How about those elections?

[SlayerRondo]

Aielyn said:

SlayerRondo said:
The Labor party would have had to have achieved things to talk up for that to work as a strategy.

They ran up a large deficit, introduced highly unpopular new taxes and tried to implement an internet filter within Australia.

They saved Australia from recession that all of the other developed countries suffered from (and were praised by the IMF for it), they kept interest rates low, they kept jobless numbers relatively low, they set up the emissions trading scheme (which Gillard stupidly allowed the Liberals to call a "carbon tax" - it was never a tax at all) which meant that the biggest drop in emissions ever occurred in 2013 (and the only other two times it dropped at all was in 2009 and 2010, when talk of the ETS first began), removed Work Choices, boosted funding to education significantly, invested in new infrastructure that private companies weren't willing to invest in but are going to reap the benefits of, and much more.

Yes, there were downsides. All governments have downsides. But the point is that they let the Liberals define the terms of the election, with all of the focus on the downsides and none on their achievements. And what's more, the Liberals are set to do even worse on all of the same fronts (and it was obvious that would happen, yet Labor never called them out on it).

The IMF is a corupt and inefective organization that's priase should be looked at more like a form of condemnation. Australia's economy was naturally more protected from the GFC to begin with and wasting ten's of billions of dollars only left us with a huge deficit.

Low interest rates are a double edged sword given that they often lead to increased housing prices and decrease the returns people have on their savings. Low interest rates also effectively make borrowing cheaper that can often lead to high levels of malinvestment in the long run similar to the Great Depression.

The carbon tax met all the criteria of a tax and calling it an emissions trading scheme was dishonest to begin with. And lets not forget that Julia Gillard went into the election promising not to introduce such a tax.

Work choices benefit people currently working at the expense of the people who want to get into the labor market but cant because the lack of work choices make hiring them a more costly prospect.

Our education system is receiving way to much money currently for what it produces. Making education so cheap will only lead to increased levels of worthless degree's and people wasting their time in the process.