Legacy systems and finding ways to access them remotely.

 Recently spent a few fruitless hours trying to work out why a client could not do what we have done for many clients and connect remotely to their work machine.  Fortunately I had access to their home and the work machine via different means, and could noodle away in the background whilst dealing with urgent issues.  

Turns out the machine in the office was running domain joined Windows XP SP2 connecting to a Small Business server 2011 !

Obviously both of these should not be connected to the Internet, and rely on a fairly strong internet restriction policy to lock down what they can and can't connect to .  Unfortunately this severely restrained the means of connecting from the external machine.

The original plan was to set up a connection via VPN to the work network, and use MSTSC to connect to the workstation.  When this did not work we did a number of troubleshooting steps to narrow down the issue and figured that it was a workstation issue as we were able to connect to the workstation from inside the network but were failing to from external.  Strangely we could ping the workstation and we could see traffic being delivered to it from the network but nothing coming back out.  

In the end my initial setup was correct and would have worked, provided the user account being used had been in the Domain Admins group!  It turns out there is a Group policy in Windows SBS that blocked access to remote assistance to only those in the Domain Admins group.  After I added the Domain Users group it allowed connectivity.  

 

So after a day of digital archaeology, I am exhausted and annoyed that it came down to a GP setting.  Trying to find various remote softwares that would 1. install on Windows XP and 2. talk through a firewall with a DMZ was very difficult in between balancing calls.  For example Teamviewer breezily annonced that 14.2 would connect but when we used a later version on the Window 11 external machine it insisted that the internal machine could not be connected to because it was on too old a version.  Even dropping the version on the external machine to the same version as installed on the internal machine was not enough for them to connect.  

Good thing we are planning on ripping out the SBS shortly. :) More to the point,  there are times when it is important to have old equipment and software around to assist with troubleshooting. I get in trouble for hoarding old kit and softwares but I have been saved a few times by having some of that available.  

Covid 19 - some observations

 So how has everyone coped with Covid 19?  Many people I know have just carried on as they did prior, and in fact, have come out better for not having to travel to work each day.  There are many though, who have suffered hugely during the shutdowns.  For example, many retail workers were stood down with no notice and very little reserves. 

As an IT support person, you would think that working from home would be a no-brainer for me but in my case it was more important to attend the office than ever.  This was not because I needed to necessarily be at the office, but more because working at home with 3 other people would have driven me nuts.  

I am generally the only person in the office most of the time, as my manager spends most of his time on the road or working from home.  During Covid this was even more so, as his wife is classified as "At risk".  

The upside is that my office is a fairly safe place from which to work.  

So during the fairly benign shutdown that WA had, I was still driving into work and visiting those clients that were still open.  The number of clients was very small as most of them are in industries that were declared non-essential. By and large most of my work was assisting clients get their remote access working and setting them up to remotely access systems required for them to work from home.  

Some clients just decided to shut the doors and wait it out, taking the time as an enforced "staycation", and catching up with home maintenance.  Others decided they just had to be online every day and for these, we worked to ensure that the home working environment was as usable as possible.  In most cases this was fairly simple to achieve and we were happy to assist both via remote control and via telephone.  

One thing that has come out of the enforced stay at home orders, is that the ability of staff to work from home and be productive has been proven once and for all, and only the meanest spirited managers have failed to see the benefits in keeping staff happy.  For many companies, this is a watershed moment, realising that they can still have a company that is cohesive and producing a great product without having to have huge premises in hugely expensive areas.  It also means that for many employees, they can now claim their internet service and home office as a tax deduction, whilst saving both fuel and servicing of their vehicles.  

There are many who still require the immediacy of working with others and others for whom the day is not complete without human interaction but for many IT staff, the ability to avoid people interactions is a bonus.

