Party Games 55/55 Australian Labor Party

Finally, the Australian Labor Party. I was very tempted just to make this a list of 100 yes, nos, or maybes as a summary of the 100 positive policies but at this point even that feels like it might be too much. I could go on about what was accomplished under the previous Labour government, dealing with the GFC, managing a minority government that did a better job of working with the cross bench in both houses than the Coalition have done in the last 3 years, the NBN as it was originally implemented as a fibre to the premises model that would have supported our nation well into the future.

The ALP's 100 positive policies are a bit of a mixed bag from serious (reintroducing an emissions trading scheme) to the trivial (cheaper admission to Questacon (but seriously, if you're in Canberra, go to Questacon, it's cool)) to the vague filler that are actually just summarising the previous ones (Labor's Positive Plan for ).

Their campaigning over medicare seems to have worked, although it seems to be misrepresenting the situation a little, being that the proposal seems to be outsourcing some of the administrative work involved in getting money from place A to place B, not making medicare a business rather than a government service. That said given the number of government departments that need to make large numbers of payments, I wonder if the current government had considered setting up a general purpose payment system that all government departments could use, rather than outsourcing bits here and there might be more effective in the long run (although as I type this I realize that with the great diversity of needs of different government departments might mean that any system able to meet each ones needs might not be feasible).

Overall, I like the picture of what Australian society can be that Labor presents better than the one the Coalition presents. So while Labour won't be my first choice on the ballot, it will definitely have its place.