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Qld Election - 2015

There is absolutely no doubt that the LNP overstated the debt to suit their political agenda. One clear method was to include the GOC operating debts in the final figure. A very obvious ploy to make the other side look as bad as possible to justify their 'reduce the government idelogy'. GOC = government owned corporation, so that means they operate like any other company. I preume that you own shares, and you read the annual reports when they land in your letter box, I ask you, how many of those publicly listed companies don't have borrowings? Of course they have loans, and they pay interest on those considerably large amounts of debt, given their income exceeds the expenses you and I get dividends. I don't hear anybody complaining about receiving income from their investments. So how is that different from a GOC? Given that the asset value of the GOCs well and truly exceed the debt levels, and a income stream is returned to the primary shareholder I fail to see an issue. For monopoly essential service provision, private ownership just does not make sense to me. And even though the adverts say prices would reduce, they lied. Just ask any person living outside of Adelaide, their distribution assets were leased and now residents pay the true cost of power provision. There is no doubt that the GOC I Iwork for could engage better work practices, my question to you is, rather than the cut and slash, why not just insist on better work practices to improve effeciency? Instead it was a pure idelogical drive to privatise.

Also, consider over the last 8 odd years, there was a drought, GFC, 2 floods and 2 cyclones. It all costs money to keep things ticking along. While we don't need the Tugun desal plant or the water grid right now, we may well need them when El Nino comes around again. Good long term thinking.

Short term thinking is one limitation of our democracy, politicians tend to be constrained to 1 year of doing useful stuff, the rest of the time they are trying get re-elected. I respect the person that can think progressively and long term, rather than keeping the status quo and going for flashy short term objectives so they get their sound bite on the telly.

I am in no way advocating that large public debt is a good thing, however consider spending all the cash in the bank to pay operating expenses may not be the best way to operate a government. For public works, say roads/bridges, it makes sense to borrow for those assets and have the users now, and in the future pay for the asset via future taxation (vehicle registration) rather than just the current taxpayers. It spreads out the cost to taxpayers over a number of years over the life of the asset. That makes sense to me. That to me is sensible public borrowing. Obviously, there is a limit, I recognise that.

I just wish that the former premier had been honest, rather he hid behind that disgracelly inaccurate commission of audit that had so many idelogical drivers behind it twisting the figures to suit their particular policies. The truth would have been much more palatable.

Social

I could not care less about an individuals or groups ethicnity, religion, sex or partner preference.  If the individual is a dickhead, they are dickhead based on behaviour rather than being based on where they are from or who they fuck.

Tolerance is the key to individuals getting along, sure you may not agree with an individual’s belief, but they are entitled to their point of view – as long as they are well informed on the subject I will respect their differing point of view.  An absence of knowledge on the conflicting subject is in-excusable.

An individual has the right to make up their own mind what they believe in, and the have the freedom to observe in they way they want.  But they better be prepared not to force their point of view down my throat.

Selfishness is not good, thinking about others, and being conscious of others is important.

Infrastructure

A pet peeve for me at the moment is several people in my sphere spouting off about the fixed charges seen on their retailer bills.

One bloke is grumbling about the fixed water charges, even though his meter hasn't registered any consumption from the mains.  Well done, but, what happens when your tanks run dry, and your spear pump can't reach the water table?  I've seen it happen on the Gold Coast during really dry times, at that time you will be thankful there is the civilised options of reticulated water.  And if you have a solar system, what happens when there is an extended period of cloud?  Are you happy for the lights to go out?

Both scenarios require infrastructure, you may not need it righ now, most likely you will need it in the future.  So think ahead more than 5 minutes and consider the possibility of no rain for a few months and your neighbours sucking the water table down keeping their azealas pretty.

Electricity networks are expensive to construct, and especially in seaside localities expensive to maintain.  Again, if you are happy for the lights to go out periodically, then fine the fixed charges can go down.  Also consider our rural residents.  Is it fair for them to pay the full price of providing a network?  If you feel that they can afford to pay the real cost, then fine, your fixed charges will reduce.

The copper network is old hat, time for it to go.  In fifty years time people will wonder why it took so long, again think ahead to what is a sustainable long term solution for connectivity.  If the Howard/Costello government had thought ahead a bit, Telstra Wholesale (and the pit/pipe network) would have stayed in public hands leaving the retail sector to duke it out for customers.  I fail to see how duplicating a network drives down the cost, especially for low margin services like telephony.  Same concept for the electricity network, how is it sensible to duplicate the network to encourage competition?  Sure, retailing should be a competitive business, no doubt, for a country as big and sparsely populated as Australia, it makes no sense to have duplicate networks.

In my view, it is a very selfish outlook to make it all user pays, if that was the case, nobody outside of towns would have power or phones, they simply could not afford it.

Personally I amhappy to subsidise infrastructure rollouts, and while it may not directly benefit me I can see the longer term benfits for the country as a whole.  I am loathe to forsee that Australia might become like the USA where capitalism is taken to the extreme.

Politics

I guess I lean a little left of centre economically, getting more to the centre as I get older.  I recall a saying from my younger days, “if you are not a socialist when you are young you don’t have a heart, if you are still a socialist when you get older you don’t have a head”.  I always thought, at heart, I remain a socialist tending to the centre, but perhaps in my advancing years I am starting to develop a bit of awareness of how hard it is to accumulate enough money to live on when full time employment stops.
 
Socially, I am very much a progressive (and that is very much NOT conservative).
 
So when I rock up to the ballot box I will almost always number 1 in the box that's is not Liberal, National and most certianly not give any of the xenophobic inward looking Pauline Hanson clones a low score at all.  Progressive politics is in my blood, sitting still resisting change drives me up the bloody wall.
 
However, that doesn't mean I'm a died in the wool Labor supporter either, invariably in my electorate the only progressive choice is Labor or the Greens so I feel sometimes there is little choice but to number one the Labor candidate.  I just wish Labor would get over themselves and work out their differences which given their origins and membership is no small task.
 
Nor I am a life time member of a union.  I was a member of the ETU for a year or so, but resigned in disgust while observing the in fighting between State branches.  The effort put into that battle should have gone into maintaining their members interest.  And, in my humble opinion the unions are chiefy a bunch of dinosaurs that need a wakeup. One example is when I emailed my resignation from the ETU they sent me a 2 line letter!  Guys this is the 21st century, email has been around for a while now :-)  I believe in the concept of unions, I just wish they would get over themselves, stop the power trips, modernise and get back to the principles of why unions exist.
 
I believe in the welfare system, in that it is designed to keep people in decent accommodation, have something to eat and have access to health services.  What I don’t support is the deliberate rorting of the welfare system by lazy people.  However, it is better for those lazy people to be on benefits than being in jail or committing crime to survive.  That’s the difference between Australia and the USA.
 
I believe in universal healthcare, where no matter how much money you have, or which school you went to, or where you live, everybody has access to a doctor and affordable medication.  I support the concept that if you can afford it, your health insurer should use privately provided health services so that the public system can service the less affluent.  I support the concept of free education, primary, secondary and tertiary.  Higher education support should be means tested, that is the availability of money should not restrict the opportunity for anybody with the aptitude to obtain the qualifications needed to contribute effectively to the community.  I believe in community service, where people have the time outside of their jobs to put at least a few hours a week back into the community.  I believe in sustainable development that does not adversely impact on the environment.