Owatalk

The Liberals were going to lose anywhere, Howard or no Howard, but for Howard that could have give him a dignified exit. Its unfortunate that Costello was presented as part of a team during the campaign which meant that the defeat was for the team.

The Liberals didn't respond quite well to the expectations of the battlers...while the economy is in good shape the majority lot is missing out and thats where the problem is. There is something amiss with the distribution system in terms of wealth, or the sub-indexing of wages.

While the policy of the Coalition was to relieve wage pressure and costs of production, there is no way the industry here can compete with economies like China on labour costs. The economies of scale lie elsewhere. I don't subscribe to the notion of budget surplus for the sake of it.....it is the quality of the surplus, what help is a surplus when nothing is done to infrastructure to support production, inadequate social services, and how you use the excess cash is critical, not the shortermism policy of dishing out dollars than capital investment to support future growth.

You fail to read the mood of the electorate, you pay the price. Australia has a huge migrant population and that can not be ignored as Howard found out in his constituency.
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