unemployment, page-6

"These clowns (Labor) and the Greens, due to their mismanagement of all things economic, have caused this"

They certainly didn't help, but Howard and Costello also squandered 14 years of prosperity too. What did they actually invest that would bring increased productivity long term (economic utility) to our economy? What significant policy reforms did they bring about to increase productivity long term?

The answer is not much at all. What they actually did is just hand out welfare to the middle class. Let me guess though, you think Howard and Pistol Pete are economic doyens?

The truth is that Howard and Costello were left with a greatly flexible, competitive, open economy and also a flexible workforce. They were gifted this from the reforms of Hawke and Keating. These reforms are the reason we have not had a recession if two decades. Howard and Costello didn't just come in and wave a wand to instantly give us prosperity. That's not how economies work, they don't tank or grow overnight, it's the result of many years of manifestation and allowing policy changes (restructuring) to filter through.

- Australian dollar float
- Deregulation of banking system to expose our dinasour bankers to foreign competitive forces.
- ending subsidisation for "non integral" loss making industries
- tariff reduction
- taxation reform
- abolishing centralised wage fixing and moving to the much more flexible enterprise bargaining
- Prices and Incomes Accord
- Super

All of these policies restructured a slow and lumbering economy that the Liberals (Howard being treasurer for a while too) had absolutely no idea how to fix.

Howard and Costello just sat there and didn't need to do too much at all. Now granted, i agree with you that the Greens are clowns worthy of contempt, and that YES Labour did a poor job in the last six years, but so did the Libs before them.

The economic calamity that we are going to face within the next few years is going to be so much worse than than it needed to be (or if it happened at all) because of successive "do nothing" Liberal and Labour govts who squandered what the Hawke and Keating reforms have done to our economy in the last 20 years.