MFC Kev, i agree with a fair bit of what you said, but its a bit hard to criticise the libs for basing a whole election campaign on one issue when labor went one worse and made the fact that Howard might not stick around for 3yrs the crux of their argument! I dont know how many times Beazley said that on the radio and in his adverts. Their main 'point' was not even a policy, just a speculative dig at the opposition! Hardly good politics, almost politics without policy. I really didn't see a hell of a lot of differentiation between the parties on a lot of issues. Not exactly, Old Son, although given the usual one-sided media portrayal of the election you could certainly be forgiven for thinking this way. What you're speaking of here is the old-fashioned gutter by-play engaged in by both parties (the Howard camp were awash in the media with scare material on Beazley's past and the prospect of Simon Crean taking the reins). In actual policy terms the Liberals ran on one thing and one thing only, a dubious approach to immigration that was effectively bipartisan in tone anyway. That aside they ran only on the myth of superior economic management, which is not a policy but merely an oft-repeated election time mantra. Similarly, in 1993 & 1998 the Liberals ran on one issue and one issue only - GST. The only time the Liberals have run on a multi-policy platform was in 1996, when overnight (a month out from the election) they proposed an exorbitant raft of some 30+ policies. At no stage of course, did the media choose to question the financial credibility of this approach (which was fantasy land stuff in this regard, and would have been hammered ad nauseum on the front pages if Labor had of proposed it), but it all came to nothing anyway with all but two being rejected as infamous "non-core" promises after the poll. Labor actually ran on three domestic policy fronts this time around -- Knowledge Nation, GST rollback and revised health care. All 3 were identified as key voter concerns, but all 3 were totally overshadowed by the Tampa affair. Plenty of media attention was focused on Knowledge Nation, however, mainly involving specualtion as to how it would be funded. Admittedly, the notion (as good as it was) would have had to been staggered across many years to make it financially plausible, but at least is was a well-intentioned visionary concept. Which leads me to my next suggestion... 1) All government terms should run for four years exactly. 2) Four months prior to the election date is the time at which the sitting government should be fully independently audited. From this moment, until the election result is made final, it should be made impossible for a government to initiate new spending ideas or pre-election "sweeteners". 3) The auditers should make the results of the audit available for inspection by all political parties three months prior to the election date. 4) This gives the parties another month to revise and clearly articulate their policy platforms with a clear idea of the economic health of the country. 5) All parties should be free to float their policy programs two months out from the election to get a final sense of how they will be received. 6) Parties are to finalise policy platforms and election strategies by the date preceding the election by one month. This final month will be the true election campaign period and will be the only time that political parties are permitted to advertise in the media. What do you think, too idealistic? CyberKev
