Spend

The two major parties in this election are promising billions of dollars in hand outs, much of which is aimed at buying a vote. However the biggest vote buying, 'spend' came in the first week of the election. The 32 billion dollar tax relief proposed by Mr Howard. I have already commented on how I find that intolerable. I have thought some more about it in the light of election promises, and just the way elections can focus the mind.
The main thing we need to be doing over the next 10 years is to reduce greenhouse gases by making our world less dependent on fossil fuels. We need to make, solar, wind, tides, etc our main source of energy. We need our reliance on petrol/diesel cars to end. And an added thing we need to do here in Australia is find ways of supplying safe water in a what has become a much drier continent.
We want our politicians to consult with the public to work together to find solutions. Not to tell us that with expert advise they have found the one and only solution and we have to live with it. There are often many ways to skin a cat and we need to debate some of them. The Howard government has promoted a get rich approach to lifestyle and it is going to come home to bite us all in the arse. It has made us complacent and encouraged us to bury our heads in the sand over climate change and the future. Up until a year ago you would hardly of thought that we had a crises of this magnitude looming. I put a lot of that down to John Howard and his approach to leadership. If you look back over his 11 years it has all been about running surpluses and giving tax relief to the wealthy. He has done this by selling the crown jewels, spreading the tax base, [GST] and cutting services. No forethought what so ever, just that wealth creation, will in some way magic it's way into all the households. I don't think.
Some of the advisers are economists, they seem to think the only way to get things done is to make it attractive financially, for enough, for them to initiate change. Driven by profit, well it only works to a certain extent. As shown by big business. They stop being inventive and look purely for profit.
We need our politicians to commit to changing the way we do business in Australia, get rid of the status quo and find green ways of seeing our future.
Very soon now it will be the people speaking up not the lobbyists for big business. People will demand their councils provide the correct infrastructure to sustain our consumption. It will be people who say, 'forget the tax cut give us a break on installing and running alternative hot water services and solar panels.
Why these issues are barely being questioned in this election, says heaps for the current way of doing business as a government. Get elected and then rule by executive power. And only listen to the lobbyists from big business or political donors. Enough is enough let the people be heard.
Woof.