Denben,Oh was there?And, pray tell me, who said that the GST was...

Denben,

Oh was there?

And, pray tell me, who said that the GST was "the centre piece"? Howard?

Bull dust.

Deny it till your blue in the face; a general election, which is about who will be elected to govern, is not a referendum on any one specific policy of the opposing parties. Best that you look up the definition of the word referendum or plebiscite.


What you don't appreciate is that an election is the ultimate referendum, even Gillard understood that she would get snotted, when she came out with those famous words there will be no carbon tax under a govnuts I lead


From 1997, Howard spearheaded the Coalition push to introduce a Goods and Services Tax (GST) at the 1998 election. Before winning the Prime Ministership, Howard said that he considered the Coalition's defeat in 1993 to be a rejection of the GST, and as a result it would "never ever" be part of Coalition policy.[53] A long held conviction of Howard's, his tax reform package was credited with "breaking the circuit" of party morale—boosting his confidence and direction, which had appeared to wane early in the Government's second term.[54] The 1998 election was dubbed a "referendum on the GST",


The 1998 election was dubbed a "referendum on the GST"


Australian Labor Party leader Kim Beazley continued to oppose it during the Howard government's second term. During the 2001 election campaign, Labor made a 'GST rollback' a center piece of its election platform.

That didn't go to well for him.