’’ he said.

The government seized on the speech as evidence that a Coalition government would cut services in the same way as Queensland Premier Campbell Newman did using his own commission of audit.

“We’ve been saying this for a long period of time,’’ said Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury.

He said the Coalition owed it to ­voters to tell them of its plans before the election, not to implement “nasty ­measures’’ after it was in office and had conducted a “Mickey Mouse” audit.

Mr Bradbury said the baby bonus incident had shown Mr Hockey to be a “pretty big talker’’ in the past.

Mr Hockey argued that he needed to be given a free hand if he were to ­balance the budget.

“Addressing the ongoing fiscal crises will involve the winding back of universal access to payments and entitlements from the state,’’ he said.

“This will require the redefining of the concept of mutual obligation and the reinvigoration of the culture of self-reliance.’’
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But lets keep paying more to private schools and rich families :/
 
M

magenta

Member
So how much does a private school get from the government in comparison to a public school? I have never seen these figures.
 
A

A More Normal Bird

Unconfirmed Member
Dead Man said:
http://www.afr.com/p/national/hockey...66Ux04f3Os9XMM

But lets keep paying more to private schools and rich families :/
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I remember reading about this and thinking it was evidence that Hockey couldn't be as dumb as he seemed. After last night's Q&A though I'm back to doubting that. Negative personal attacks aside, it looks like Abbott vs Hockey will in many ways be a repeat of Howard vs Costello, only this time around the economy and the government's fiscal position may stop the PM's attempts at vote buying middle-class welfare/tax cuts in their tracks.
 
B

bomma_man

Member
Dead Man said:
http://www.afr.com/p/national/hockey_flags_severe_welfare_and_k97QJUdU66Ux04f3Os9XMM



But lets keep paying more to private schools and rich families :/
Click to expand...

Yes, the only reason that people are out of work is because they're lazy. Couldn't be structural, couldn't be a lack of aggregate demand or weakening exports, of course not! It's the little guy's fault. Now let me give the rich a slobbery reach around.

Fucking idiot.

On a lighter note, whoever said the Liberals were out of touch?
 
V

viciouskillersquirrel

Member
bomma_man said:
Yes, the only reason that people are out of work is because they're lazy. Couldn't be structural, couldn't be a lack of aggregate demand or weakening exports, of course not! It's the little guy's fault. Now let me give the rich a slobbery reach around.

Fucking idiot.

On a lighter note, whoever said the Liberals were out of touch?
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Did she just work "liking", "lolcats" and "Instagram" into the one sentence? Yeah, pizza nights are cool, right guys? Next she'll be asking what a girl needs to do to get a marijuana cigarette around here.

I am a man who owns two copies of Hyrule Historia and I can think of a dozen ways to better appeal to the youth vote than this girl. First on the list is to stop trying to be cool. Some people have got it, others don't. Embrace it.

I also love the implication that her audience is lazy and distracted.
 
Y

Yagharek

Member
HolyCheck said:
Promising australian baseballer? I thought the thread was a joke and didn't open it lol :(
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That's the one. Wasnt a joke thread, just a disgusting murder. With a tasteless markot "joke" post. Just comes off as nasty and ridiculous to see him try take the high ground in this thread over anything.
 
R

Ruthless_Barbarian

Member
Yagharek said:
That's the one. Wasnt a joke thread, just a disgusting murder. With a tasteless markot "joke" post. Just comes off as nasty and ridiculous to see him try take the high ground in this thread over anything.
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Disgusting indeed, the kids who shot him said they were bored and wanted to watch someone die.
 
C

CrazedProfessional

Member
Not that I meant it that way. Every time he speaks he pretty much outlines a strange plan to torch infrastructure and welfare; burning it to the ground.

I mean I don't mean to sound like a soundbyte but Both Labor and Joe Hockey are saying that there will be cuts to the bone if the Coalition assumes power and Kevin Rudd is ultimately correct that austerity does nobody any favours. Australia, weirdly enough has a party promoting savage cuts that we don't really need at all because chasing surpluses like a golden egg isn't a very economically sound principle.
 
