State Election 2010

[stumpjumper]

I'm no masochist!

[Prince George]

Paper from the Australian Parlimentary Library on the 2010 SA election. I haven't had a chance to digest it yet.

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/bn/p ... on2010.pdf

[Aidan]

Why is the poll still active?

[rhino]

Why is the poll still active?

To make sure we get it right.

[stumpjumper]

State politics - might as well post this here.

Today South Australian Treasurer Kevin Foley was interviewed on radio ABC891.

After being asked three times, Foley gave a considered answer to the question, a few days before the release of the state budget, of what the state debt was.

Foley answered that it was $1.4 billion, and carefully explained what that figure meant.

Unfortunately for Foley, the figure is $5.4 million. One story is that Foley had a toothache; another is that he had hoped his minimal figure would last until the federal election, avoiding admitting to a record state debt in Labor SA.

Hmm. If you were your accountant's only client, and he had the reputation of being brilliant, and he was 70% out on your current financial position, what would you think?

My 'mate' in Foley's office says that it's not so important for the Treasurer to have every single figure in his head, as to have a 'good general grasp of things' and that I should 'give him a break'.

A commentator on TV tonight said that there is no chance SA will lose its AAA credit rating, so Foley's annual 48 hour first class dash to New York next week will be unnecessary, and his statement that what he thought was the $1.4 billion state debt was due to 'the state still emerging from the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression'.

If that is true, then SA has suffered far worse per head from the Global Financial Crisis than any other state. That would be news to most people.

Rann would probably like to dump Foley, but Foley is a 'Shoppie' so that won't happen until Don Farrell decrees it.

[AtD]

$1.4 billion

$5.4 million

Thanks Barnaby.

[SRW]

I'm rather sick of 'gotcha' politics.

[Omicron]

I apologise in advance.

Could we please not mistake election victories for absolute mandates from the electorate on every issue? Political parties treat them as such, and to an extent the Government of the day has to or no decisions would ever be made, but let's not kid ourselves that an election victory is always wholly representative of the majority of the public's views. To say that opposition to the RAH at Riverbank or to AFL and a redevelopment of Adelaide Oval must cease because the election has already been run and won is nonsense.

What would you prefer opponents to either proposal have done? 62.5% of first preferences did not go to the Labor Party. How many more people had to vote for parties other than the ALP before it becomes permissible to chastise the Government over issues or projects they plan? How much more of a majority of the two-party preferred vote do you demand the Liberals should have received before we can mention any of their election proposals? Fine, keep debate to the relevant threads, but to stifle it altogether by saying that it was an election issue defeated at the polls - especially when it comes to an election as statistically-unique as the South Australian election of 2010 - is fearfully misguided.

Even if the Labor Party held the popular vote and both Houses that is still no reason whatsoever not to cast the finest of fine-toothed combs through one of the most expensive infrastructure projects in the state's history. If one way of doing that is raising high hell and demonstrating alternatives presented by the Liberal Party or the Breakfast Party or the Party for Guns and Burgers that appear not to have been considered in the public domain by the publicly-elected representatives, then as long as it is presented in an articulate, considered and thoughtful way, so be it. I may not agree with Messrs Aidan and Stumpjumper on certain things, but I give them the utmost credit for presenting their thoughts in articulate, coherent ways, and for doing so in ways that manage to elicit responses from so many people who are so annoyed that they must write to say that they will not write any more after this written statement of theirs.

I question, too, those who expect to see the threads for publicly-funded projects completely free of political discussion - again, as if the election of a Government means an inarguable mandate for everything and anything proposed. The Government is not a private enterprise. The Government's expenditure is wholly funded by the public - directly through taxes, levies and charges on individuals, and indirectly through business taxes that are passed down to consumers. It is in the best interests of all taxpayers that we are fiercely protective of public money and its use. I fail to see how it is that some degree of political discourse is not to be expected in threads where the very root of their existence is owed to the outlay of public money by a political body installed as a result of an election of political parties.

I understand the apprehension of many towards politics in general, but when it comes to public projects, they are absolutely driven by political ideologies, whims and indulgences. We criticise privately-funded projects for poor aesthetics, an oversaturation of parking, or limited interaction with the street (and rightly so), but when a government goes into business as a developer, it makes these mistakes on our behalf. No government is beyond question. No project is, either. Threads for publicly-funded projects should, therefore, reflect this amidst construction progress and design critique as the situation arises.

Obviously, dears, I'm on my high-horse again. But I do feel that that needed to be said.