rudds nbn accounting trick, page-27

Your comments have merit, however to say that Tony Abbott does not have Australia's interests at heart is a personal attack and not worthy of your, otherwise, reasonable post.

I'm sure TA wants the "glory", however the PM's job is thankless and no matter what a party does there will always be a very vocal group who disagrees and will sling mud, both personal and political. So, the prestige of leadership, the money, etc. is dubious at best (but can't be discounted I suppose), so the real motivations are, IMO, to change things for "the better".

At issue is that opposing sides can see different ways of doing things - there is no formula, except perhaps a "universal" truth, that for every winner there is a loser. The PM job is tough enough without people making personal remarks, questioning motivation (which I am sure is just their opinion and largely based on which side they are on).

I think both sides want the same things (to a high degree), its just how they go about it that is quite different. I might add, that business as usual is not one path we should take at this time in history - what is needed is significant change to our own attitudes and priorities, otherwise we could well find ourselves the banana republic Keating warned about 20 years ago.

When I look around at what is happening in Asia compared to the rest of the world, it is clear that we need to position ourselves better. However, being more competitive in commodities is not a plan with a future - IMO, the future lies in the exploitation of our human resources (our intellect and energy), not dirt in the ground.

To make this post "relevant" to TLS, I believe TLS need to "grow up" and accept the world is full of competition - forget about trying to screw everyone for every last penny and start using their considerable talent and current advantages to really drive competition. Lower prices and provide better services and customer share will return.