Hi Revel ... thanks for a worthy archive ... while Whisky's account might be a bit blurry at the margins, he/she(?) has been able to articulate the story basically right !!!
One topic so far not discussed (other than in neo-con thinktanks...) is the issue of 'population stress' ... Howard quietly tweaked the various levers over time leading to Oz now being burdened with the 'net costs' associated with an unsustainable compounding 1.5% population increase each year. Little wonder that infrastructure/water/health/education et al is literally straining to cope. Howard cared less as the bulk of the burden was to be born by Howard's collective nemesis' - State Govts.
The double-whammy given Howard's 'privatising' (as in user-pay) everything coupled with the 'cult of "greater-fool" asset speculation' as the preferred means of wealth creation (given inflation was out of control) meant that households simply became massively financially overburdened. This fact was confirmed to Howard's horror in the 2007 polls.
Howard (along with all neo-con governments) had promulgated this monster as good public policy for which there would never be a panacea.
The oligarchs manipulating the housing market sat quietly chuffed as they systematically siphoned every dollar including 'first-home-owner grants' into their their various already bloated coffers.
Understandably, Rudd is careful to avoid the 'housing meltdown' being experienced in the US. However, it is totally unreasonable to simply ignore the costs associated with running high population growth (e.g. immigration) public policy which in turn stress the 'public purse' forcing further cut-backs to infrastructure/essential services.
In addition, there is now mounting concern that Rudd's own proposed 'public debt monster' will not succeed in righting infrastructure deficiencies during the Howard years but will simply create a public-debt problem akin to other western economies (i.e. public debt needs to be serviced) as being somehow okay !!
Failure in these policy areas will yet again simply create further time-bombs for 2050 and beyond.
