Hey Liberals, how about a bit of opposition?

PW says:

05:31am | 03/02/13

70 after hours and community meetings and public events a week? Thats ten a day, without a day off. They must be short meetings and events, thats all I can say.

NESLIHAN KUROSAWA says:

06:27am | 03/02/13

Hi Lainie,

I personally don’t know much about the South Australian Politics.  Is it a bit like the Federal Politics and how things are managed all around?  Being in the opposition is most definitely tough as we have seen in the Federal Politics recently?  That actually should give all politicians in opposition to try twice as hard as the rest for that special chance in the game of politics?
No time for being complacent by standing at the same spot with similar policies and agendas of the past!  It is most definitely time to move on.

What most voters look for is some kind of incentive to go in the other direction.  If there isn’t much of a choice then what is the point of trying something new and different.  Just like our shopping experiences competition happens to be actually good for the members of the public when we are shopping around for better deals. There has to be strong visions for the future all around combined with sheer determination and bit of convincing on all sides involved . Politicians interested in winning elections need to be a little bit stronger at persuading members of the public why they stand out from the rest.  Kind regards.

Ben says:

07:22am | 03/02/13

There is much truth in the statement that good government requires good opposition.  Sadly, for many years we have been lacking in both.

philip says:

09:28am | 03/02/13

lainie you are talking absolute rubbish our state is a basket case labour soldout our forestry workers so they had the money to help fund the refurbishment of a stadium, and your attacking the libs because someone is actually retiring from politics???

Mik says:

09:51am | 03/02/13

Get stuck into all of them Lainie, not just a bunch of unknown SA opposition pollies. Show your colleagues how good, without fear or favour, journalism is done.

W J Craig (Mrs) says:

10:34am | 03/02/13

Lainie,
The plague of TV stories about SA businesses going to the wall will not stop.
Bob Hawke & Paul Keating started the rot. John Howard & Peter Costello made it worse. Rudd & Gillard have completed the destruction of so much business.
Where, Lainie, has almost our entire Manufacturing Industry, (clothing, footwear, electronics, food production, Whitegoods & other large & small Household gadgetry for just a few) gone? many of them were here in SA. All gone.
It has ALL gone off-shore. Tariffs have been abolished by Australia but by no-one else. In fact, in some of our so-called “Trading Partners” have actually increased their tariffs so as to exclude our exports. Despite Howard’s much-touted Free Trade Agreement with the USA the only beneficiary of that agreement has, by their own figures for the most part, been the USA.
Locally what chance do SA-based companies, in any fields including Construction, have to make a go of it when the ALP State Government of SA gives all those big jobs to Interstate or even Overseas companies?
Isn’t it some overseas company which was awarded the contract for the Adelaide City Councils disastrous $30 million re-vamp of the Rundle Mall?
Thanks to successive State & Federal Governments we are supporting & enhancing other countries economies.
What about our own?
State politicians are allowed, for a pathetic $7000, to have the “Motor Vehicle of their Choice”. There was a time when the, then SA Government-owned, “FleetSA” had a policy that, with the exception of specific types of vehicles for specific purposes, ALL SA Government Motor Vehicles had to have been manufactured in, preferably, SA or at other plants around Australia.
That ruling was very conveniently abandoned by the State ALP Government of SA when our politicians awarded themselves “The Car of Choice”. Almost without exception they chose top-of-the-range, Fully Imported, Luxury vehicles - not one of which is manufactured in Australia - let alone SA

PJ says:

11:24am | 03/02/13

The Gillard Government has recklessly spent. Given us $300 Billion debt and $120 Billion plus in Budget deficits. We’re looking at paying debt as a nation for the next 131 years after only 4 years of spending.

Now there is no money for flag Ship projects like NDIS and Gronski, which remain a small pilot scheme and a little research project.

I know, your puzzled, because Gillard’s been talking up the policies like they are delivered, done deal.

Next up is the French style 75% tax and nicking larger chunks of your Superannuation. You’ll live retirement in semi poverty, because you worked hard and earned a decent living, but voted for a crap Government.

with 6 Gillard spin docs in the Canberra Press office for every Journo, you’ll never know the truth of it under this Government…

Geronimo says:

11:59am | 03/02/13

Talking politics in Daisy Downer’s little Salt Lake State has the same effect on House Nous as natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits,  they’re the object of scorn to smart Mexicans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.

ramases says:

03:34pm | 03/02/13

Nice try Lainie but no cigar. This was I suspect supposed to create a diversion from the imploding Federal ALP but the truth be known nobody really cares what happens to South Australia in the scheme of things. Be it LNP or Labor wont make a scrap of difference to the people when we have this shower of a Federal Government in power.
  If the truth be known, I know that is a foreign concept to most ALP supporters, it is the Federal Government that has almost destroyed not only SA but also most states who for some reason known only to themselves believe that jobs are better going overseas than staying in this country.
  We have through increasing Union demands for wage increases, a Fair Work Australia policy, increased and ludicrous Work Place Health and Safety regulations, increased Green regulations and copious amounts of Red tape and increased Taxes of all kinds made Australia one of the most expensive places to do business.
  Some businesses must comply with over a thousand Green regulations before even a sod of earth is turned over and if that’s not bloody crazy what is. We are Wage Increasing, Red Taping, Green Regulating, Work Place Health and Safety and over pricing ourselves out of the market place at such a rate that the plight of SA is but a drop in the ocean compared to the whole of Australia.
  I’m no Einstein but it seems to me that first we should fix the Federal arena before we even contemplate worrying about what’s happening in the varied States and Territories.
  Its like fixing a boat that has been damaged, what good to fix the deck when the hull is leaking water to such and extent that it will sink anyway.

TheFatMan says:

04:31pm | 03/02/13

Chris Pyne compared Labor to the end of Nazi Germany.  Yep Labor appears to be coming apart - mainly because they got too far to the right.

As for Nazi well Chris I suggest you and Tony paint on tooth brush mo’s and look in the damn mirror because the only difference between the way the Libs are going and where the Nazi’s did is the Nazi’s had policy and the Libs never have or none I can find on their website anway.  I’m always astounded by what appears to be the gulf between State Lib’s like Can’t Do Campbell and Barnett and the Feds.  State Lib’s get stuff done the feds well… last achievement of any note was almost destroying the country when Fraser just would not sack Howard and how he ever, Howard, got to be PM is beyond my comprehension.

Preferences, a system both side rort by failing to educate voters, the distinct lack of a credible centrist third party, and voters with damn short memories are the only things that keep the 150 plus dipsticks living off the public purse in Canberra where they are.

As for most of the East including SA - basket cases living off of WA.