just to get this started i would be interested in what other australians think of john howard ,and the government in general.
do you think he is doing a good job. why?
or do you think he has totally stuffed it. why?

Lets put it this way, I fear for the future of Australia if we have another term of Howard. He's already done enough damage.

Right now I would hate to be:
- A teacher
- A uni student who has earned a position on merit but who isn't wealthy
- An environmental scientist, or anyone who's funding would undermine Howard's nuclear and anti-renewable agenda
- An employee of any sort
- Someone who isn't:
Rich,
In the nuclear industry
A large business owner

I fit into a couple of those. My friends fit into others. I hope for their sake that they realise the implications of their vote, unlike last time where so many had no idea about most of the policies from either side an simply voted for Howard as the incumbent they knew better than the opposition leader.

IMO, since several former Liberal PM's have now moderated a lot and actually become critics of Howard, it is clear that Howard is the worst PM in our history.

I'm sure plenty will disagree and have fallen for his spin and innumerable scare campaigns, but that is their problem. I know where I stand and am excited about the changes that could happen in just one term if he is ousted, but as I said, fearful for the country should he remain.

ah well i agree with you,i have heard a lot of people say we have never been better of and he has done so much for our country.
we may be better of (i dont think we are) but any gains are only short term fixes.
he has sold the future of australians to the highest bidder.
public health services are suffering
welfare is suffering
unemployment is growing
the polititions are taking more and giving less back,
we got gst to consolidate and get rid of a lot of little taxes,except the little taxes didnt seem to go away.
we pay tax on our fuel that is supposed to go to the upkeep of the roads why in wa do we have some of the worst roads in australia.
and so it goes on.
he has to go.

Yes, your list is all so true.

It's funny how low-unemployment is being touted, but it's so artificial. Did you know that the unemployment statistic counts you as employed if you worked 1 paid hour during the last month? Add "Work Choices" to that and no wonder the figures are going down, people are being fired and re-hired left, right and centre, but being counted as employed for the whole month.

There's nothing wrong with helping small and large business, but not at the total expense of employees (probably more than 90% of the adult population).

Govt. foreign debt is another thing Howard says he has fixed, but all he's done is sold all our assets. This means that over the long term of say 10-20 years, we will make a net loss. But hey, it buys votes and he'll be long gone, so why should he care?

I could go on for pages about all the misleading he has done to the public, and how much they have bought, but that would be boring and I may have to save other points for later Instead, I will get to what I think the root of the problem is...

It comes back to what you said, all short term. In the last 12 years or so under Howard, federal politics has been about re-election. Not about the future of the country. Therefore, important issues like environment, health and education have been totally neglected. As far as Howard is concerned, as long as the budget is in surplus and we have 4-4.5% growth in annual GDP, everything is fine. Well it's not, and it's time someone stopped giving a stuff about just being re-elected and actually put forth something truly for our future.

Labor is doing a better job at this but they still have plenty of room for improvement too. Their biggest problem is getting their message across, their IR package for instance looks excellent and will be balanced between employees and employers, I hope they don't change it and I hope the business groups realise it still benefits them.

Not being legally able to sack every worker and re-hire them for 25% less salary and no benefits is good for business, it will encourage careful selection of workers and workplace practice efficiency improvements. Rather than resorting to lay-offs as a first resort like they can now, which doesn't improve the business itself and make it stronger into the future. All it does it reduce workers' perceived (and actual) job security, lowering morale and lowering productivity. The exact opposite of what it was supposed to achieve.

yes it is how the gov hid the real unemployment figures.

how can 1 hour a month count as being employed.

labour need to find a figure head that the people can relate to ,Beasley was the wrong choice he did not appeal
to the masses.
they need a charismatic leader .

yes i think there IR package is a step in the right direction,whether they can convince the business sector to accept it,will come down to there leadership ,

The little kerfuffle today about the baby left at the hospital is a good indicator of how poorly Little Johnny understands people.

He says most people would react the same as the headline that Kennett thought was awful - ie "How could she abandon her baby?"

In fact I think most reacted like Kennett or me saying "How desperately bad must things be for the mother that she abandoned her baby".

And he's like that about so many things. The minute LJH starts on about things like the Anzacs I want to vomit. Not because I don't like the Anzacs, but because LJH has done so many things that directly undercut what the Anzacs stood for, especially the principle of egalitarian mateship - if things are bad, then they're bad for all of us and nobody takes advantage of or profits from the hardship ofothers.

i think a lot of this has to do with the one of payment he is offering per child,$8000 dollars now i think or soon to be.
the young girls (16/17 year olds) see the dollar signs get pregnant.and dont really understand the real cost of bringing up a child as a single parent.
$8000 dollars does not go far and soon they are feeling the pinch and pressure.
little johnny is just a bandaide distributer,
he wins by short term fixes that make people happy for a while.when they realise the real cost it is to late and he is back in the drivers seat.

