Well, its not like Labor had a particularly bad economic policy. I thought their tax policy was even better than the Government’s.
But I really fail to understand how they could have voted for someone who took them into an illegal war, lied to them on so many issues (ranging from Iraq to children overboard), and worse of all, won’t ever admit he’s wrong.
Another problem was the scare campaign that was being run on interest rates. The government ran ads saying “Interest rates will rise under Labor”, when in fact thats not true at all.
And when the former-Reserve Bank Governor stepped in to tell the public the truth, they rephrased their scare campaign, and just continued on with it.
:mad:
Of the Dopers that voted Liberal, I’m curious what your reasons were. Was there a key issue (or issues) that influenced you?
My friends and I don’t talk about politics much, but the ones I know who voted for Liberal did so because they disliked Labor’s policy on private schools (most of us were private school students), and they felt that Liberal would be better for the economy overall.
My reasons were purely selfish. While there are many, many things about the current Government which I find offensive, my current financial, work and family situations made me ignore these and vote for the party which I feel will help me more. Usually I am not that selfish, particularly since I don’t think it really matters which party is in power, but just at the moment I need the stability of a returned coalition Government.
[nitpick]
Our Federal Parliament (or at least the House of Reps) has three year terms, not four.
Well, there’s no point getting uptight about people who voted Liberal out of pure self-interest, because voting for your own interests in a very common strategy among people of all political stripes.
What really baffles me, however, is how many people bought the Coaltion’s schtick about economic “stability.” Given the broad similarities between the two parties’ economic policies, and Labor’s continued adherence to economic conservatism, there was really very little reason to choose one party over the other from an economic standpoint. Anyone who swallowed the Coalition argument that interest rates would skyrocket under Labor is dumber than a bag of herrings.
Anyone from outside Australia will think that Aussies are pro-Iraq war.
:smack:
Australia has just re-elected a PM who supported the Iraq war by a greater margin than before. Plus, Bush and Blair appear to be the only 2 leaders who have offered congrats to Howard.
Can anyone say, “BING! Terrorist target!”?
I can just imagine all the terrorists around the world going. Ahhh, now we understand what the Australians are truly like.
Just for the record, I agree that there is no evidence that interest rates under a Labor Government would have behaved in any way differently from the way in which they will behave under a Coalition Government.
Also, while I agree that the economic policies of the two parties are similar, they are not exactly the same. I personally believe that the Liberals will help me more than Labor.
The other issue is perception. For example, I am currently trying to sell two properties - our family home and a block of land. Had Labor won, I’m sure enough people would have been conned by the Liberal assertions regarding interest rates to have an adverse effect on the market in the short term. In other words it would have made selling property in the current difficult market even harder. As things stand, I really did not need the risk of that happening.
If I was an Aussie I would be worried about that now. The Bali bombing was seen as an attack on Aussies, did you really want to invite something closer to home?
I hope you’re not saying we should have voted Latham in to avoid being attacked by terrorists?!
What are you saying exactly about immigration? Australia’s immigration rate is 3.98 / 1,000 population. That is only slightly under New Zealand’s rate of 4.05 / 1,000 population. Just for reference, the US’ is 3.41 / 1,000 pop and the UK’ is 2.41 / 1,000 population. Australia is not bad on the world stage.
Regarding humanitarian stream migrants, 10% of Australia’s migrants are from the humanitarian stream. New Zealand’s percentage is 8 and the US’ is 8.
I’m saying that Latham should’ve been elected to send the message worldwide (and not only to terrorists) that Australia isn’t supporting a warmongering butcher.
I think that the war was a blatantly illegal one, and that Australia should never have joined in. And now, the Australian public have re-elected the jackass who took them into this war.
And I’m still surprised that Bush and Howard have not been tried for war crimes.
Australia’s immigration rate is 3.98 / 1,000 population. That is only slightly under New Zealand’s rate of 4.05 / 1,000 population. Just for reference, the US’ is 3.41 / 1,000 pop and the UK’ is 2.41 / 1,000 population. Australia is not bad on the world stage.