you want to judge projected estimates good luck.the professionals treasury err by 50%
now the facts of the last 6 years are.[liebor] deficit deficit deficit deficit deficit deficit
the projected promise was.[liebor] surplus surplus surplus surplus surplus surplus
crystal balls at the ready. this is a bit long but please read.
A full list of Kevin Rudd's and Julia Gillards lies, contradictions, broken promises, and political failures.
"More than ever, Australia needs a government that will help the nation fulfill its promise rather than a government which makes promises it cannot fulfill.' - Kevin Rudd, 2007.
Here's the list: (long, isn't it?)
- Kevin Rudd promised $290 million to be spent on improved dental care for Australians. Reneged on this post-election.
- Kevin Rudd promised a federal takeover of hospitals should their performance not drastically improve by July 2009. Never happened.
- Kevin Rudd pledged to build 36 GP 'super clinics' - of which there are currently 2 in operation.
- Kevin Rudd destroyed the Howard Goverment's border protection policies, with the following result of illegal arrivals by boat, listed by financial year: 2007/2008 - 25 arrivals. 2008/2009 - 1033 arrivals. 2009/2010 - 2501 arrivals as of Feb 2nd 2010.
- Kevin Rudd also slammed the Howard Government's Pacific Solution, which involved paying poor Pacific nations to detain asylum seekers. Rudd now pays Indonesia to do it.
- Kevin Rudd proposed a national high-speed broadband network, budgeted at $4.7 billion. Almost immediately after election this was scrapped and replaced with a new plan, with a budget of $43 billion.
- Pre-election Kevin Rudd promised to keep fuel and grocery prices down - a feat he must have known to be impossible. Labor launched Fuelwatch and Grocerywatch websites at huge cost to taxpayers, promptly shutting them down when they proved completely ineffective.
- Kevin Rudd quietly reversed his decision to no longer make temporary residents sell their houses when they leave the country.
- Kevin Rudd promised to keep interest rates down. To be fair, he got them down - by destroying the Australian economy. They are now steadily rising again, with the country in massive debt, as banks announce record profits by charging well over the cash interest rate.
- Kevin Rudd promised to build 260 childcare centres on school grounds. On April 22 2010 he made a junior minister announce that this had been scrapped.
- Kevin Rudd promised a laptop for every Australian schoolchild, which has still not been anywhere near delivered.
- Pre-election Kevin Rudd promised to initiate legal proceedings against Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a charge of incitement to genocide, but never did.
- Kevin Rudd said 'I am an economic conservative' prior to the election... before immediately becoming the highest-spending PM in Australia's history, accumulating $200 billion of debt in 12 months in office.
- Kevin Rudd slammed the Howard Goverment's commitment of troops to Iraq and Afghanistan while in opposition... despite maintaining a presence in Iraq and INCREASING troop numbers in Afghanistan.
- Kevin Rudd increased tax on alcopops by 70%, claiming it was to curb teen binge drinking, only to see sales of straight spirits skyrocket.
- Pre-election Kevin Rudd promised to take Japan to the international courts to stop whaling. Post-election this was watered down to 'we'll do everything in our power', then finally to 'I don't have a magic wand'.
- While in opposition Kevin Rudd was vocal in his criticism of John Howard for living in Kirribilli House, saying it wasted taxpayers dollars on travel between Sydney and Canberra. He promised if he was elected he would live solely at The Lodge. He now spends a great deal of his time at Kirribilli House.
- Kevin Rudd promised to keep the Medicare Rebate at 30%, however reneged on this post-election, deciding to means test the rebate for singles earning over $74,000 and couples earning over $150,000, forcing more people back into the crippled public health system.
- Pre-election Julia Gillard slammed the Howard Govt's 'cruel' limitations on Medicare rebates for IVF treatments. Post-election Kevin Rudd places caps on all IVF treatments, all obstetric services, and some ultrasounds.
- Kevin Rudd allocated $672 million to building remote indigenous housing in the Northern Territory. As at Jan 30 2010, not one house has been built.
- Pre-election Kevin Rudd criticised John Howard's NT intervention policies, saying it treated Aborigines as 2nd class citizens. He has now EXPANDED on those policies.
- In early 2009 Kevin Rudd declared that on the first sitting day of parliament each year, he would deliver an update on the progress of 'closing the gap' on Aboriginal well-being. This didn't happen in 2009 OR 2010.
- Kevin Rudd does not know how many people live in Australia. He said on the 7:30 Report 'there are 21 million of us', when there are actually over 22 million Australians.
- Kevin Rudd took more than 3 times the amount of people to Copenhagen as the UK did, at enormous expense to taxpayers, for no result. He also changed his travel plans twice to co-incide with Barack Obama.
- Before the election Kevin Rudd pledged to hold a referendum on fixed four year terms for federal parliament. This is no longer happening.
- Pre-Copenhagen Kevin Rudd said Australia would do 'no more, but no less' than the rest of the world on tackling climate change. When no agreement was reached, he declared he would go ahead with his ETS.
- Kevin Rudd callously refused to meet with Australian farmer Peter Spencer, despite him risking death by engaging on a 52 day hunger strike. During this time Kevin Rudd found time for a holiday in Tasmania, and several stints commentating the cricket.
- Kevin Rudd has declared alcohol abuse as a blight on Australia's culture, despite admitting to being too drunk to remember events at a New York strip club.
- Australia's carbon emissions have increased 3% since Kevin Rudd was elected.
- Kevin Rudd and Labor's $2.45 billion home insulation scheme failed dismally, with dodgy operators profiteering off government grants, 120 house fires, up to 1000 electrified roofs, and four deaths of installers due to lack of adequate training. Prior to the scheme Peter Garrett wrote four letters to Kevin Rudd warning him his department was not able to handle the roll-out. The letters were ignored and Kevin Rudd refuses to publicly release them. Rudd has now defied calls to front a Senate inquiry into the debacle.
- Labor's $16.2 billion school stimulus scheme was equally disasterous, with schools given funding to be spent on projects they don't need, and more widespread profiteering from contractors, with examples such as shade cloths worth $250,000 being installed at a cost of $1,000,000.
- Kevin Rudd, December 2009: "Global warming is the great moral and economic challenge of our time. The resolve of the Australian government is clear - we choose action. Action now. Not action delayed. The clock is ticking for the planet." In April 2010 Kevin Rudd announced that any action on an ETS will be delayed until 2013 - two elections away.
- The Henry Tax review, which cost taxpayers $20 million, made 138 recommendations for a 'revolutionary' new tax system. Rudd intends to implement THREE of these recommendations - at the bargain price of $6.7 million per recommendation.
- In 2007 Kevin Rudd criticised the Howard government for it's abuse of taxpayers' money on political advertisting, promising he would never do that. "I believe this is a sick cancer within our system. It's a cancer on democracy. You have my absolute, 100% guarantee, and each of you can hold me accountable for that." In May 2009 he launched a $38 million taxpayer funded advertising campaign to defend Labor's mining tax, using the loophole that it was a 'national emergency'.
- Unsurprisingly, Labor have removed the list of their original election promises from their official website.
