Senator Joyce writes for the Canberra Times:
A nightmare for us all, as random spirits haunt Labor
When Labor is basically all out of the country, they work a great deal better: they should get away more often from their independent and Green partners.
I must say they are two Australian assets that I would be quite happy to get a price for if anyone in China is interested.
Back home, the white ants continue their merry way through the finances in Treasury, where the debt is now just short of $270 billion gross. No doubt they are now drafting up the next extension on your credit card rather than working out that eventually the structure will collapse if they do not fix their spending problem.
Labor has desperately been looking around trying to work out what silverware can be whisked out of the house to meet the payments at the hock shop.
What they have come across is your savings in superannuation. They say it is only for the “fabulously rich”, but if that “rich” does not collect enough money then they will just get the Macquarie Dictionary to change the definition of “rich” to something more appropriate for Treasury’s dire requirements.
The mining tax collected $126 million in its first six months and none of the major miners expect to pay much in the near future. That one was a complete fizzer.
The problem is you cannot tax business into prosperity; they actually have to get the overheads down and the product moving if we are going to level this debt trajectory out. You also cannot get business moving if you sell off too much of the capital base. This is not necessarily the case at present, but saying that any deal from any entity is a good deal is slightly naive, to say the least, when it comes to foreign ownership in Australia.
The independents, and now quite a few of Labor’s own members, are trying the great political illusionist trick of: “It was not me, I was not there. I did not really agree, please still vote for me.”
On the Northern Rivers the Labor members for Page and Richmond are fighting against coal seam gas. This is a neat trick since it was under the governance of the Australian Labor Party, at a state level, that most of the exploration licences were sold.
Tony Windsor, the independent member for New England, did one better, selling his whole property, at a very good price indeed, to a coal mining company before becoming a champion for the farmers down the road in their struggle with coal mining.
The Greens did the famous “marriage is over” news conference, but the relationship seems to be going along strong without any discernible change in allegiance in any crucial vote. It is the new art form in the politics of the sham divorce.
If Janelle Saffin, Member for Page and Justine Elliot, Member for Richmond, really oppose coal seam gas then they should resign from the Labor Party, or at least have the gumption to cross the floor. None of these participants ever do, so every day of government, and every action of the government, is one they supported, or at the very least refused to stop.
The Next Budget Nightmare, NBN, has now become the Ninety Billion Nightmare with this debacle set to cost the Australian taxpayer $94 billion, $45 billion over budget and four years over schedule. This is telling of this government’s incompetence and flippant disregard for managing the government’s coffers.
This train wreck is not a Labor government; it would be wrong to suggest that a Labor government would be this bad. This train wreck is a Green-Labor-independent alliance and they are all jointly liable for every fiasco that stands in proxy for responsible government.
The wiser heads, and they do exist, in the Labor Party will be making sure that after this comes to an end, and it will, that they never ever get themselves into this position again.
A position where they are held to ransom by random spirits who had neither the ethos nor the capacity to govern but instead foisted their peculiar desires into what should have been responsible, nation-based, strategic plans.
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Barnaby Is Right 
You have been completely right on all your financial warnings. The next government has a tremendous job on their hands to try to offset the waste that the Gillard government has used to try to stay in power. All failures and the debt has blown out to tremendous proportions and it will take years to cover that debt. Now Julia Gillard is selling Australia out with the so-called “fair deal” with China. Not a “fair deal” for Australia when China has made such inroads into the Australian economy. The travel, the accommodation, the living it up, has escalated under this government and also contributed to our debt. I am very sad for our children and grandchildren that this government has put them in a very serious position and unless it is booted out soon, it will take 20 years or more to come back to what it was before this Labor Government took control, especially in the Gillard years. What a difference to Margaret Thatcher who thought of her country, not of her own power. I heard her speak on several occasions when in the UK before she even became PM and she was an inspiration, no feminism there, just a lady with her country at heart. Her saying was “The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” How true. Julia Gillard started off with her lies that she was only a typist for the Socialist Forum and she has continued to lie on every occasion. Just wish Australians would wake up to the state in which Australia finds itself under this present government.
herculene, suggest you take a look at total private debt, currently $2.171 TRILLION of which $1.29 TRILLION is tied up in housing alone. All governments and the RBA support a house price inflation which only puts a noose around future generations necks through increasing debt paying for a non-productive assets. I’d be more worried about a disruption to the nations ability to continue to pay this debt as our key exports decline with no other viable replacement other than more house price inflation.