Same As The Old Boss
But With Slightly More Hair
The Snoskred mood this morning is decidedly worried. Kevin Rudd is the new prime minister. I have nothing against him, but his party are well known to be terrible at managing money. I’m aghast at the $4.7 billion or so that will be spent on supposedly improving broadband in this country but according to those in the know on Whirlpool will actually change nothing unless Telstra cooperate – and if Telstra choose not to, this policy could cost around 20 billion dollars to implement.. That’s a lot of money to waste. 4.7 billion – or 20 billion – could do a lot of things for a lot of people. Wasting it on broadband seems like a terrible idea.
Fibre to the node is also pretty much useless, because once you get to the node there has to be fibre from the node in order for people to benefit from the speeds. Laying fibre from the node in a country as huge as ours will cost a lot more than any private company is prepared to stump up. Not only that but the international links need to be upgraded as well. So in essence it is a policy which will cost a lot of money and have very little effect.
Clearly a lot of people felt it was time for a change after John Howard had been prime minister for so long. I just hope we all don’t live to regret it. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
I know nothing of Aussie politics! I hope you keep us foreigners updated with the happenings….
With politics, you’re damned if you do OR damned if you don’t.
All we can do is hope for the best!
*sigh* To be honest, I don’t mind Kevin Rudd. He’s the first labor leader in a long time that I’ve really felt was up to the job. BUT, I have to say that I’m with you. I think Labor has a poor track record with money management. People voted Labor into our state for the same reasons – hope that a change in government would be good – I think they were wrong then and I think they are now. I just hope I’M wrong and that THIS Labor government does a better job than what has happened in the past.
I do feel somewhat nervous about what the future holds. Paul Keating was quite forthwright in his opinions that farmers were worth nothing to Australia. I hope it’s not a sentiment that is echoed throughout the labor party. We’re in enough trouble right now as it is. And it’s filtering down to the city through higher cost of living etc.
There’s my *bit* on politics. LOL. I’m just pleased it’s over now and we can go back to “life” without all the campaigning guff.
You know, as I was watching his victory speech, the one thought that came into my head as Rudd was listing off all the groups of people he was going to be PM for was this – “Everything to Everyone”.
Something that was touched upon a little bit during the ABC’s broadcast was the recurring theme of union heavyweights being brought in to some of these seats, or already being in the seat. It makes you wonder how that’s going to affect things…
Of course, if you listen to the media here in the States, they’ll just say it was a referendum on Iraq…never mind the 2004 election, eh?
By the way, two of my favorite candidate names were P M Howard in one seat and None of the above in another. ;)
Sephyroth
I’m just glad it’s over. I don’t care who’s in charge – it’s what they do that counts, so I’m not judging until he’s had time to get stuff done. I think John Howard’s time was up – as simple as that. And I don’t think he really wanted to return either – he knew he was finished.
Just by way of “possible” reassurance, based on the the forward estimates of the party’s respective budgets from an independent costing review…
Labor net cost – $5 billion
Coalition net cost – $10.3 billion
Labor surpluses – $5.9 billion more than the Coalition.
Personally, I am extremely glad of the change, and not worried about the finances at all. In fact, I’m firmly of the opinion Howard’s economic record is extremely overrated. It’s easy to ride a boom and I don’t think he did much to help the country out when that boom goes bang, as it inevitably will. But that’s just me.
When it comes to politics, I think pretty much everyone wants the same things, they just have different opinions on how to get it. Whether optimistic or pessimistic, we all just have to see what the future holds.
What struck me as I listened to that part of his victory address that BBC cared to broadcast was how full of banalities and half-baked political clichés it was. So uninspiring.
However, anybody in there who makes a turn from Howard’s sucking up to Bush and co. deserves at least a go of it.