Another thing that has been highlighted is the need for a top notch internet service to all homes.  Labour had the right idea when they first kicked off the NBN of making sure that the infrastructure used was the best technology available at the time and able to be easily upgraded on the fly.  I still curse the people who voted for the LNP and their MTM (multi technology mix) as it was an excuse to cut the guts out of a project that I likened to the Snowy River scheme.  By allowing NBN to devolve to a lowest common factor, we now have suburbs divided by the haves and have nots, when it comes to fibre services.   If nothing else covid has forced the upgrade of FTTN to FTTP to be accelerated although I still have not heard that they are intending to do this in our neighbourhood, even though it was announced last year.  

When I first started this blog post, I thought that 2020 would be it and that by 2022 we would be back to normal. However we are finally back to a new "normal", one that requires masks whenever meeting people and today was the first day that fully vaccinated people can come in from overseas or interstate without having to quarantine.  They still need a G2G pass and to have had a negative test before boarding the plane.  

So I have just reviewed this and note that we are now in a situation with >9000 new infections per day, although with the slightly more benign Omicron version

So the ability to work from home is still a necessity for many people.  

--Update--

Unfortunately, many employers have seen this as a way for them to get unpaid overtime from staff, and immediacy when dealing with issues, so it is imperative that we observe the recently passed "right to disconnect" laws that allow staff to say no when asked to do out of hours work. Just because I carry a work phone, does not mean I am oncall 24/7  unless you are going to pay  for that privilege. 

Some Thoughts on the Federal Election 2019

The following are simply my personal thoughts and do not reflect the policies of any organisation I may be associated with.

1. Queensland - Labor was always going to struggle in Queensland, simply because they think differently in Qld.  Must be all that sun.  The real problem was always going to be in areas that Adani affected because they are currently very high unemployment areas.  Anything that increases employment is going to be a plus.  Labor misread the signs and did not support Adani enough.  As much as they wanted to be seen to be strong on climate change, this is a factor that is "someone else's problem" i.e. others can make the sacrifices so that I can feel good about my contribution to a better environment. 
2. Unions appear to be becoming more irrelevant as time goes on.  Unfortunately they are associated with a previous time that today's workforce do not recall.  Until they make themselves relevant to today's young workforce, their influence will keep decreasing.
3.  Labor Leaders - we were reminded of charismatic leaders by the death of Bob Hawke, and more to the point, how charisma-free Bill Shorten is.  To carry the country, you need to be able to convince voters that you are able to convince all walks to support you.  Bill played well with the Unions, but he failed in the Boardrooms and those that aspire to that area.  Labor may have got much more traction if they had a forceful woman leader as it would have given them more of a point of difference rather than a competition between 2 middle-aged, white men. 
4.  Advertising - As Clive Palmer showed, too much advertising is not necessarily a good thing. By the time we got to the election people were punishing Clive because they were sick of being robo-called and spammed.  Also I hope some of the parties are penalised heavily for continuing to advertise on election day.
5.  The clear picture here was that Fear will win you an election.  This is the second election where the fear campaign was used to spook voters into one side or the other, and not looking to the future. Labor pulled out the Fear card way too late and failed to make it stick.  As much as I dislike this as a way of campaigning, unfortunately it works.  
6.  Preference deals - One wonders what the election would have looked like if the smaller parties were not able to wield such a large stick in the form of preferences. One wonders how much of the Morrison Government will compromised by those deals.  
7.  Compassion - This current government has shown a continuing lack of compassion, from it's treatment of unemployed, and disabled through to it's treatment of refugees.  What stuns me is that the Australian public have in effect agreed with this stance. From being a country that would help others in a time of need to being a country that scrambles over the bodies of those unable to keep up in it's efforts to reach the boardroom, this country has lost it's way.  Given how many people wanted to vote for Jacinda Ardern, this surprises me.. 
8. Taxes and debt - The bogie men of taxes and debt were used to scare people into voting for the Coalition, even though the Coalition has tripled the debt since they came to power and failed to decrease taxes for those most in need to tax relief. 
9.  Media interference - The Murdoch Media was against Labor from the start and this was always going to be an issue.  When you are unable to get positive stories for your candidates published, you are always going to struggle.  
10.  How many of the newly minted politicians are going to struggle with Section 44? That is, how many of them are going to be found to be dual citizens?
11. Absentee votes -  with nearly a third of the country choosing to vote early, why have we not changed the voting so that we vote over a week, with counting being done as the votes come in?
12. When we all declare bankruptcy, because this government for all it's bragging about knowing how to run the economy only knows how to benefit their mates in big business, it is comforting to know that we can all look forward to robo-debt being enforced.  At least some one will be calling us because it won't be employers. 
13. Instead of getting out there and pointing out that the Franking credits issue does not apply to people who are earning an income and paying taxes, and that it really only affects those that have retired with huge shareholdings, the Labor party did not do enough to get this message across.  It was left to the Coalition to use the franking credits as a scare campaign "The Labor party is going to tax the money you have worked all your life to save" .  Never mind that it was only ever going to be a case of rolling back a loophole that was being exploited by financial planners to ensure that their clients got a nice tax cheque from the Government each year. Franking credits should simply be that, a credit against taxes already paid or offsetting tax to be paid on income.  It should not be another form of income. 
14. The Us versus them marketing by the Labor party, makes many people appear greedy.  At the end of the day, most people aspire to the boardroom, even if their income is more in the janitors room.  More should have been made of the fact that most people have been in effect going backwards wage wise over the last 5 years and that the Government was encouraging employers to not increase wages through various means.
15. Where to now?  Bill Shorten has already resigned, and it looks like there will be more of the same in the Labor party.  They need to get some of their competent women to the top level. 
16. Looking at this a few months after the election, it is interesting how much support Albo has been getting. This may be a function of the "new guy" bounce, but I think the fact that Albo has a personality is helpful.  
17. Now that the tax breaks have been granted, there is a lot of newsprint in the Left press about how this mainly affects those on higher tax brackets.  It will remain to be seen if this government lasts long enough for those high end tax breaks to actually occur.  

