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Cowardice.
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AFLW 2024 - Round 9 - Indigenous Round - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
John Winston Howard - what is his legacy?
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Howard's legacy for me is very simple - he showed exactly how gullible the Australian voter is. Over a decade of budget vandalism, papered over by an economic boom and multiple privatisations, and people ate it up because he handed out welfare to the middle class and humanised them as "battlers" and "mum and dad investors". So too with immigration, he told a monstrous lie like "children overboard" and people swallowed it whole and asked for more because he fed into their existing xenophobia. And this popularity allowed him to pass whatever the IPA and the business lobby demanded, until he overreached with Workchoices.
Canny bastard though. I admire him never complaining about the media and managing to force a Great Big New Tax™ down the electorate's throats while still staying in power. But perhaps that can only be done by the Liberal Party, due to their undeserved perception of being good economic managers.
Canny bastard though. I admire him never complaining about the media and managing to force a Great Big New Tax™ down the electorate's throats while still staying in power. But perhaps that can only be done by the Liberal Party, due to their undeserved perception of being good economic managers.
Maddhew
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I can recall Keating & Hawk, although the first Prime Minister who I can meaningfully remember is Howard. There has been no one better since, although that is perhaps a low bar. The late nineties to mid 2000s seemed like an optimistic and prosperous time. He should have passed the baton to Costello before the 2007 election.
One of the few Prime Ministers in the history of Australian political history to lose their seat during an election.
People had had a gutful of him and his politics.
People had had a gutful of him and his politics.
iluvparis
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Legit just went to the dentist and none other than JWH was ahead of me on the escalator - he scappered away before I could get a selfie for the BF brethren 
Wow. The old dessicated coconut himself.Legit just went to the dentist and none other than JWH was ahead of me on the escalator - he scappered away before I could get a selfie for the BF brethren
Number37
Anyhow, have a Winfield 25.
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Got the job as Opposition Leader after Murdoch sent his hacks after Downer and wouldn't relent for 12 months.
Undermine, undermine, undermine.
Puff piece after puff piece about Howard.
OMG look at the polls, nobody likes Downer....they want Howard.
Downer booooooooooooooooo
Nek minit, leadership challenge.
Sound familiar?
Undermine, undermine, undermine.
Puff piece after puff piece about Howard.
OMG look at the polls, nobody likes Downer....they want Howard.
Downer booooooooooooooooo
Nek minit, leadership challenge.
Sound familiar?
Doss
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Not to lionise Howard here, but Downer was genuinely a dud.
Number37
Anyhow, have a Winfield 25.
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That's part of the point.
Downer was a massive dud but it still took a Murdoch hatchet job to get Howard into the job...Howard was intensely hated by the public (see polls)...until the puff pieces starting rolling off the printing presses with monotonous regularity.
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The problem is that Keating had never really been popular, and certainly wasn't by 1995.
All Howard had to be was 'not Keating or Hewson' and he accomplished that.
One of the least remembered policies of Mr Sheen's disgraceful legacy is extremely relevant in the current climate - his disbandment of the CES (Commonwealth Employment Service) and switch to a privatised Job Network system.
He didn't do it because the CES didn't perform its role well, or to save money, he did it to funnel taxpayer money to religious organisations and private corporations, with the endless demonisation of the unemployed as an excuse which played very well to his base.
The old CES was full of professionals who had built long term industry networks and contacts with employers. As such, they could perform their role - to connect the right employee with the right employer to the mutual benefit of both parties - extremely well.
They could contact an employer who they would have found numerous quality employees for and say 'I've got a good worker for you, have you got any positions opening up?' and that employer knew they were going to get an employee who made their business stronger. Job seekers got quality, personalised service from someone determined to get them a job and actively working towards that outcome.
Nowadays, the Australian taxpayer shells out way more money than necessary for a job finding service which is an utter joke in comparison. 'Job Consultants' with no industry contacts and so many 'clients' they can barely keep up with all the appointments needed to pretend they've checked that their clients' Mutual Obligations have been honestly recorded. The only function the system serves is to enrich the Jog Agencies on the taxpayers dollar.
Any of the many unfortunate people who found themselves unemployed courtesy of the pandemic can thank Mr Sheen for a job finding system where the closest thing to help they can get in finding a job is use of the internet (like many people need that these days), or if you're really lucky, someone to take a glance at a resume and make a recommendation or two while people find their own jobs.
He didn't do it because the CES didn't perform its role well, or to save money, he did it to funnel taxpayer money to religious organisations and private corporations, with the endless demonisation of the unemployed as an excuse which played very well to his base.
