I believe you'll have to redo the sums again soon. RRT to 20%. I posted this explaining why in the general forum recently.
This is not political. I'm a swinging voter. But I dislike KRudd and consider him potentially dangerous for Australia.
History: KRudd became Wayne Goss' Chief of Staff in 1988 and partially responsible for his election win to Qld Premier so it's reasonable for him to remember Joh's rejuvination in the mid 80's. (for you youngies Joh B-P was Aust's longest serving Premier from late 60's to late 80's.) In the mid 80's when Joh's popularity was waning he proposed increasing car rego third party by 200% (numbers may not be EXACTLY accurate but ideas are). There was immediate stong outcry from both media an public. His decision was final.
Side issue: the deaths due to car accidents were decreasing by more than 10% in Qld at that time because of safer cars and general acceptance of reduced speed limits on country roads due to increased petrol excise some years earlier. Plus, at about that time drink dring was being decreased from .08 to .05. It's probably safe to say injuries were similarly reducing in numbers and gravity.
Yet Joh perservered emphatically a while longer, then eventually relented and increased rego by ONLY 100%. This was greeted with cheers and yahoos. The people thought they'd won though this was probably Joh's stategy all the time. The following year or maybe the one after he did a similar thing, he proposed increasing rego by a further 50% or more AND limiting claims to $1m. Again a furore followed. "Quadraplegics need more than $1m" they claimed. Etc, etc. Finally, he relented again dropping the $1m max claim and succeeding in the full fee increase. ( in those days third party profits went into State Govt coffers)
The result was Joh won a couple more elections due to such stategies, plus his gerrymander of course.
I believe KRudd remembers these and his intentions are to increase RRT by 20%. Some time before the next election he will reduce RRT to 20%, thus allowing the people and Resource Company's to believe they'd at least been partially successful and clever. KRudd will be voted a good guy, and unfortunatly for Australia win the next election. He will then have more ammo to waste on popular, useless give aways for further vote winners whilst Australia further slides into oblivion.
At least if you time it right you can make some money when KRudd finally relents and Share Prices have a partial increase.
HGO Price at posting:
30.5¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
