No doubt it's all part of Howard's masterful election strategy. Lawrence Springborg uses much the same approach in the Queensland parliament, viz. 'No, I've no idea what Mr. Beattie said about this particular issue, but I can tell you this, what he said was totally outrageous, and he should apologise to every single Queenslander immediately.'

What I have trouble coming to grips with is that Howard today (I think) declared that the forthcoming election will be fought on ... what? Strong leadership, perhaps? Wrong. Law and Order (an oldie but a goodie)? No again. Who is the healthier party leader: Mr. Morning-constitutional-with-the-press or Mr. In-and-out-of-public-hospital? Good effort, but again wrong.

No, the forthcoming election will be fought on TRUST. Not 'Faith' or 'Loyalty', not even 'Confidence', but TRUST. And this from the Prime Minister who gave us 'children overboard'. Quite apart from everything else, you've got to give the guy 10 out of 10 for sheer chutzpah.

Dude what does he stand for? I mean long term, not just at the moment. I haven't liked what Latham had said both before and after his backflips and have said so on many occasions but i've still got no idea what he's on about, with the exception of anti Bush and Howard. So really it makes some sense that Howard says he doesn't know what Latham stands for because he always changes his mind. That wasn't the brightest of attacks Champas, i've come to expect more form you. Maybe you are feeling the need to fufill some sort of contract that says you must put out X amount of articles and your standard slipped a bit

Well FishHead, Dude, homie g, down one time wid ya bad self, yo wassup, I'm not surprised that YOU don't know what Latham stands for! I mean Andrew Bolt is hardly likely to inform you! Maybe you are feeling the need to fulfill some contractual obligation to reply to my every utterance like fellow warmonger Ted Lapkin feels about John Pilger. Or maybe you're just a Liberal party lackey.
The ALP is hardly a new organisation. They did not abandon everything the moment Latham became the leader. The ALP, as always, is in favour of a decent public health system. And don't give me this rubbish rant about the safety net and your beloved Medicare Minus, I mean Plus. They are in favour of educating our children properly. Latham is in favour of an apology. Latham is in favour of protecting our PBS that is the envy of the world. Beazley and Latham are in favour of helping Iraq out with nation building activities (Speaking of backflips, was it not Howard who said we should get the troops out first?). Latham was in favour of pneumococcal vaccination. Need I go on? Come on pay attention boy!

I would like to apologise for misleading my readers. FishHead of course also gets reliably informed by JoeUser bloggers. Hooray LittleWhip!

lmao!

i've still got no idea what he's [Latham] on about, with the exception of anti Bush and Howard

Well, that's a good start.

Why is our PBS the one the world loves? Because we give our more freebies. Minor problem; ageing population. Less people paying taxes, more oldies needing freebies. How does Latham propose to pay for it? Where's he going to get the money from? Not just now but later as the population continues to age? We'd know but the last attempt to put out a Labour budget was shot down less then a day later; they were a few billion off paying for it. I could go on but won't cause I can't be bothered - there's more fun afoot.

ps JoeUser Bloggers? I read, at most, four blogs and disagree with the only one the actually talks politics. You’re scraping the bottom of the barrel now...

I might throw an opinion in here. Doing a bit of googling, I stumbled upon this opinion piece, dated 2000.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=1980

In it, there are figures for the ratio of retirement age Australians to working age Australians and comments on what is needed to solve the problem. (Currently where at 1:5, by 2050 it'll be 1:2.5).

Labour identified in 2000 that you basically need to improve the productivity of your work force to balance the increased load. How? Increase your workforce the natural way (take Costellos advice and make babies), or through welfare reform.

In 2000 it was identified that Australia's welfare system has failed to provide enough incentives for people to move off welfare into the workforce. Has that changed? Personal experience says tells me it hasn't. The Liberal party has had 4 years to get going on this, and they failed. I was collecting welfare for a couple of months, and then I made the decision to get off. Ultimately, it meant taking a pay cut of about $100 dollars a week - which was a big deal back then. By cutting welfare and working more, I was worse off. That's the system that the Liberals have put in place, and have had at least 4 years to get into gear and fix. And now you're asking how Latham's going to fix it? If he even comes up with ONE idea in the next 6 weeks, he's one idea ahead of the liberal party.

But that is half the point, the facts are that you have to pay people less for doing nothing. That isn't what Labor is about. They want free stuff for everyone. Free drugs and health care for all. How is that going to encourage people to earn more? The fact is that the type of reform needed is unpopular; we aren't having more babies then normal, in fact we are having less (obviously I'am an exception ) so the only option is to cut payments which is political suicide. Neither side wants to do it so one day, when we've screwed things up almost to the point of no return some unlucky government will have to fall on their sword to fix it.

That isn't what Labor is about. They want free stuff for everyone.

That's right FishHead. Labor wants 'free stuff for everyone'. The depth of analysis is quite overwhelming.

Wow FishHead, once again I am taken aback by your sense of social responsiblity. I want your babies to gestate inside my body!

In case you didn't notice Labor is also pro union. Unions generally want their members to get more money (okay the SDA is rather shit but lets ignore that for the moment). You see the other option is rather than paying less welfare but MORE to people in lower paying jobs.
The less healthy people you have the smaller your workforce and the less welfare and drugs you can pay for. So it makes sense to pay more. Or maybe if you don't like that idea perhaps you'll like the option of letting in more refugee to work and pay taxes.
Do you really think people who are dying or have chronic illnesses shouldn't get any support from the government? Are you saying people should be working from their death beds?!

I'd just like to say that I find the SDA does quite a good job, though perhaps not universally.