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Descending Into Farce
Aug. 19th, 2010 09:20 amDuring 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.
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.