The old CES was full of professionals who had built long term industry networks and contacts with employers. As such, they could perform their role - to connect the right employee with the right employer to the mutual benefit of both parties - extremely well.
They could contact an employer who they would have found numerous quality employees for and say 'I've got a good worker for you, have you got any positions opening up?' and that employer knew they were going to get an employee who made their business stronger. Job seekers got quality, personalised service from someone determined to get them a job and actively working towards that outcome.
Nowadays, the Australian taxpayer shells out way more money than necessary for a job finding service which is an utter joke in comparison. 'Job Consultants' with no industry contacts and so many 'clients' they can barely keep up with all the appointments needed to pretend they've checked that their clients' Mutual Obligations have been honestly recorded. The only function the system serves is to enrich the Jog Agencies on the taxpayers dollar.
Any of the many unfortunate people who found themselves unemployed courtesy of the pandemic can thank Mr Sheen for a job finding system where the closest thing to help they can get in finding a job is use of the internet (like many people need that these days), or if you're really lucky, someone to take a glance at a resume and make a recommendation or two while people find their own jobs.
Haha was waiting for this.
No PM since has dared to be filmed live trying to bowl a cricket ball. Too risky.
You mean this one?
Cricket ball smashes Bob Hawke in eye during Prime Minister's XI | Daily Mail Online
Cricket ball smashes Bob Hawke in the eye during Prime Minister's XI in 1984.
John Winston Howard - what is his legacy? We are seeing it now: no respect for Parliament or Parliamentary procedures, no Ministerial responsibility, corruption and a systematic cover ups. John Howard purged almost all true Liberals from the Liberal party and created a Party in his own image - corrupt, racist, misogynistic, bigoted and shameless, compulsive lying.
Poor fellow my country.
Poor fellow my country.
And here you have the reasons why the ALP are unelectable federally. The working class long ago turned their backs on the unhinged drivel spouted by the inner city soy bean
Exhibit B. Eliminated net debt and accused of "budget vandalism".
Its the balatrons like this that frank the case for the immediate abolition of "humanities" courses for the betterment of society.
and once the IPA had put in the man that it wanted, it was a cacophony of dogwhistles and demonisation. Gee, isn't that the MO of the Liberal Party? I mean what else can a party whose own definition of itself is anti-labour? Not as in ALP labour, although they are the manifestation of labour, just anti-labour; keeping the status quo of working people being subordinate to those who were "born to rule". How else can you get the plebs to vote for you without getting them to fight amongst themselves and to hate their neighbours?
Yeah and Pol Pot was misunderstood. I had to deal with them once. As useless as they were lazy.
Because they aren't racist, mysogynistic worshipers of filthy lucre to the exclusion of human beings? That's why you reckon the ALP are unelectable? What a wonderful vision of life you have medusala - a true hell on earth. You wouldn't know a working class person if you fell over one in your rush to steal the dollar coin that fell out of some person's pocket onto the footpath so don't pretend that you have any idea of who the "working class" are.
The reason the ALP have been unelectable is because some within the movement forgot why they joined the ALP and built their own little fiefdoms which mirrored those of the lunar right of the LNP, but it's the ALP and they have been around since before federation, unlike the filthy squatocarcy and Anglophiles who, when it came to actually governing during the second world war, threw their hands up in the air because they didn't have a clue and just resigned from being the Government. They then changed their name and sooner rather than later, the present far right Liberal Party will have to change their name again because their fate has been foretold with what's happened in WA with the far right Christian morons who tried to take over that Liberal branch over there being destroyed by the electorate. These are the same far right extreme Christian morons who now have taken over the federal Liberal Party and bad news for that version of the Liberal Party I'm afraid; the IPA don't want those Christian loonies running the party any longer because they are bad for business so they too, will be completely wiped out in Australia within the next two electoral cycles and guess what? The ALP will have reformed and moved on like it always does and they will be the party of Government again and the IPA will rebadge itself, but still represent the only thing they have ever only been about; anti-labour. They are and and have always been an anti party whose only reason for being, is to contain and crush where possible, those "working class" people you profess to know so much about - to keep the masses under control.
You bean counters can't see beyond the end on your noses let alone understand for one moment, what it's like to live in the real world. It's all about the stock market; geez you think that life after Thatcher is wonderful for the British, why, because the stock market tells us so. Pity about the souls in Bradford and Sheffield, in Birmingham and in the Humber. I suppose there are always casualties in war and those and other communities were destroyed in the 11 years of neo-liberal terrorism unleashed upon Britain by Thatcher and those places, are still grave yards more than 30 years on with second and third generations of families never having had a job of any consequence.
