I think you completely missed my point Terry, I was referring to the idiots that were commenting on the news reports from BOTH sides, knuckle draggers all round...I also watch and listen to parliament and its pathetic on both sides.. I have to say that the way those 2 policy examples you pointed too were instigated left something to the imagination but on the other hand, I know of plenty of local primary and secondary schools that benefited hands down from the school halls. You may not have been to many public and private schools mate but following my son around in his cricket career i have spent plenty of time at both, Mikes High school had no cricket pitch at all and no school hall, neither did his primary school, they both now do. The private schools that he regularly played at had, well one had 3 huge turf cricket fields with 12 full time staffed practice wickets a grand stand in the style of the old Adelaide cricket ground {half enclosed}with fully staffed catering hall, that school also had indoor and outdoor swimming pools, another has 12 fields in 2 different locations all on prime real estate. The imbalance between public and private school funding is pathetic and embarrassing at best, so even though there were failures, there were also lots of schools that did benefit from those policies. It really pisses me off that in our haste to run everything down, no one points out the good happening at the same time, and like it or not, there is a lot of good in what happened as well. Also remember, Howard got his surplus from selling infrastructure and assets, not policy, doesn't take much thought to do that, same is happening in NSW at the moment as well as an erosion of workers rights {again} not to mention what redneck Newman is doing in QLD l, sell everything off to pay the bills and let farmers have open slather over national parks and protected bushland, not too mention all the bankrupt tunnels. On foreign debt, although the numbers look big are actually tiny compared to anywhere else in the world, including comparing it to individual debt at home, if you break it down in to manageable numbers its a little over half the average household mortgage, not huge at all... Does that make us all incompetent..?
Our American friends are in a far worse situation... and funnily enough, this all originated from the right side of politics...
This fascination with surplus has become a political football and is plain rubbish, the way the world now does its trade these numbers will always go up and down, no system is that perfect...... Factor in what has been spent on natural disasters in the last 6 years as well , that number is astronomical... I want to make it clear, I think both sides have no idea at the moment and are making politics very messy, we have a labor party that has lost its way and a Liberal party devoid of anything original and lack sadly in policy, they have done their best to turn Aussie politics into a side show, at least Howard had more decorum , both sides sh1t me too tears and that is the big problem as far as i see things....
