I think Whitlam was Australia’s worst PM (with the possible exception of Barton & Deakin, who kicked off the whole white-australia, regulated-labour, protectionism thing).

I think Hawke was the best.

If the best thing we have to say about the Liberals is that they are better than Whitlam, then that just re-enforces how much they are not on our side.

as I said, we’re taking an outlier, Hawke and using him to extrapolate the rest. I really don’t thing we can do that, especially when labor for a good part of it’s history favored nationalization of the banking industry.

It was only in the 80′s when they recognized private enterprise. I am aware of what Rudd is doing in education and eagerly await the final result.

But as I said if people are looking for more economic freedom from these guys they’re sorely going to be disappointed. Rudd himself has said in various speeches to the CIS that he doesn’t support free markets (more or less) and he truly shows a unique understanding of Hayek.

And to suggest Sukrit (a radical libertarian) isn’t libertarian because he doesn’t prefer the Liberals is both childish and absurd.

Well he shows all the traits of intellectual double standards we always see from lefties. His US posts were sheer nonsense for the most part. The US makes some pretty big mistakes to to suggest it’s some sort of empire- evil empire is lunacy.

The liberals have some unsavory religious right types supporting them, but i would take them any day to a smug, inner city leftie as a voter.

I also used to have an instinctive pro-Liberal bias. It was because the Liberals say they believe in markets and the media (being as dumb as they are) keep repeating that absurd link because many in the media (being as dumb as they are) hate markets and hate Liberals so they want to link the two things together. But I’ve long since been “mugged by reality” when it comes to mainstream politics.

And to suggest Sukrit (a radical libertarian) isn’t libertarian because he doesn’t prefer the Liberals is both childish and absurd.

Having said that — we can only hope that Turnbull does take the party in a relatively better direction. Hope is good. But automatically selling your sould to a party that has failed 99/100 is not a smart way to allocate your political allegience. And by not being a swinging voter, you make yourself irrelevant to politics.

Pommy — the Howard/Costello crew did not maintain the size of government as a percent of GDP. They increased it. It’s just hard to tell from budget papers because they counted the GST as a state tax, and yet it was used to replace various federal taxes (most importantly, the WST).

What Howard/Costello did well is the macro-economics. They maintained budget surpluses and they paid down foreign debt. Kudos. And they didn’t unwind the good micro-economic reform from the Hawke years… so we were able to reap the benefits from that.

But I doubt if more than three people in the Liberal/National parliament understand the first thing about micro-economic reform. They understand polling data. They understand giving pork to marginal seats. They understand the religious-right. But they don’t understand the concept of liberal economics or civil liberties.

Occasionally the Liberals may be better than the ALP. Well, probably 50% of the time. But the amount of faith that some here place in the Liberals defies all rational analysis of what is going on in Australian politics.

jc – kevin rudd kept the liberals tax cuts (as puny as they were)

Now, having said that, *if* Turnbull makes a firm commitment to totally abandon all environmental regulations, and to slash + simplify taxes, then he is putting some space between himself and Rudd.

What about: Fight for the Dole- anyone on the dole for more than 18 months is conscripted for 12 months?

Are you fucking serious? You think Labour Unions aren’t just another business? $600 a year for a sausage sizzle?