B

Bernbaum

Member
CrazedProfessional said:
Not that I meant it that way. Every time he speaks he pretty much outlines a strange plan to torch infrastructure and welfare; burning it to the ground.

I mean I don't mean to sound like a soundbyte but Both Labor and Joe Hockey are saying that there will be cuts to the bone if the Coalition assumes power and Kevin Rudd is ultimately correct that austerity does nobody any favours. Australia, weirdly enough has a party promoting savage cuts that we don't really need at all because chasing surpluses like a golden egg isn't a very economically sound principle.
Click to expand...

You know who likes eggs?

Joe 'Fat' Hockey.
 
R

roosters93

Member
Bulbagarden said:
When voting above the line, preferences flow according to the ticket of the party you vote for. So by the example you've got there where you vote for the Sex Party, if they get eliminated, then your vote would first transfer to the Voluntary Euthanasia Party, then to the Stop CSG Party. Though realistically, both of those are likely to be knocked out before the Sex Party are. Going over their preferences quickly, I would guess the most likely potential first stops for Sex Party above the line preferences would be at 14-15 with the Pirate Party, 16-17 with the Democrats, or 20-21 with the Wikileaks Party. Depending on how the votes fall, Sex Party might even stay in the race long enough that all the parties between them and the Greens (starting at 60 in their preference sheet) get eliminated before Sex Party preferences are distributed.
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Cheers Bulba, you're a bro

Bernbaum said:
PEOPLE SKILLS HOW DO THEY WORK. FUCKING MAGNETS. VODKA SHOTS AND JAEGERMEISTER.

Also this is funny (Unless of course you aren't a member of the liberal echochamber):

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/these-are-the-11-best-questions-on-askbolt-right-now-2013-8
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Haha fuck me.

my favourite:

"In episode 57 of McGyver, he started a car with a carton of eggs. Explain the science behind that #askbolt"
 
F

Fredescu

Member
CrazedProfessional said:
Not that I meant it that way. Every time he speaks he pretty much outlines a strange plan to torch infrastructure and welfare; burning it to the ground.

I mean I don't mean to sound like a soundbyte but Both Labor and Joe Hockey are saying that there will be cuts to the bone if the Coalition assumes power and Kevin Rudd is ultimately correct that austerity does nobody any favours. Australia, weirdly enough has a party promoting savage cuts that we don't really need at all because chasing surpluses like a golden egg isn't a very economically sound principle.
Click to expand...

What's super crazy is how much more money the Coalition are planning to spend, and how many more taxes they've promised to cut. As pointed out by a Murdoch rag:

ScreenHunter_11-Aug.-21-07.21-660x418.gif


ScreenHunter_12-Aug.-21-07.22-660x321.gif


But of course, because Howard was PM during a boom, the Liberals are "better economic managers", so voters DGAF. Hockey really is clueless.
 
S

shanshan310

Member
Fredescu said:
What's super crazy is how much more money the Coalition are planning to spend, and how many more taxes they've promised to cut. As pointed out by a Murdoch rag:

But of course, because Howard was PM during a boom, the Liberals are "better economic managers", so voters DGAF. Hockey really is clueless.
Click to expand...

I wonder what they'll be selling off to make the books look neat this time :/
 
F

Fredescu

Member
It's always funny to read clever international people looking at our economy, then at our politics, and back at our economy, and saying what the fuck. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-crisis-down-under

The Crisis Down Under

CANBERRA – The Great Recession of 2008 reached the farthest corners of the earth. Here in Australia, they refer to it as the GFC – the global financial crisis.

Kevin Rudd, who was prime minister when the crisis struck, put in place one of the best-designed Keynesian stimulus packages of any country in the world. He realized that it was important to act early, with money that would be spent quickly, but that there was a risk that the crisis would not be over soon. So the first part of the stimulus was cash grants, followed by investments, which would take longer to put into place.

Rudd’s stimulus worked: Australia had the shortest and shallowest of recessions of the advanced industrial countries. But, ironically, attention has focused on the fact that some of the investment money was not spent as well as it might have been, and on the fiscal deficit that the downturn and the government’s response created.