Microsoft Office licensing and annoyance

Microsoft Licensing and Installation Blues

So recently I had an executive drop his laptop on my desk with the command that he needed MS Project installed (in 20 minutes).

"No Problems" I thought and went to the Office 365 admin portal, allocated a license to him and proceeded to login to the office portal with his account to download the installer.

All went well until I went to run the installer.  At this point it complained that it needed an administrative account to install.

By default we restrict users from installing software, so I ran the install as my administrative user.  This got a bit further, however then it popped up an error that it could not install because it could not download files required for the installation.  AAARGh, how bloody annoying can you get?!  Check that there are no firewall blocks (local firewall is set to pop up a dialogue box if this is blocked)

Ok so time is not on my side, and I will shortly have an exec  on my shoulder asking where his laptop is. Quick google using the error code "error-code 30182-1011 (3) unable to download file"  and there is very little help.  Looks like it is another generic Microsoft error, with the suggestion to "uninstall Office and reinstall".  Given that it takes 20 minutes to install, I'd hate to think how long it is going to take to uninstall all the versions of office on this laptop and re-install Office365, then try the Project installation.  With no guarantee that this is going to work.

OK so is there a way to get the full install for Ms Project? Yes, the Office Offline installer gives this option, but it needs you to know the exact name of the software you want to install and the shortname which you have to place in the correct location in the installation.xml file.  Of course documentation on this is written  in legalese i.e. you need to spend 2 days reading one paragraph to understand what you need to do.  Why can't MS just give you the option to download the full file from the link at Office365 ?  (I know, they only want you to download the minimum so that they can control installations.)

When I gave the exec the unfortunate news, he was not happy :(
What I have suggested is that some future time when he does not need his machine for the day, I will back it up, uninstall all Office installations and do a fresh Office365 install on his machine. The aim is to make it possible to do the installation should he need it urgently in the future.

But my big question is for Microsoft.  When I am shelling out for an E3 license to allow me to install the software locally on my computer, I want to be able to download the full installation at one time, not have a quick installer download and then have to ensure that internet connectivity will allow me to download the rest of the software.  Why is this not offered as an option?   Worse still, in the above case, the Click-to-Run version that was installed as a default with windows 10 had actually worked to block the installation of new software.  Why did the installer not pop up an error stating that multiple versions of Office had been found and offer to uninstall any unneeded software?

