Kev's budget reply

[canetoad]

He struck the right note. I think we are looking at the next PM.

[Matilda]

1. I agree - he looked and sounded good as he delivered it.

The more you look at Howard's budget, the less there is in it - more of the same old pork barrelling
and nothing new or innovative at all. Rudd is a bit more conservative than I'd like, but anything
else won't get him over the line, and at least he's tackling issues like global warming and some
of the education problems, both of which Howard has ignored for ten years.

Howard has today attacked Rudd's claim to be a fiscal conservative, because he's rolling back some
(actually fairly minor) clauses of the IR legislation and because he opposed the sale of Telstra.
Funny, I've always thought that to sell off anything that makes money for you every year is fiscally
irresponsible, and look what's happened to it since Howard handed it to his corporate mates.

Telstra, Qantas, the Commonwealth Bank, the airports - they should all have remained in the hands of
the people. Instead we have fly-by-nighters running these entities into the ground while they
cream off big profits, which should be going into state coffers. Keating and Hawke started the
big sell-off and it's a black mark against them, but Howard put the nails in the coffin of public
enterprise. It's not something he should be boasting about.

[Djinn]

2. Even cynical ol me

has to admit I was surprised at the seeming lack of budget bounce for the govt. My patch at work covers the coalition leaning "aspirational" (I tend to use another word) electorates and I'm hearing a lot of people saying this budget was just another Howard election bribe. Nothing new and the same old tax cuts and rebates that don't come close to reimbursing workers for their recently slashed "protected by law" pay & conditions (relaxed and comfortable in Johnny's Australia - the ONLY Australia in which wages have stagnated in the midst of a labor shortage) and the increased costs of housing, education, health, petrol etc

It's still too soon to call but I'm getting a little more confident that we're gonna see Howard's End.

To go back to the cynic, I don't see much changing under the ALP. IR situation will be a little better and we might stop scoring political points off the backs of refugee women and children, but there wont be a substantive difference.

[canetoad]

3. Agree with both of you

that Kev is going easy, but when the Libs dish the dirt their main point is fiscal irresponsibility. I can see how he is trying to shut up the detractors. I wasn't a big fan of his but have regained confidence that at long last Labor has a leader who has more than a realistic chance at defeating the dark forces.

Heard Costello's budget described as Fairy Dust, lol. Sprinkle a bit here, there....