Re: 2007 Federal Election - Coalition or Labor/Howard or Beazley?
Any doubts I had about voting Labor have been removed by reading the current issue of The Monthly's interview with Greg Combet (head of the ACTU, closely connected to the ALP). His view of IR policy and economic policy generally is very close to mine, and certainly IR needs to be changed from the current WorkChoices shambles.
Also, more needs to be spent at a federal level on tertiary education and health, which is more a Labor policy than a Coalition one. (Where the money is going to come from is an issue, but there is a large budget surplus to be starting with, so losing a couple of billion from that should not generally be a problem. Bear in mind that I'm not an economist, though, so it's entirely possible that that would throw Australia into unimaginable chaos. But I doubt it.)
Also, I'm fervently opposed to the breakdown of federalism espoused by Abbott and Costello. Central governments are all very well when they provide a clear benefit, but I don't think they do. A+C's centralism policy is more to do with posturing for COAG meetings than actual constitutional thought, especially since any major change would require either the cooperation of the states or a referendum passing, neither of which are at all likely.
Howard will go in the next few years, possibly sooner now that we've got this leadership issue with Costello blowing up, and I certainly wouldn't want to see any of the current Cabinet in the Lodge. Downer would never get the leadership after his disastrous stint at the helm in 1994, Nelson is an idiot and the idea of Abbott becoming PM fills me with horror. Costello is smarmy and irritating, and I don't like his federalism ideas as noted above. Actually, I think Bronwyn Bishop would be good, but she's past her time by now. Turnbull is a possibility, but there's still a fair while until he's PM material.
While Beazley could do with better PR, I quite like him, and I don't think he's as bad as people make out. There's a lot of talent on Labor's front bench (Conroy, Gillard, Roxon, Rudd, Swan, etc.) and I think they should have a go in the Cabinet. Overall, therefore, a vote for Labor, I remain hopeful that they might scrape through, Dems or Labor in the Senate and the Coalition almost certainly to lose its majority.
</incoherent, overlong party political broadcast>