I'm sure that with the MS move to a completely subscription based software, this will be become less of an issue but in the meantime, at least give us useful error messages instead of generic WTF errors that help no-one.

Dealing with Internal Staff when you are working on the Helpdesk.

Dealing with Internal Staff when you are working on the Helpdesk.

Regardless of the industry your company is in, there are certain constants that will impinge on you as an IT person.  Everyone in IT starts on helpdesk as it is usually the most hated of IT jobs and one of the most important as it is the “face” of IT with which most other staff deal. The variety of staff that you will interact with in your role on the “Helldesk” can be a bit overwhelming for a new hire to a company.

As IT people, we are generally logical, methodical, and thorough (at least we like to think we are!) and this is what appeals to the almost OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) amongst IT people. Therefore, computers and technology appeal to our sense of order.

What we as helpdesk operators need to understand is that for many of our clients, the computer and systems are just tools, like a hammer or screwdriver to a tradesperson. If you call them clients, you are less dismissive of their issues. Many of our clients have worked out how to do their job on this tool and when it doesn’t work as expected, their stress level goes through the roof.

So as a helpdesk person, our job is not so much to fix the problem, but to help relieve the stress.  As the saying goes,” A problem shared is a problem halved” and in this situation we are the other half.  Before we resort to the standard,” Have you turned it off and on again?” maybe we need to listen to the person on the other end and make sure they are ok.

Before we get to the people, we need to talk about terminology.
For many non tech-literate people, the “Computer” is actually the monitor on their desk.  When they say that their computer is not coming on what they really mean is that the monitor is not on.  Ensure that you are talking about the same thing when you ask them to turn the computer on.

Below is a quick summary of the different types of clients I have experienced. Number 1 rule, don’t lose your cool and number 2 rule, don’t be a d!ck when someone makes a mistake.  Whilst it might make your ego feel good short term, in the long term, the hit to your reputation can be quite detrimental.
1. The mature clerical, generally an older person who, whilst very good at their speciality, are not flexible when it comes to computer issues.  They have a checklist they use with the computer to do their job and anything that deviates from this causes chaos.  Even forcing a regular password change for this person results in stress, and updates to their usual software will cause a meltdown.  What has worked for me with these types is to connect to their computer, walk through their checklist with them and make suggestions on how to change their list to easier achieve their work.  These people are generally very grateful when you can resolve their issue quickly for them. Things to avoid- jargon and trying to explain why you have changed a setting (it just confuses them).

2. The enthusiast – This is the young guy (or girl) who knows all about computers.  Sometimes these guys can be very helpful when it comes to troubleshooting strange issues, mainly because they caused the problem in the first place.  Letting them describe the troubleshooting steps they have taken will quite often lead them to the solution on the phone.  Make sure that you include these guys in your solution.  If you must do something in the backend to get them working, describe what you are doing as you do it. If you need to consult someone else in your team, try to get them on to a conference call.  These users are your informal IT support and will be eager to help their fellow users as it feeds their (ego) and takes a load of minor issues off your shoulders.  However, these guys can also be the source of much of the “Grey IT” that happens in companies (e.g. In one company I worked at, we found that a bunch of users were using Dropbox to store files so that they could work on them at home, instigated by one of their work mates.) So as Michael Corleone in the “Godfather” said,” Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” Welcome any suggestions they make and look at them seriously. Give them feedback on their ideas so that they don’t go off and do their own thing.

3. The harassed PA – a subset of the clerical, these people can be particularly difficult to deal with as they quite often are the power behind the throne and can make things difficult for IT if they feel you are being obstructive.  Sometimes all they need is a bit of sympathy and guidance and they can keep working at making their boss look good. Unfortunately, sometimes their requests are impossible to fulfil, and you need to be creative in finding a “just as good” solution.  Anything that lets this person impress their boss is good for the IT department. A flat "no" is likely to result in the CIO getting an irate call from the senior manager.

