October 04, 2004
ELECTION BITS
• During an interview, Mark Latham four times refused to guarantee that taxes won’t rise under Labor.
• One possible reason why Latham won’t commit: the government claims Medicare Old is underfunded by $5 billion in the first two years.
• A small poll suggests things may be closer than expected in Tasmania, where all five seats are currently held by Labor. Howard hasn’t visited Tasmania once during this campaign; maybe he should have.
• Greens are polling so well in marginals that they could deliver, via preferences, a Latham government.
• James Morrow writes that the Coalition is "more than happy to sell out its time-tested principles of fiscal conservatism – to say nothing of the economy – for one more turn at bat ... These bribes – whoops, targeted initiatives – are closely related to the same sort of soft socialism that has wrecked so many of the European economies."
I was on to the government’s socialist electioneering early last month. It’s gotten worse since.
• Glenn Milne: "In the event of a hung parliament, Australia's future would assume something resembling an expensive and contradictory version of herding cats."
Posted by Tim Blair at October 4, 2004 02:37 PMActtually timbo if you examine closely what he said then he did.
Remember unlike the Dwarfish whitlam Iron Mark is promising to reduce tax as a % of GDP
Posted by: Homer Paxton at October 4, 2004 at 03:36 PMThat 2 billion has now jumped to 5 billion. The hospital system must be pretty pathetic in this country.
Read Alphacoward Blog and agree or disagree with me.
Posted by: alphacoward at October 4, 2004 at 03:48 PMspeak engrish homer!!
Dude, you can't get blood from a stone.
Posted by: Sortelli at October 4, 2004 at 03:53 PMI'm waiting for all the trolls to post...you know, the ones who complain that Tim never says a bad word about the Coalition government.
Posted by: PW at October 4, 2004 at 05:33 PMJames Morrow's analysis is devastating, but also a given on the street.
In a democracy they can and will vote themselves a share of your assets.
Elections merely concentrate the mind on this for they are all statists, it's only a matter of degree.
Do you 20 or 30 somethings really believe that your superannuation returns are safe from government? Do any of you seriously believe that you will ever be allowed to access lump sums? You will be compulsory self funded pensioners with all the limitations that entails. Government will be your banker.
Double blind protection for those assets is urgent and possible.
Posted by: TT at October 4, 2004 at 05:34 PMThings are close enough to it as it is, damn it -
`herding cats'
Posted by: d at October 4, 2004 at 05:51 PMIf parliament is hung, don't you elect new parliamentarians?
Where do the cats come in? Feeding on the corpses or something? Yech.
Posted by: a guy in pajamas at October 4, 2004 at 11:24 PM