Federal election in September! Are you ready for it?

Here in Australia we're gearing up for the next federal election. Both major parties—Labor and the Liberals—are looking to the USA for inspiration:

As the federal election sweeps closer, the pressure to sell the politicians and their parties is intensifying - and the strategists are turning to digital technologies like never before to give candidates an edge.

The huge growth in social media and data analytics over the past three years means this election campaign will be like no other in Australian history.

But Australian strategists are still learning how to harness the new opportunities on offer, so they are looking to the lessons from Barack Obama's recent re-election in the United States.

(Source).

Can Australia's political parties successfully manage social media to produce the same overwhelming grassroots support that swept Obama back into power with another epic, history-making victory over the conservative corporate elites?

Are Australia's political leaders in tune with the people, or will they fumble and fudge like Mitt 'Out-Of-Touch-Much' Romney?

Is there a place in this race for the Greens, or will they be condemned them to political irrelevance like Ron Paul, the failed Pennsylvanian millionaire career politician who sponsored only one successful bill during his 23 years in Congress, for a spectacularly humiliating lifetime success rate of just 0.3%?

Personally I don't like either one of Australia's major parties, but I am a big fan of Labor's National Broadband Network and I'm worried that the Liberals will ruin it if they get into power, so if I had to choose the lesser of the two evils it would be Labor.

Your thoughts?

Am I ready?
Dont vote for either of the major parties - CHECK.
Yep, I'm ready.

Originally posted by Sankari
Personally I don't like either one of Australia's major parties, but I am a big fan of Labor's National Broadband Network and I'm worried that the Liberals will ruin it if they get into power, so if I had to choose the lesser of the two evils it would be Labor.

Yeah, there is this.
The only long term major infrastructure project in (my) living memory.

Originally posted by alfa1
The only long term major infrastructure project in living memory.

Snowy Mountains Scheme.

Well Kevin Rudd is ready. Word is he "changed his mind" on gay marriage so as to secure himself a job with the UN after the landslide labour defeat in September.

I cannot stand the hypocrisy of the Red headed twit.

I cannot stand Labor's willingness to back flip on their platform. It is a crime against the very fabric of democracy.

All I know at this time is who I will not be voting for.

P

Julia Gillard can not be trusted..but saying that, which politician can be trusted?
Although she has taken the cake on trust in my opinion..she lied about the Carbon tax, she clearly and without any room for misinterpretation, stated that no government she leads would introduce a carbon tax. But she did it anyway.
She also said, without room for misinterpretation, that she would not introduce a new Medicare levy.
Yet that is exactly what she is doing. To the tune of a few hundred dollars, depending on how much you earn.
And why is she introducing this new levy? Because they don't have the money available to pay for her national disability scheme.

And you think if you vote Liberal you will evade this new levy? Nope. Abbott wont remove it, or not introduce his own.
Will he remove the Carbon tax? I doubt that.
When has any government removed a tax?
Did Labor remove the GST when they won power back from Howard?

Labor really should have brought back Kevin Rudd and ditched Julia Gillard.

The woman has no emotions. She has no character or charisma. She doesn't inspire you when you listen to her, she makes you want to rip your ears off and poke your eyes out.
Oh, but she has cried on tv while addressing parliament. Big deal. It's just more of her setup staging to win voters over. She even wears a nifty pair of reading glasses now. What she is trying to do is soften her image and appeal to more to voters.

But does that mean we should vote for the Liberal/National Coalition and Tony Abbott? Not even if hell froze over.
Can you imagine this guy at an international summit? He'd be running around in his speedos.

The National Broadband Network(NBN) mentioned above.
The Labor plan is actually the best plan, and it is being implemented right now. Thousands of homes and businesses are already connected via fiber optics.
The Labor plan and current roll out delivers fiber optics to the home. Therefore taking advantage of the full capabilities fiber has to offer.

The Liberal plan will deliver fiber to the node, and maintain the copper infrastructure between the node and the home. So it will not take full advantage of fiber.
The problem with this is that for many years to come, they will need to maintain the copper system in place. As time goes on and the copper degrades even further, it will cost more to maintain and keep operational.
Then, at some stage in the future, 20 or 30 years or whenever, they will need to lay fiber from the node to the home anyway, and that will be even more expensive then it is today.

It doesn't make much sense in the long run. The Liberals are ranting about government spending and waste. But their proposed plan for the NBN is a massive waste of tax payers money, that dooms future generations to wasting tens of billions to play catch up with the rest of the developed world on the 21st centuries equivalent of the freeway.

Either way who ever wins the election, we, the common people are screwed.

There are more mines operational in Australia now, then ever before.
But it is extremely difficult for people to break into the industry and secure a job. Why?
Because to gain the skills necessary, it costs thousands of dollars. Do you know how much it cost to get training to operate an excavator or dump truck? Most ordinary people couldn't afford it.
And many mines only offer limited places for trainees and apprentices, and often the condition is you have to be living up in the middle of nowhere.
So you have to move your entire life to the middle of the Australian desert, on the hope of landing a position. What if you don't? Then what...

Do you know what many mine operators are doing however?
They are exploiting the 457 visa system.
They are bringing in cheap labor from overseas.
There's tens of thousands of New Zealanders here already, working soley in mines. These people work on a FIFO roster. FIFO meaning Fly in Fly out.
They are here for a couple weeks working on and living out at the mines. Then they are flown home with their money. Home as in New Zealand. So the money they are paid, isn't even spent here in Australia on goods and services.

Effectively, jobs are being outsourced by flying in workers, and the money taken out of Australia.

Then there is the Philipinno workers. Even worse situation then with the New Zealanders. The South Australian government at one stage wanted to import 50,000 workers from the Phillippines under new special visas just for them.

And to top all that off, you have the illegal immigrants who just keep arriving on our shores.
People who burn their documents before entering Australian waters and when they see the Australian navy and air force coming to intercept them. I have friends in the Air Force who have witnessed this happening.

And if that wasn't bad enough, now their are revelations of terrorists getting in.

Neither major party is going to deal with the real issues, because it would be anti-globalization. And neither are that.