Of course, we should strive to ensure that money is spent as productively as possible, but humans, and human institutions, are fallible, and there are costs to ensuring that money is well spent. To put it in economics jargon, efficiency requires equating the marginal cost associated with allocation (both in acquiring information about the relative benefits of different projects and in monitoring investments) with the marginal benefits. In a nutshell: it is wasteful to spend too much money preventing waste.

While the focus for the moment is on public-sector waste, that waste pales in comparison to the waste of resources resulting from a malfunctioning private financial sector, which in America already amounts to trillions of dollars. Likewise, the waste from not fully utilizing society’s resources – the inevitable consequence of not having had such a quick and strong stimulus – exceeds that of the public sector by an order of magnitude.

For an American, there is a certain amusement in Australian worries about the deficit and debt: their deficit as a percentage of GDP is less than half that of the US; their gross national debt is less than a third.

Deficit fetishism never makes sense – the national debt is only one side of a country’s balance sheet. Cutting back on high-return investments (like education, infrastructure, and technology) just to reduce the deficit is truly foolish, but especially so in the case of a country like Australia, whose debt is so low. Indeed, if one is concerned with a country’s long-run debt, as one should be, such deficit fetishism is particularly silly, since the higher growth resulting from these public investments will generate more tax revenues.

There is another irony: some of the same Australians who have criticized the deficits have also criticized proposals to increase taxes on mines. Australia is lucky to have a rich endowment of natural resources, including iron ore. These resources are part of the country’s patrimony. They belong to all the people. Yet in all countries, mining companies try to get these resources for free – or for as little as possible.

Of course, mining companies need to get a fair return on their investments. But the iron-ore companies have gotten a windfall gain as iron-ore prices have soared (nearly doubling since 2007). The increased profits are not a result of their mining prowess, but of China’s huge demand for steel.

There is no reason that mining companies should reap this reward for themselves. They should share the bonanza of higher prices with Australia’s citizens, and an appropriately designed mining tax is one way of ensuring that outcome.
This money should be set aside in a special fund, to be used for investment. The country will inevitably become poorer as it depletes its natural resources, unless the value of its human and physical capital increases.

Another issue playing out down under is global warming. If not a climate-change denier, the previous Australian government led by John Howard joined President George W. Bush in being a climate-change free rider: others would have to take responsibility for ensuring the planet’s survival.

This was especially strange, given that Australia has been one of the big beneficiaries of the Montreal convention, which banned ozone-destroying gases. Holes in the ozone layer exposed Australians to cancer-causing radiation. The international community banded together, banned the substances, and the holes are now closing. Nevertheless, the Howard government, like the Bush administration, was willing to expose the entire planet to the risks of global warming, which threaten the very existence of many island states.

Rudd campaigned on a promise to reverse that stance, but the failure of the climate-change talks in Copenhagen last December, when President Barack Obama refused to make the kind of commitment on behalf of the United States that was required, left Rudd’s government in an awkward position. The failure of US leadership has global consequences.

Citizens should consider the legacy they leave to their children, part of which is the financial debts they will pass down. But another part of our legacy is environmental. It is two-faced to claim to care about the future and then fail to ensure that the country is adequately compensated for the depletion of its resources, or ignore the degradation of the environment. It is even worse to leave our children without adequate infrastructure and the other public investments needed to be competitive in the twenty-first century.

Every country faces these issues. Sometimes, one can see them with greater clarity by observing how others are confronting them. How Australians vote in their coming election may be a harbinger of things to come. Let’s hope – for their sake and for the world’s – that they see through the rhetorical flourishes and personal foibles to the larger issues at stake.
Click to expand...
 
L

legend166

Member
Fredescu said:
What's super crazy is how much more money the Coalition are planning to spend, and how many more taxes they've promised to cut. As pointed out by a Murdoch rag:

ScreenHunter_11-Aug.-21-07.21-660x418.gif


ScreenHunter_12-Aug.-21-07.22-660x321.gif


But of course, because Howard was PM during a boom, the Liberals are "better economic managers", so voters DGAF. Hockey really is clueless.
Click to expand...

How come the NBN isn't included in either table?
 
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