Descending Into Farce

[tcpip]

During this election campaign the LNP coalition has avoided the recommendations of the Charter of Budget Honesty (legislation passed by the previous conservative government) of having costings conducted by Treasury. Instead they had the costings conducted by an unnamed private third party, who apparently know more about the Australian economy than the Department of Treasury and Finance. Yesterday, at 3pm they claimed all would be revealed. With a big media conference planned, the sycophants lined up eagerly. But there was no spokesorc there - delayed until 3.30 apparently. Then 4.00pm, then 4.30 and finally at 4.45pm Andrew Robb and Joe Hockey, the Laurel and Hardy of financial management, finally made their announcements albeit not before some major media had decided to run their news with an empty stage. The firm which did their costings was a Liberal Party family firm, Horwath (not Hogwarts, although vey close) simply crunching the numbers given to them and came out with a bigger future budget surplus than the government. This of course includes such brilliant policies as cutting PBS medicines to the tune of 1.1 billion, and a ridiculous "Stop the Boats Dividend" of 250 million, and with an education tax refund error of 350 million immediately picked up. Most of the claimed savings will come scrapping the National Broadband Network, sacking public servants, and cutting into the "contingency reserve", used for emergency expenses. Clearly this is a forward thinking plan.

In comparison, 50 prominent economists have published an open letter, where they "are convinced by the evidence that the coordinated policies of the Australian Labor Government have prevented the Australian economy from a deep recession and prevented a massive increase in unemployment", not to mention avoiding a shortfall in public income. Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank, praised the government for managing to steer a path through through the global financial crisis, with strong unemployment, low inflation and very low public debt (about 6 per cent of GDP, compared with 40 to 120 per cent in other OECD countries). As Ross Gittens points out; yes, there was some waste. Engaging in a rapid stimulus expenditure meant that some is inevitable. But these amounts are utterly trivial compared to the waste of widespread unemployment and economic depression which threatened us; the BER program, for example, has been an overwhelming success.

As with any election campaign, there are many issues of relative importance. But when it come to the country's economic management and infrastructure future, which I consider to be a very high priority, we have a clear choice. Utterly farcical nonsense from the Coalition, or skillful management from Labor.

Comments

[discordia13.livejournal.com]

And it's sad to think that if the Liberals do get into power again, they will just do what they did last time (and at the state election as well).

"oh, Labor left the economy in such a bad state, we have found all of these hidden holes in the budget, we can not possibly fund the election promises because the Labor run treasury lied to us."

[lifedistilled.livejournal.com]

I've made several friends in Australia in the last few years, and have come to care more and more about how her politics are run. Posts like this are extremely enlightening, and I appreciate you taking the time to write them.

[angel80.livejournal.com]

Last night Julia had the last word for a change and the exit poll reversed the results of the Rooty Hill fiasco. On everything else I've heard they've given the Prize Idiot the last word.

[zey.livejournal.com]

Yep. Sadly it seems a vicious cycle. Every time the ALP moves rightward to become nearly indistinguishable photocopies of the Coalition, the Coalition takes a running leap further to the right, into space previously considered unthinkable.

Absolutely, we should vote against Abbott this election. I won't be surprised when this lot becomes ALP policy in an election to come after though :(

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

In the SMH article, we have "Horwath costed the policies of the West Australian Liberal Party during its successful run for office in 2008".

So, why does that statement appear to be used as an assertion of bias? I find it frustrating that both sides simply make totally unsubstantiated bluster about whether Horwath is utterly trustworthy or biased beyond all doubt. It's all meaningless twaddle based on inherent prejudice one way or another.

Surely, a rational starting point for a benchmark on the company's performance in such a task would be how accurate their costings for WA were?

[nvcarnie.livejournal.com]

My brain hurts just a little - but I think I agree with all of this, after two close readings. However, it seems the rapid stimulus might have had a stronger impact in Australia than here, where we're still facing close to 10% unemployment and despite the 'rebounding' economy, I'm convinced a second recession is close on our heels. I hope I get proved wrong. And our debt is unmanageable already.