Merged Australian Politics / Australian election

At last, something you say that I can wholeheartedly agree with!

Yeah, it feels weird for me too.

I hope this isn’t offensive to him, but sometimes I think psion10 is just taking the piss and there is not a massive difference in his and your views (and mine too for that matter).
 
I hope this isn’t offensive to him, but sometimes I think psion10 is just taking the piss and there is not a massive difference in his and your views (and mine too for that matter).
It wouldn't be the first time I was trolled so hard and I took it way too seriously. It was a troll who first bestowed on me the moniker "Wolli".
 
OTOH during the Covid crisis, it was the state Premiers who steered the country to safety while Scott Morrisson's attempts to make himself relevant failed miserably. His government's support of Clive Palmer during his High Court challenge to WA's border protection laws was a massive blunder.

The Premiers, with one exception, really stepped up when Morrison decided to fob off some Commonwealth duties to them.

Agreed. Without the war, Curtain would likely have been an ordinary PM. As was Morrison.

Yeah, he would have just been known for hanging around Parliament House.
 
At last, something you say that I can wholeheartedly agree with!
I am guessing that you would be less wholeheartedly in agreement with my view that Sir Robert Menzies made a pretty good peace time PM. The Libs went downhill after he resigned and lurched to the right after the Hawke Labor government took the middle ground that the Menzies government used to occupy.
 
He (Howard) wasn’t a great PM by any means, but if someone like Dutton was in power back then, we would have no superannuation and Medicare, levies would been reintroduced, hamstringing the economy and instead of being number 15 (or whatever) economy we would likely be number 40.
Wasn't Dutton the one who wanted the unemployed to submit umpteen job applications per day to receive unemployment benefits? Employer groups had to say "**** off! We don't want to wade through thousands of job applications from people who would be totally unsuited for the job!"

I'm pretty sure that if Dutton ever becomes PM, he will copy the American system and cut the unemployed off after a few months.
 
Last edited:
I am guessing that you would be less wholeheartedly in agreement with my view that Sir Robert Menzies made a pretty good peace time PM. The Libs went downhill after he resigned and lurched to the right after the Hawke Labor government took the middle ground that the Menzies government used to occupy.
Why would you guess that? Menzies was a little before my time, but my understanding is that he was a pretty good PM.
 
Why would you guess that? Menzies was a little before my time, but my understanding is that he was a pretty good PM.

He was a person of his time, but unfortunately we needed someone ahead of his time. He led Australia through the great sleepwalk of the 1950s and 1960s, where we failed to capitalise on our many benefits as a non-war ravaged nation. He also left no decent successor. I don’t rate him highly.
 
Welllll, sort of. If the Japanese had invaded from PNG though, I cannot imagine that they would have seriously had their sights on Adelaide or Perth. But thankfully that never happened.

Back in the day, when I was working for Defence, there was a discussion paper circulating, that made the claim that Japan had considered invading Australia, but their local assets had stated that every man, woman and child had access to weapons and would disappear into 'the bush' and skirmish/harrass every Japanese soldier until there were no soldiers left.

I can only assume that they were not talking about city people, but I can certainly imagine a lot of Australians refusing to be 'ruled' or occupied by a foreign power.

(I believe that firearm ownership was much less common in the cities, but more or less standard outside of the cities.)
 
He was a person of his time, but unfortunately we needed someone ahead of his time. He led Australia through the great sleepwalk of the 1950s and 1960s, where we failed to capitalise on our many benefits as a non-war ravaged nation. He also left no decent successor. I don’t rate him highly.
I disagree. The pro big business policies of governments since Menzies' time have benefited mainly big business to the detriment of ordinary Australians.
 
Fascinating.

I absolutely disagree with one part of your post though. Churchill was not a great man.

True, having his stopped clock moment being right about Hitler doesn't qualify Churchill for greatness.

In fact, given that the two men had so many views in common it's kind of surprising how much Churchill hated Hitler.
 
My probably-poorly-informed understanding is that Churchill was a decent wartime leader, but as soon as the war ended he was terrible.
 
My probably-poorly-informed understanding is that Churchill was a decent wartime leader, but as soon as the war ended he was terrible.

He was a very good leader for morale, knew enough about conducting war* not to be overly interfering and got lucky in that the national coalition was chock full of good ministers. He managed to keep his worst traits somewhat in check for five years (though not completely so, see the Calcutta famine).

*The embarrasment of Gallipoli probably taught him to keep his nose out, though blame for that has to be shared with the Admirals.
 
Well this sideline, which I contributed to, could be a good topic for another thread, but not this one.
 
I’m much more interested in discussing Scumo’s biography, Plans for your Good.

https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781400340286/plans-for-your-good/

I doubt I will buy it, but from the summaries it supports artwollipot’s often stated opinion that Morrison’s decisions were strongly guided by his pentecostinal religious beiefs. Including decisions about Covid, which he royally stuffed up.
 
I’m much more interested in discussing Scumo’s biography, Plans for your Good.
Why? Despite the oft repeated claims that he was trying to bring on a theocracy or apocalypse, he proved to be exactly what he appeared to be - an accidental PM who had no idea how to handle a crisis. He appeared to be more interested in sucking up to the rich than an armageddon.
 
Last edited:

Back
Top Bottom