Labor was able to do what it did because the economic fundamentals were good, there is no denying that, there may well be another shock coming to the world economy and yet again even with the deficit we are running the Australian economy starts from a strong position.

I do accept your point about China and resources sector boosting the Australian economy but think about this, Britain rode the north sea oil bubble but did nothing with the money apart from paying to keep people unemployed; the oil runs out and the country is screwed.

We need to build something, some new industries a large sovereign wealth fund or whatever so that we don't follow the same path, racking up maximum surpluses is not necessarily the right way to plan for the time when the resource boom ends.

Talk to the hand...

Now that's the response I would expect from a 15 year old girl.

I agree IMO a surplus is almost as bad as a deficit. It deprives taxpayers of choosing how to spend their money.

China watchers will also be aware that construction there is declining due to the government deflating a housing bubble.

Surpluses should be saved for a rainy day. Uk and USA have nothing left in the piggy bank if this is a double dipper.

Best case is steady very slow growth.

Uk and USA have nothing left in the piggy bank... for several generations!

The US ecomony is so bad that they stopped counting some monetary indicators; the only thing keeping it afloat is that Oil is priced in USD's if that should ever change then its all over.

Latest official figures for preference votes are:
Australian Labor Party 5,863,546
Liberal/National Coalition 5,863,011

Only 435 in it now

However, if you look at the primary vote only, you get this for the top five parties:

1. 4,896,715 Liberal/LNP
2. 4,699,664 Australian Labor Party
3. 1,454,514 The Greens
4. 462,085 The Nationals
5. 278,633 Family First

They think the final figures will be counted by the end of next week...

The REAL winners are the residents of New England and Lyne, with a large chunk of money being spent in those electorates.

Hope it makes up for the betrayal that those locals are feeling, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nati...-1225915565052

So the side that didn't get the most votes won

So go and invade some more countries to spread "Democracy"

This has happened twice before, in recent years, once by ALP, once by Libs, but never such a close call.

What if you split the Nationals and the Liberals apart in the queensland LNP? Most brisbane seats traditionally went nats rather than libs - either way the pure liberal party vote is lower than labor.

You can't split them, as they are a single political party now.

Ok, throwing it out there how much of a vote differential is needed before we can say who "won" the vote, its basically a 50-50 tie IMHO anything below 50.1-49.9 is still a tie.

How about 51% to 49% ? is that a tie, or a loser wins situation ?

1998 ElectionA similar result, but a Labor win with fewer votes, also happened in another recent election.

Ok. Add their votes to the nationals total then rather than the liberals as more votes would be nationals votes didn't they win 20 of the seats...libs wouldn't have a chance without them