4. The senior executive – If you are doing internal support and going to people’s desks, this person can be a real trap. They will assume you will be there straight away even if you are in the middle of a server crash recovery.  Some of these people can get off on making others look bad, or belittling people in front of other staff.  It must be a function of their ego that they need to make others look bad, so they can feel better about themselves. Usually the issue they are complaining about is something trivial, but they blow it out of all proportion.  CAUTION – do not sink to their level and make them look like an idiot! This is the surest way to paint a target on your back. The best way to deal with these people is to fix their issue as quickly as possible and with a minimum of interaction.  At no time should you admit that it is an IT mistake, as these executives will use this to make the IT department suffer. Trust that Karma will take care of them in the long run. Note that this only applies to a small subset of senior executives as most are very “people oriented” and are aware that you are doing your job to the best of your ability.

This is not an exhaustive list and I’m sure others can add more.  The takeaway that I can give you is “Do not make people feel or look stupid, even if what they are doing is dumb beyond words”.

This only breeds resentment and can come back to haunt you later.

And for those that really hate being on the helpdesk, here is one of the earliest clips I saw about working on the helpdesk The Internet helpdesk

And for those that think IT should be in charge of things, here is the Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH) archive.  Please note that Wayne's Ramblings does not endorse anything illegal or immoral, just that there are some clients who could really do with a dose of being shoved down a stairwell. :)

I asked to be laid off

I'll admit it, I'm one of those employees that stick with a job long enough to be the person that is turned to when legacy systems fail.  My first job was with a government department where I lasted 8 years, moving once to another area in the same department. When I left that job, it was because I was headhunted by a company that had just won the outsourcing role with the government department that I was working for.  I lasted another 4 years in that role.  

Eventually I grew tired of dealing with the bureaucratic way that the department ran, and found the contractor/employee divide too wide to bridge. The problem was the departmental employees always blamed the contractors when things went wrong, and the contractors had to rely on the employees to provide them with the information required to complete their tasks but it always changed at the last minute.   Everyone tires of being the whipping dog for other's inadequacies.  I started looking for other jobs. 

I was given an interview with the IT manager at a small stock brokers (they were small when I started) and we hit it off straight away.  The IT manager was a great guy who taught me a lot about how to treat your staff and get the best out of them. We grew the IT side from 2 offices to about 15 offices all over Australia, mainly by acquisition of other brokers.   This was an interesting time and there never seemed to be enough time to complete all the tasks.  I had always been the "go to guy" when something needed to be repaired and as the company grew, so did the numbers in the IT department.  

By mid 2011, we were up to a dozen IT staff spread over 3 different sites.  We were managing web development, networking, infrastructure and server farms.  We had strategic contracts with specialised software systems providers, that covered the management and maintenance of those systems, and we had a brilliant team of IT staffers that worked really well as a team and had 4x 9's of uptime (about 30 seconds a year offline) through our use of VMware technology and redundant links. Our biggest outages were those that generally affected the whole industry, or our software suppliers.

However at this stage the GFC struck and as a stockbroker, our company took a big hit.  An order came down from the management that our IT department was to be downsized, with up to 4 staff being laid off.  By this stage I had been working with the company for more than 14 years, and was 1 year off long service ( In Australia, permanent employees get 3 months paid leave when they reach 15 years of service with the same company, or pro-rata from 10 years).   I was on a first name basis with all the company directors and had actually been to most of their homes to set up their home computers.   

The HR department called a teleconference and we were informed that there would be cuts unless we could come up with alternate savings.  I will give credit where it is due, our department teamed together and came up with a scheme for us all to take a 10% cut if it would save our jobs.  However this was not enough saving for our company.  They decided to go ahead with the job cuts.  They told us it would be happening in the next month and completed by a certain date.

At this stage I could see the writing on the wall, and met with the IT manager.  I laid out my best guesses as to who he would be laying off and who he would be keeping.  (I was actually surprised how accurate it turned out to be).  One of the staff I could see being on the chopping block was me.  