Do you think that those that understand and accept climate change and the inevitability of the end of coal and the complete transfer of energy production to renewables are in the minority in this country? Do you reckon that the majority still cling onto the 1950's thinking that women aren't worth a pinch of shit or that corruption and coverups are just part of progress; or that the First Australians should still be treated as inferior and whose voices shouldn't be heard?
Do you reckon that the electorate is just so dumb that they can't see that tax cut, after tax cut, after tax cut and the attempt to wipe out the progressive tax system has only resulted in piss poor services such as in health, education, disability support, aged care etc., and do you reckon they aren't scratching their heads thinking well if the stock markets are flying then how come our hospitals are f***ed? How come my kids education is f***ed and the elderly are being left to rot and die? Why, if the stock markets are saying everything is hunky dory, why can my children only get jobs in the service industries, in supermarkets and as waiters and waitresses? Why will my children and grandchildren never be able to afford to buy a house? Do you reckon that all of this is just accepted by the electorate do you?
The reason that the ALP have been "unelectable" the last eight years, has been as a result of some in the ALP behaving like the Lords of the Liberal National Party and completely ignoring the lessons and principles of the past but don't let it worry you snookums, the ALP are a movement and they do just that, they progress. The likes of the Shortens and the Farrells and the Gallachers, are being overtaken by people far more in tune with ALP traditions like collectivism and social democracy and straddling both sides of the centre, that is, from Stoltenberg's Norway to Merkel's Germany instead of little fiefdoms like those of the Liberal Party.
We are still in a gestation period in this country and we haven't yet emerged as an Independent nation; for heaven's sake, we are the only country on earth whose National Day is held to commemorate colonisation, not independence and that is what John Howard represented: anti-labour, anti-humanity, anti-progress. He and his party are still the party that represent the jailers who brought over with them their own slave labour force and who have used every means possible to maintain power ever since.
or asked him what the last count of the casualties are in Iraq and the ensuing wars that have broken out since he, and his two best mates invaded that land against the wishes of the United Nations. Bad luck, next time.Legit just went to the dentist and none other than JWH was ahead of me on the escalator - he scappered away before I could get a selfie for the BF brethren
Is it possible that you weren't very employable?
If that was the case, I'm sure you were offered ways to change that.
And if indeed you found your own job (which I assume was the case unless you've been unemployed all this time), my point about the current system costing the taxpayer far more - with the sole purpose of using taxpayer money to enrich religious organisations and private business - to provide an infinitely worse system, still stands.
Stan_Darsh72
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How did we go from a structural surplus set up by Keating to a structural deficit when Howard was voted out?
And also why 8 out of every 10 cents of our mining boom went off shore?
1.5 trillion bucks wasted via Howard the Coward and Costellos tax laws (and advising companies how to evade our tax laws along with grosse mismanagement of our future fund) We should be as wealthy as the UAE or Qatar and a world superpower. Now we are mining companies, Americas and China's bitch, Howard and Costello if this was a fair nation should be hung tomorrow and their bodies thrown into a tip.
Dead right, and let's not even get in to the fact Whitlam tried to nationalise all the country's mines back in the 70's.
If the Whitlam government and the people of Australia by extension hadn't been screwed over by big capital (with Peacock, the Liberal party and the media complicit in it up to their necks), we'd have a Sovereign Wealth fund by now which would make Norway's (which they got by nationalising their oil reserves) look like pocket change.
Stan_Darsh72
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Australia is a nation of wasted wealth and wasted potential, the LNP has a lot of blood on their hands Since 96, time to bring them to justice and make sure Aussies get their fair share back.
So much wasted potential, but the voting public are the ones to blame as much as any party.
If Labor somehow won the next three federal elections they'd just behave like the Coalition lite (as they did in the Rudd/Gillard years), because that's what the voting public demand and anything even vaguely more ambitious would make Labor a juicy target and therefore, unelectable.
Sad as it is, that's where we're at.
lol. Keating left office with the budget well in deficit.
And there you have it. Fanboi economics. Taxcuts are "waste".
Yeah and Melbourne has been unlucky not to have won the last 12 GFs.
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Stan_Darsh72
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Australia should have been UAE and Qatar levels of wealthy instead we are a 2nd rate nation fast becoming a 3rd world nation.
Lil Johhny left us with a structural deficit and blew money hand over fist, While Keating did the hard yards and gave us a structural surplus. Keating was so good at his job the "superior economic managers" have dined off his work.
Why is this nation after one of the largest booms in world history not wealthy on the whole, why under Lil Johhny our education went backwards, our health care went backwards, our future went backwards?
