Looking for a reasoned discussion on this with guys like JBomber is wasted effort.
I think heâs being quite reasonable.
Iâm suggesting, consistently, backed by evidence, that Liberal governments are terrible economic managers.
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Hereâs a graph of global inflation
Notice the spikes in the 70âs from the oil crisis. Or when Fraser and Howard where in charge.
Notice the spike early 90âs I.e. Keating
The spike just before the gfc and we had issues with Costello then.
But mainly notice the downward trend.
From looking at global inflation and that it pretty much correlates perfectly with Australian inflation. Do you reckon itâs global forces or the treasurer of the day impacting it?
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I voted early and let my normal prejudices apply re last place on the poll.
Unfortunately I didnât know about this â â â â â â â running as an independent.
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Iâm NOT the one using inflation, unemployment & interest rates to try to support the position that any specific government were great or poor economic managers. Iâm simply presenting official rates that show that these figures were lower under coalition governments which is in stark contrast to whats been asserted by others particularly AT.
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Bill Shortenâs best answer on Q&A had one syllable and two letters
4-5 minutes
âNo.â It was Bill Shortenâs best answer in his hour-long appearance on Q&A . The question was one bound to win a cheer from the ABC crowd; would the Labor leader stop the Adani coal mine?
While the rest of the answer suffered from the some of the verbal cul-de-sacs and misdirection that bedevils modern political language, the unequivocal start made a crucial point: politicians canât please everyone.
Bill Shorten on Q&A.Credit:AAP
And they shouldnât try to. In the end the best path on offer is the one Aristotle trod more than 2000 years ago: to search for the common good, to try and find the greatest benefit for the greatest number.
The philosopher is a favourite of the Catholic Church and Shortenâs Jesuit education would make him very familiar with the concept. There was a hint of these intellectual foundations in Chloe Shortenâs introduction of her husband the Labor launch: he is âa man for othersâ she said.
What made Shortenâs turn on the program so compelling was that he showed he had spent years thinking about how to deliver the common good in a future Australia. And with a limit on what governments can do he constantly emphasised one word âchoicesâ.
After spending the early part of this campaign trying to avoid the hard edge of his plans, Shorten admitted there would be losers. There was really no other honest path.
In the manner of journalists, a colleague asked as the show ended what the news lead would be? Which question and answer would tell the most compelling story?
But the whole was more than the sum of its parts. Shorten was making the case that to repair the loss of trust in politics he had to demonstrate that there is a nobility in the art.
Australia does not need a messiah, it needs a good politician.
Politics is, or should be, about building a better society. There is no greater vocation than trying to lead that and there are good and bad ideas, and people, in all parties. That is why the contest of ideas we are now in matters so much, and why it is a tragedy that so many have lost faith in politics to achieve anything meaningful.
Scott Morrison understands the importance of faith. He has also spent a lot of time thinking about trust in Australian politics and knows that the greatest weight he carries is his governmentâs breach of faith with the electorate.
After pledging in 2013 that the Coalition would put the âadults back in chargeâ it delivered as intemperate a bunch of toddlers that has ever been entrusted with the Treasury benches. All the Coalition had to do in its first term was to show that it was moderately competent and it could not manage even that.
Like Shorten, Morrison has grown in this campaign. He has taken the carcass of a government and revived it through sheer force of will, a talent for staying focused on his message and brutally exploiting any misstep by his opponent. He has, almost single-handedly, got to a point where there is a credible path to a Coalition victory.
But he has so little to work with. To win he must walk a very narrow path, both through a small landscape of marginal seats and by boiling this contest down to one simple proposition: that the risk of change is too great.
That risk is almost always measured in money. That the costs imposed by Labor will be immense and the budget will collapse under its weight. And he may well be right. There is every reason to believe that Labor will struggle to deliver, and pay for, its ambitious agenda.
But that chance cannot hide the fact that the heart of Shortenâs pitch is hope and Morrisonâs is fear.
In the end the criticism that could be levelled at Morrisonâs campaign is best summed up by the unkind (and untrue) verse written to ridicule the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe:
âWho has written some things quite the best of their kind,
âBut the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind.â
The Coalition is now so adrift it lacks meaning. It has been reduced to arguments over costs because it canât tote up a consistent set of values. If it cannot explain its purpose even to itself it will fail to explain it to the people. And it has to ask itself a tough question: would victory be better for the party in the long run than defeat? In defeat it would at least have a chance to renew, as Labor has. In government the same demons will re-emerge.
This contest has now sharpened to a battle between the makers and the managers. Both are important for the common good. But only one can prevail.
Chris Uhlmann is political editor for Nine News.
Yeah fair enough.
Yes, I should have known better.
Unemployment rates
Inflation rates
Now when it comes to interest rates sure there can be some ambiguity because the interest you pay on your mortgage isnât the same as what you pay for personal loans isnât the same as inter-bank rates isnât the same as credit card rates isnât the same as the Gvt might be paying etc etc. When discussing interest rates I assumed (incorrectly it would seem) that the standard RBA cash rates which of course have been left on hold again today for the 30th month, is the most relevant figure to the majority of Australians & has the biggest impact on our biggest investments (our houses & our super). Once again the official RBA cash rates were the highest they have ever been & in turn the actual bank mortgage rates that were charged to ordinary Australian home owners were the highest they have ever been under Hawke & Keating.
I think itâs pretty clear that Labor are running on a platform of policy and unity as apposed to bashing the opposition.
Libs on the other hand are running their platform of Look at Scomo the Aussie bloke saying how bad Labor are, but please donât look at any of our other party membersâŚ
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Can we do wage growth?
Can we do Essendon flags vs interest rates?
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Just looking at it, interest rates seemed to rise appreciably in 1986, 1994 and 2001. So if the Dons win the flag, interest rates heads northâŚ
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No wonder we have been stitched up so badly these last two decades!
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Had the thought after reading this, that that chick that tried to Egg ScuMo would have been way better off dressing like a Young Lib & just presenting him with a basket of Eggs with a ribbon on it and a sweet smile on her face, and when he says âWell, what are these for?â, (beaming under his cap peak thinking, âA young person wants to give me something!!! This will be GREAT TV and photo opp!â ). ⌠she just delivers something along those^ lines, âŚ
⌠something like, âWell you havenât been on Q and A for 7 Years and then you just ran scared & bottled it again on Monday, ⌠and every Chicken should have Eggs, ⌠Right??â
Boom, drop mike, walk away with full tilt swagger, as they rush ScuMo to the burns unit.
Makes her point, âŚ(or at least âAâ point. What was her point actually, . that his head looks like a fkn Frying pan? 
) - better than the Egging would by ten fold, makes the news, and she wouldnât have been charged with a violent offence, or be able to be swiped aside by the shills as some rabid Tofu eating tree hugging nutter.
Another egging? Iâll be honest I thought un Ĺuf was enough.
On the other hand, deux Ĺufs may be what they deserve.
(Shamelessly stolen from Paul Kidd on Twitter)
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How much are the LNP hoping the US decide to light up Iran some time in the next ten days?
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