Election - My Quick Take

The government won the last election so easily (most pundits calling it a two term win) that they got complacent and arrogant.

Strike 1 - With money pouring in via a resources driven booming world economy, they decided not to use it for the good of the Australian people and the planet they live on..i.e. actually governing the country. Instead they decided to store that big ol surplus away for a rainy day when there would be a credible opposition. That way they could use their big ol mountain of cash to buy our votes.

Strike 2 - Howard also took the opportunity to use that massive majority we gave him to pluck work choices from his arse and ram it down our throats (possibly a bad mixture of metaphors :). My beefs with work choices are a) there was not one word about it in the previous campaign and b) it just went waaay too far..sure sort out unfair dismissal laws but don't remove *all* checks & balances and leave workers rights relying on employers being honourable. On what planet did Howard think it would be ok to offer a worker 75% of his pay, take it or leave it.

Strike 3 - a bunch of stuff accumulated for me to strike out the government. Delaying the calling of the election for so long so that they could flood us with taxpayer funded government ad's. I mean they hosed a mountain of money at that ad campaign and it really pissed me off. Add to that Howard not being man enough to step aside and let the people vote for a leader prepared to see out the whole term. Add in all the scaremongering about unions and economic management etc.

But for me the crux of it comes down to this. If we didn't have a credible opposition would the government be doing anything about health, education, climate change, broadband, putting some checks & balances into work choices?

Would they fuck.