JGill

ACTING PRIME MINISTER JULIA GILLARD ACTING PRIME MINISTER JULIA GILLARD ACTING PRIME MINISTER JULIA GILLARD ACTING PRIME MINISTER JULIA GILLARD ACTING PRIME MINISTER JULIA GILLARD O HAPPY NIGHT ACTING PRIME MINISTER JULIA GILLARD ACTING PM JGILL ACTING PRIME MINISTER JULIA GILLARD Je vous adore

My friend G who knew me when we were 15 or something in North Balwyn recently got in touch and I ended up explaining my politics. He liked it so here we go.

Hi G,

Ah well you can't keep everyone happy, but you can't complain that the
coalition hasn't had a good turn in office! I daresay if Howard had left
Work Choices out of the mix, signed the Kyoto Protocol, and perhaps
forgotten about the nuclear reactors, he might have been reelected,
although the interest rate rises didn't help his case.

For me there was also the unthinking following into Iraq, the lies on
children overboard, the long-term wrongful detention of various
Australians with language difficulties and mental illness as well as
asylum seekers, the AWB fiasco where taxpayers slush-funded Saddam, the
onerous requirements for single parents and disability pensioners who've
been treated like dole bludgers since July 1, the very late conversion
to climate change and much more. I also think that counting someone who
does one hour's work a week as employed is wrong, and that the only
reason housing rates were lower under Howard when he was treasurer and
bank rates at 21% was because they artificially capped housing rates,
and that when Keating stopped that (backed by the coalition) they had to
come higher. there was low inflation in those days too and it was much
easier to study and buy a house. We have a situation now where household
debt has completely ballooned, houses are out of reach of the average
family unless they move to woop-woop and young graduates enter the
workforce with ten of thousands of dollars of HECS debts to their name
when they're barely adults, while uni education has been sold off to
international wealthy students at the expense of Australians with less
money. I also think science and research and development has been very poor, and believe we have incredible potential as a a source of
international scientific and medical breakthrough way beyond what has
been achieved if only the government would seriously back those areas.

Howard was also always confrontational at the State/Federal level which
left us with a legacy of mismanaged water etc. His announcement a few
months back that Australia's major food growing areas were about to have
irrigation completely stopped, and attempt to tackle it with a
last-minute, mismanaged plan with little State consultation was a
botched job. It's not his fault that we have drought - except insofar as
he has presided over 11.5 years of failure to tackle extensive
deforestation, greenhouse gas build-up, unsustainable practices, lack
of tackling capping, trading or fining schemes for industrial polluters
- in fact subsidising them at the expense of renewable sciences and
businesses. So in that sense, his old world beliefs have contributed to
drought-inducing climate change. Then there was gutting the ABC until
about a year ago when government began giving a little funding back(only after putting arch conservatives such as Windshuttle in to run
it)... So I am hoping these elements, or some of them, will make some
progress under a government with a different focus. I don't think
they'll be radical though, and I doubt if any reds are hiding under the
bed!

On the plus side, the gun buyback scheme was gutsy and well done, and I
think Howard did well on East Timor - I diagree with Keating on that
one.