So I said to him," I understand that I may be laid off so I am starting the job search now.  If I get an offer before the layoffs, would you use that to save the job of one of the other staffers?"    

His reply was that if I found a job before the layoffs, then  he would make sure my position was one of the ones in the layoff, with me getting the payout, rather than me resigning and just getting the outstanding leave entitlements.  

Over the next couple of weeks, a couple of staff were informed that they were to be terminated.  One was a part timer whose wife had a high paying Mining company job and a new baby, so he was ok with that  as he could become a full time house dad.  The next one was a project planner,  who was given a week to wind up his projects, and had a job lined up before he finished up. With the spending freeze, there wouldn't be any new projects anyway.  

Another was a staffer from one of our branch offices, who walked into a new job as soon as he was let go ( I suspect he had started looking as soon as the HR department teleconference finished.)   

Finally there was me.  I was escorted to the Boardroom and met by the HR manager and the IT manager, who read out a script announcing that I was to be let go. At that point both the HR manager and the IT manager burst into tears and I was in the strange position of reassuring them that I would be OK.   I was given a package outlining my entitlements and the termination cheque, then escorted back to empty my desk.   By midday I was riding my bike home.  About half way home, the shock hit me and I had to stop.  

This had been the first time I had ever been laid off and it was not an experience I enjoyed.  Like many people I defined myself by my work, and this felt like I was being told that I was worthless.  I had to tell myself that this was not the case, that to my family and friends I was much more than an employee, I was a husband, father, son, friend and that my work was just something that paid for us to have a good life.  

Obviously November 2011 was not a good time to be looking for work, but I threw myself into the task, making sure I first worked out what sort of organisation and technology I felt attracted to. I also made a point of checking our finances and evaluating how long we could last without me working.  It turned out that the payout I got ( including my pro-rata long service leave) meant that I could spend up to 6 months looking for work.  

I then submitted my resume to a number of IT recruiters and websites, to get my availability out there.  In 1 month I had a couple of acquaintances offer possible jobs (ie they liked my skill set but didn't have a role for me yet although they may have soon) but no formal job interviews.  Coming into Christmas, looking for work is not a good recipe for seasonal cheer. Then I managed to change my luck by taking a chance.

As a long term employee, I had not devoted a lot of time to updating my resume, so when I was laid off, I had to come up with one quickly.  To help me along, I had approached a local recruiter for an honest opinion on the one that I had created.  He asked me to take it and format it using the default resume templates in Microsoft Word and then give it to him.  He was so impressed that he took it to one of his clients and got me an interview.  From that interview, it was 1 month to being employed.  

I have now been employed for over 4 years with a company involved in the construction of the Gorgon Project.  The work is varied and interesting, and I occasionally get to go on board tugboats to sort out their IT issues.  I have also been to Barrow Island a few times and seen the Gorgon Project first hand.  However I am currently on the lookout for a new position, as my contract here finishes up in January.

Addendum:
Since this article was written, I have worked in a number of locations. The job I was in continued on for another year and I was laid off in January 2015.  Looking for work again was difficult but on the off chance that I could go back to work for the parent company I had just left, I applied for a role in their Perth office.  They didn't want me for that job but they did want me for my knowledge of the systems of the company they had just absorbed. Obviously they wanted me at rock bottom prices and I ended up working for a salary that was almost half my previous one. I have since left there and am working at a location that offers more autonomy and is willing to pay for experience.

Election 2016

Wow , what a rollercoaster ride!
Let me declare up front that I am neither a dedicated Labor follower, nor a blue died Liberal supporter, although I would say I am Left leaning. All of the below are my personal opinions and do not reflect any positions regarding any organisations or businesses that I may be associated with.

However, Malcolm Turnbull has only himself to blame for the outcome of this election.  Over the next few days, there will be a lot of soul-searching within the Liberal ranks and investigation in Labor as to why they were unable to convince more people to vote against the Libs.

