Liberals win Australian election !
 

counting has just started, looks like the Liberals will stay in power !
still way too early to call but that's what i'm predicting!

And it only went for like 6 weeks, seems like this USA one has been going on forever lol

Reagrds
I only voted to avoid the fine, all morons in my book.

fine? if you dont vote you have to pay a fine?

HOWARD FOR PM

Yes the fine you for anything in this country

yup :321GFY

Voting is considered a civic duty.

As it should be.

Right on , this way you cant blame anyone else but your self, for the goverment that you got:2 cents:

Hmmm ... not good.

So any of you political heads (we dont have many of them here in Aus) ... care to take a shot at whether a Liberal win will be good for those of us in this industry making shit loads of money ?

Time to move to New Zealand ? ;)

This is fucking depressing - another term of our shitbag Prime Minister.

Good news if you're earning a bunch of money and don't feel like paying much tax, bad news if you care about our environment or our health system, school system, public sector etc.

Don't be decieved by the name Liberal - this is our conservative party like the Republicans in the states.

And to top it off - I'm supposed to be leaving on Tuesday for a trip to the US and UK, but it just got cancelled - so I'm stuck in this place!

How long did you guys have to queue at the polls? I'm in a fringe suburb so I deliberately drove further out to a tiny little primary school about 5 mins up the highway... there was a total of one person in front of me when I joined the queue. :Graucho My wife voted at a more "populated' location and she said there were some pretty big crowds.

Another three years of that fucker Howard.

Sometimes I'm ashamed to be Australian.

I read he has done poor job on immigration issue. Any insight on this?

That issue is illegal to discuss here. Please do not mention it, even though well over 50% of Australia want immigration to be reduced, Howard keeps bumping up the numbers. By the way, anyone know if the only two parties who can actually gain power are still 'boycotting' the anti-immigration party votes? Yay, for demockracy.

fight the power!

He's a smart politician .... very smart. Australians (the elder australians) are some of the most racist and biggoted (sp?) voting group alive, and Howard managed to win a lot of voter support by appearing to push the white australian policy.

Howard can read the thoughts of the aging population and knows how to play them.

At least knowing that Howard lies through his teeth means that many of his election bribes are non-core meaning his irresponsible spending probably won't hurt interest rates as much as they would if he had a shred of truth and dignity.

also record green vote is good though.

Still amazing that people are so easily duped.. I kind of feel sad for my fellow Australians that they don't have the self respect to vote out a representative that can't open his mouth without lying.
He can lie as much as he wants it seems as long as labor had high interest rates 15 years ago. quite sad.

He IS the aging population.

Comparing racism and bigotry to simply disliking immigration is ridiculous, and is the very reason the topic has become so taboo. Australian's deserve to have a say as to who comes into their nation, and under what circumstances. Whole area's have been 'taken over' by foregien cultures and people, and while I am not a 'noone in noone out' person necessarily, it is becomming ridiculous. Older Australian's particularly, the people who fought for and built this nation are seeing it sold in front of their eyes. We would not accept an invasion by military force from foriegn nations, but we accept one via immigation. Within 75 years Australia will WELL and truly be an Asian nation. Make no mistake about it, and don't question it, or else you might end up in gaol.

sounds like california

You know I think you hit the nail on the head there. Thats what won the liberals the election ... the fact that interest rates were high under labor 15 years ago ;)

(btw I love high interest rates ... they aren't always bad).

yep, a nice 50 dollar fine for ya..

Labor went from an election winning lead to a -2% swing after 6 weeks of saturation advertising about how interest rates would double or more if labor got in again and how his tenure at liverpool all went wrong which is an entirely debateable point in itself. Australians owe more on their homes now than at any point in history. A legacy Howard had a hand in himself with housing affordability at all time lows. So it really does hut as a scare campaign.

A particularly galling thing given labor's reforms in the 80's are a large part of why we weathered the asian economic crisis and gave the current economy the sound footing it has.. not to mention low interest rates worldwide..

I didn't compare racism and bigotry, just claimed that many older Australians have both.

And don't forget we are a very multicutural country. Ever tried to find an australian programmer .... I cant .. and I have been offering up to $80k a year for a decent one. I had to employ a russian kid with the skills to do what I needed. The fact is that we need immigration ... we need more skills, because the Australian brats being bred by our schooling system neither have a shred of work ethic or the skills needed for progressive industries such as this.

We are losing all the brains and skills overseas, so we need to replace them with selective immigration.

Hopefully next term the economic cycle will come around again and knock the libs off their fake pedestool.

My brother is a coder, as are a number of his Australian friends. But regardless, your arguement is ridiculous. The primary reason for immigration is for the purposes of big business. They like ot have a fresh stockpile of low paid workers, so they can rake in an extra few million per year. They have been pushing John Howard to increase the intake for years, and although he gradually has, it has not been on a level they like.

And regardless, we should concentrate on fixing our problems at home, rather than importing foreigners to do the work for us. We are somewhat dependent on immigration, but the numbers could be vastly decreased (as 80% of Australia would like to see), rather than increased. Our natural resources such as water, etc are pushed to their limits as is, and importing more people is not the answer.

There are many things we need to do ourselves, in order to fully rid mass-immigration (not ALL immigration), but even without immigration as an issue they should be done. We need to make it more affordable for people to raise families, and have time off with their children (thankfully it is happening somewhat now), as well as fully rectifying the problems resulting from poor schooling (particularly in public schools of course).

Immigration is a big issue to many Australian's, noone can dismiss that. Whilst it is easy to simply say it is ignorant, racist people who want to reduce immigration, you really have to look at the real factors. Some of the highest anti-immigration voters are in highly 'multicultural' area's, whereas those who typically support multiculturalism the most are very disconnected from it. Politicians are afriad to touch on the immigration issue though, as the stigma of the White Australia Policy, has left White Australia too scared to say a word.

Thats a little better ... some pretty good arguments and I agree with you on a lot of those points. You are so right when you say that we need to fix the system that is breeding a less skilled workforce ... or a skilled workforce that is moving overseas at the drop of a hat ;)

Didn't studies recently throughout the last 4-5 years point to the fact that Australia needed immigration to survive?

And for the record ... let me say I would NEVER hire an Australian programmer. They are inept, and lack the skills period. Our education system stinks ... I agree with you there.

I'm depressed too.:(
If this is the government that Australians want then I don't want to be in Australia.

I doubt it's what most people want but when you look at the alternative Howard was always going to win.

You need a strong leader and government. Howard has a proven track record in that department.

PS
I did vote for the libs and it was the first time that I have ever done that.
I didn't like it but Labor have lost the plot

Well whoope de fucking do, that cocksucker got back in power again. Well look on the bright side, we will only have to put up with Howard for about 6-12months, then we will be stuck with either Costello or some other fucknut for the other 2+ years.

Wow I can now look forward to paying out the ass on my homeloan, the Australian dollar will rise and make US Currency even more worthless. Hurrah for Euro programs I guess.

Schools, Public hospitals, medicare will all take it up the ass, Telstra will be fully privitased by next year.

Tax cuts to the rich and famous will still happen, while the working class get shafteed, and fuck lest raise the GST while we're at it.

:321GFY

hopefully :)

Liberals?

I could swear I just read on some news site that the conservatives won 60% of the votes

:thumbsup

fucking joke.. how stupid can the people of this country be..

geez at least the voters in my electorate kicked one of them out

Nurgle

oh no not little jonnie for another term...

howards not bad is he?