Grendel wrote on Apr 3
rd, 2014 at 2:05pm:
Quote:The Coalition have been voting against mandated policies since there's been a Coalition, and Abbott never respected Labor's mandate for a GST since he became leader in 2009 - he BECAME leader of the Liberals specifically so the Liberals could dishonour a mandate.
More rubbish... the 2007 election was about Workchoices... the Coalition allowed Labor to have their way on it.
BTW Howard brought in the GST and took it to the people.
Silly typo on my part. I meant to say ETS here. I had been discussing the GST in another thread.
Asserting that the 2007 was about Workchoices is simplistic.
Not really... it was THE major concern/issue... led the ads and was the major topic on many fronts Unions and various groups had it as their major issue.
Labor had other policies as well, including the ETS.
Which wasn't an issue between the major parties because they were both running and ETS ticket.
For Abbott to instruct the Liberals to vote against the ETS in 2009 not only went against Labor's mandate, but
HIS OWN PARTY'S mandate as well. Not following the policies of other parties is understandable, but going against a policy that his own party took to an election is another matter.
Claiming a mandate is stupid... only a pleb really gives you a mandate. But in terms of an election mandate... usually 1 policy is the major issue and that IMO is the mandated policy for the election... in 2007 it was WORKCHOICES and the Coalition honoured that mandate. In fact they divorced themselves from that policy and identified it as the main issue and the issue that lost them the election it was the defining difference between the parties... hence they acknowledged labor had a mandate to get rid of it.
I think you will find that not all in the Libs was happy with an ETS, Howard admitted he brought it in because he wanted to neutralise the difference, not because he agreed with it, he was faced with a perfect storm on it... and hence later Turnbull lost the Leadership.
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