The results show that, in many cases, local issues overrode the Federal imperatives.  The Tasmanian result is a direct result of the Tasmanian unhappiness with the performance of the State Liberal Government.and the Labor party would have done much better in Victoria if the State Labor government had settled the CFA dispute before the election.

The Medicare Scare campaign, whilst a dirty trick (and a particularly good example of The Big Lie), showed that the people of Australia are distrustful of politicians in general and particularly the Liberals.  What the Tony Abbott mistruths about Education and Health showed is that political expediency will always have negative results in the long run.  We can look at Julia Gillard ("There will be no Carbon Tax under my government") and see this from the Labor perspective.  What the Australian people are sick of is the continual Liberal whining that the Labor party out tricked them in the dirty tricks department. Instead of whining about the past, start talking about how this has made you aware that many people are unhappy with your performance and you will stop chopping services that affect the more vulnerable in our society in favour of targetting those in the higher income brackets who are blatantly not paying their fair share of taxes.  Remember that every dollar given to a welfare recipient is money spent in the economy as versus being added to the zeros on the end of a wealthy person's bank statement.                              

Simply stating that Medicare was safe and that it would never be privatised, contradicted what people could see when the Liberals convened a committee to investigate options.  Like Caesar's wife, the Libs had to be seen not only to be protecting Medicare, but to actively be trying to improve it.  Steps like removing bulk-billing for pathology and medical imaging looks an awful lot like trying to introduce privatisation.  So as much as Malcolm claimed that they would protect Medicare, the actions of chopping various services was enough to put a scare into people that this could happen.

Add this to Malcolm's sound bite saying that sometimes politicians have to change their position regarding promises and you start to see why many people did not trust the Liberals.

On the other hand, Bill Shorten and the Labor party were particularly noticeable in their lack of solid policy statements.  It was almost like they did not want to commit to anything that may come back to bite them after the election.  We've seen this happen in the past, for example Tony Abbott's scare campaign in the last federal election as opposition leader.  As Opposition leader, all he did was snipe at the incumbent government.    Obviously it is not the Opposition's task to suggest policy to Government, only to suggest holes in the proposed policies.  The Liberals took this a step further and used possible errors in policy as cheap point scoring opportunities and quite often stooped to personal insults.  Bill rarely stooped to this level and certainly appears to have "played the ball, not the man" on most issues of debate.

Much as I hate to say it, the politics of personality is still alive and well in Australia.  Malcolm Turnbull has learnt from many years as an investment banker and business person that many people respond well when you are welcoming and come offering something that they want.  What you as a business person have to ensure, is that any offer is deliverable and cost effective for your side of the equation as well.  That being said, Malcolm Turnbull appears to be a likable fellow but more like the bank manager than a mate from the footy club.

Bill Shorten on the other hand is hamstrung by his background in the Trade Union movement.  The Trade Unions for all their worthy origins, have become an obstruction in a lot of businesses and as their influence wanes, they get more strident in their demands, to prove to their membership that "they are still fighting for their brothers and sisters." Unions still have their place but they must remember that at the end of the day, their task is to ensure that their membership is able to work a decent day's work for a decent wage.   Whilst most businesses have no argument with reasonable demands, the Unions coming in like an Aussie tourist bartering in Bali with extremely outrageous offers, sets the wrong tone in any negotiation.  Add to this the illegal activities of some of the Trade Union  members and you start seeing that "if you throw enough mud, some of it will stick".  In this case Bill had been in the Royal commission hearings and so some of the issues that were raised in this stuck to the Labor party.  Bill also seems to be a fairly harmless sort, the sort of guy you would meet at a Rotary meeting or Lions Club.

In conclusion I think the result is a combination of factors, and we will see in the next few days how well Malcolm has learned to negotiate, as he tries to convince the independents to support his government.  I do not believe that the independents are going to be as powerful as they were in the previous government , but that may be because of Malcolm's negotiating skills.  The Independents appear conservative enough to lean towards the Libs rather than the ALP but at the end of the day, it will take a lot of the "politics of the possible" for the Libs to get their more contentious items through parliament.