I think it's a little simplistic to say that 16/17 yr old girls see the dollar signs and have a baby. I don't belive that many of them would really choose to raise a child on welfare. The problem here is more about our society as a whole and gap that is widening between the rich and the poor.

As for the other arguments in this thread I fully concur and dread the thought of another term of a Howard Government.

unfortunatly this problem is not oversimplified i can see it happening in the small country town close to where i live .
all the young can talk about is getting the dollars.
it is also becoming worse in the city were my sister is a child welfare worker .
more and more young girls are getting pregnant .so they dont have to look for a job or because it is easier than looking for a job that does not exsist.

Howard must be close to being one of your longest serving PM's

yes he is going close.he has the knack of saying the right stuff at the right time and everybody forgets his past failures.and the fact the opposition cant come up with any real leadership,and stop there internal bickering

Howard was good when he first came in, but he is definitely getting on. We need to kick him, if he is in for another term Aus is pretty much fucked.

i will give him that his first term was good but it has been down hill since then.

Why "little johnny" Howard? How does name-calling enhance political debate? The man has been PM for 10 years. I saw Kevin Rudd referred to as "Kevin Dudd" in another on-line forum recently and I felt the same way.

BTW, I agree with the sentiments expressed by others - I really, really hope this is it for the Coalition. Their economic management has been competent (rather than outstanding) but they are primarily populists and manipulators who are rapidly laying the framework for a fairly nasty self-centred, self-interested and exploitative society. I think they have over-stepped the line in giving their (particularly rural and rich) constituents a lot of protection and money and they are not doing us or our kids any favours with with their foreign policy or their cobbled together responses to pressing environment issues.

Labor sure doesn't thrill me at the moment but they are light-years ahead on several key issues and should be given a chance.

did i say it was there to enhance a political argument ,no it is my name for him he is a small man with small mans disease,i started the post and that is what i called it if you dont like it you dont have to post ,
no harm done

Hi, I am a New Zealander, and until I read this thread I knew nothing about LJH, other than that he looks funny and speaks like an Australian.

National did this to us some years ago. No longer does my government control its countries infrastructure - not the railways, the airports, telecommunications, transport companies...

It is not cool. I think governments should own these things - keeps control with the people (under a good govt...).

As a student of psychology, I can tell you that it is absolutely not simplistic to state that all the teenagers think about is the money. It has been proven that the prefrontal cortex is heavily involved in future-related decision making, such as to have a child or not. Our cortex (the thin layer on the outside of the brain) matures from the rear to the front. This means that, on average, one's prefrontal cortex has not fully developed until one hits 20~25 years of age.

While they may look and act like adults, humans > 20 years old need guidance, not a system that rewards impulsive decision making. ESPECIALLY not a system that rewards impulsive decisions regarding pregnancy. I am totally shocked that one may be paid to have a child!

In NZ the system is different. I am no expert, but I believe that if a single parent is struggling, there are certainly ways to get money from the government, but it is only enough to survive, the incentive (and obligation, cajolement and expectation) that the parent will AT LEAST find some part-time work.

i may not be correct on this ,but this is my take on the idea to pay people to have children.
the idea to pay to get pregnant goes back to the baby boomers era,
our population is getting older and with less people in work to support the elderly ,pensions and health care,are under threat.
it is the taxes of the workers that pay for these benefits,so as people like me get to the retiring age they are going to need more money to help,
with unemployment levels rising .there seems to be a state of panic in the gov
who is going to pay for it all.
so as i see it they are trying to bolster the up coming generation by offering incentives to get pregnant to increase the ratio of young to old.
a typical bandaide package by the howard gov it makes no differance if you increase the population if the people have no jobs and not much chance of a job.
as technology gets better the labour force shrinks.

for an example farmers these days need a third less workers to run there farms as they did 15 years ago.
bigger farms,bigger equipment,auto steer tractors =less jobs
and they are close to not needing anyone to steer the tractors

any way that is my take on why they are paying people to have a child.
as i said this could be wrong.

selling off our utilities was the worst thing the gov did.
it cost us thousands upon thousands of jobs

I am just disgusted that all the government cares about is keeping their 16BILLION dollar surplus. They don't seem to be interested in fixing health care, ageing affairs, education, etc etc

Time for a Labour government to patch everythinmg back up with the Liberal surplus and get out country broke but hapy!

agreed

he's getting down of his chair man dont worry no more prime minister John Howard