Originally Posted by Craigo
Before you start going off on a political rant, you should get your facts right. The regional development fund is for regional areas, and your beloved ALP held how many regional seats before the last election? Let me tell you - WA 0, SA 0, Qld 1, NSW 1, Vic 2, Tas 3, NT 1. The Nationals had 13 regional seats and the Liberals 25. So the ratio was 38:8. Oh and by the way, the local loser (sorry, losing) ALP candidate in Eden-Monaro was complaining about the funds received in the electorate, which I recall is a Liberal seat. So your assertion that the money went solely to help National candidates is wrong.
As for the allegations of inducements, I see that Tony Windsor does not have the guts to repeat his slurs outside of Parliament. When he does, I will attach more credibility to them.
My comments were not particularly meant as a either polictical rant or in support of the ALP (until yesterday I wasnt even an Australian citizen so couldnt vote and therefore hold no specific allegance to any particular political party). I am well aware of the fact that the ALP are not particularly strong in country areas and therefore the funding issue has little direct impact on them. The point I was making was that 40% of the total fund was allocated in the 6 weeks before the election and most of this allocation went to electorates where the Nationals were on a sticky wicket from an Independant challenge or electorates where they had lost a seat previously. For some reason, the phrase 'pork barrelling' comes to mind. Of course, there is the other possibility that this is just a coincidence brought about by statistics.
And maybe it is just a coincidence again that Australia has an informal closed skies policy despite the protestation of innocence from the government and as a result, the passengers get a right royal (or should that be governmental) shatfting.
Go the Waratahs
