Labor's policies best reflect our values.

The Age has long held that policy, not personality, is the core of our democracy. It is on this basis that we advocate a vote for Labor in the federal election on Saturday. We do so fully acknowledging that the Coalition under Tony Abbott has run a disciplined and competent campaign, and that after six years of Labor government the electorate is wary and weary of Labor's infighting. Yet we cannot endorse a party that advocates policies with which we fundamentally disagree.

As our readers know, we support Labor's national broadband network strategy, its commitment to increasing the superannuation guarantee levy, its Gonski schools funding plan, and its shift from a carbon price to an emissions trading scheme. We also support the deal it forged between business and environmentalists that led to areas of Tasmania's western wilderness being added to the World Heritage Area. In our view, these programs are initiatives towards generational change. They are visionary, forward-thinking and nation-building, not gimmicks devised to meet a three-year election cycle.

Yet the Coalition would curb the scope of the NBN and defer the higher superannuation guarantee levy, despite the patent need to save as the population ages. The Coalition has failed to commit to the fifth and sixth years of funding on Gonski, the years of maximum investment, and it would claw back Tasmania's World Heritage wilderness listing.


We deplore both major parties' policies on asylum seekers but support Labor's plan to increase Australia's humanitarian intake. The Coalition would cut it. Underscoring the Coalition's heartless approach is its proposal to slice $4.5 billion from Australia's foreign aid budget. Importantly, the Coalition has back-tracked disgracefully on climate change. Its commitment to reducing Australia's carbon emissions is now precariously linked to budget affordability. Climate change has moved beyond being a moral question. It is a fundamental economic imperative.

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Looking ahead, neither Labor nor the Coalition has seized us with a comprehensive vision for Australia's economic direction. Both have offered sound but limited strategies, targeted to different ends. The map for the longer term, though, is missing. While the Coalition would build new roads, it shies from expanding public transport networks. We are disheartened, too, by the Coalition's vaguely defined savings plans, such as cutting 12,000 jobs from the public sector. At the same time, we are bewildered by its profligate proposals, including handing $16 million to Cadbury to update a chocolate factory. The ultimate largesse, though, is its paid parental leave scheme. It beggars belief that the Coalition, which contends the budget is in a national emergency, would happily dole out parental payments of up to $75,000 without any reference to equity and absent of any means testing.

Labor has its own clutch of opportunistic, ill-conceived policies: on northern Australia and the Garden Island naval base, for instance. On economic management it rests on its laurels, pointing to its performance through the financial crisis. It is now 2013, and recent growth has been muted by weakness in the mining sector and a widespread lack of confidence among consumers and businesses. Managing the budget back to surplus is a long-term project requiring a steady hand on revenue and savings, but it is not the be-all and end-all of economic management.

Just before the 2010 election, The Age called for a vision for this nation's future, saying neither Labor nor the Coalition had inspired voters and the campaign had been hallmarked by ''diminished expectations, small targets and vapid slogans''. Sadly, it has been the same again in 2013. Fatuous and hollow sloganeering by the Coalition has been met with jib-jab policy on the run by Labor.

On the issue of trust, the Coalition's own actions leave us with significant reservations. It has obfuscated and ducked critical issues, deliberately keeping voters uninformed about its savings plans or revenue-raising initiatives. Worse has been its breathtaking arrogance in cynically delaying until the last minute its policy costings - this, from the party that drafted the charter of budget honesty. When it comes to trusting Labor, we appreciate the public's confidence may be so undone that a change of government could prove to be a circuit-breaker, injecting a short-term sense of stability. But The Age values policies above political opportunism; we do not advocate a vote simply for the sake of change.

The Age believes in economic and social progress, in liberty and justice, in equity and compassion, and openness of government. We believe the role of government is to build a strong, fair nation for future generations, and not to pander to sectional interests. It is with these values in mind that we endorse the Labor Party in this important election.


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I wouldn't let a Labor voter through my gate

That's how foul that party, its members and its supporters are

rank, all of them

you really should be encouraging them to face reality bobby... the must be doing something wrong for people to turn on them like they are doing...

so why not encourage them to change get a different leader and a different set of rules.. get rid of the corrupt and opportunists who think nothing of changing the leader just because it suits them...

get with REALITY bobby stop living in fantasy land..

what you are saying is the people are idiots dont know what they are doing if they dont vote labor...

that doesnt win friends or votes...

own it.. they are doing something WRONG....

voters have turned off them   WHY...its not hard to know why

PZ547 wrote on Sep 6^th, 2013 at 7:39am:



Yes we all know you don't like Rudd but as Dave says in his video -
consider the alternative.

There needs to be a certain cut-off point before people are allowed to vote

Those with 80 IQ points or less should be eliminated from the voter pool


Which would eliminate Labor and Green voters