Policy vacuum a recipe for disaster

from Michelle Grattan

IN MEETING its need to quickly boost its economic credibility by announcing savings, the Coalition has left a dangerous policy vacuum in an electorally sensitive area.

It is hacking at the Rudd-Gillard education revolution, proposing to end programs ranging from computers in schools to trade training, finding savings of more than $3 billion. There have been inefficiencies and delays in these schemes. But to say they will be scrapped without having replacements ready to announce is a recipe for political disaster. The opposition document says ''some'' of the savings would be offset by cheaper, better alternatives. Shadow minister for finance and debt reduction Andrew Robb suggested certain programs might cost even more than those they supplanted. Meanwhile, the government and the education lobby will raise merry hell, and parents will be left wondering.

Here's another example of the opposition not having its act together. It's a variation - less dramatic but potentially as damaging - of what happened when Tony Abbott pledged no tax rises then said he needed one to pay for parental leave.

 

From Miranda-land

In 7.30 Report-land, what Tony Abbott told Kerry O'Brien becomes a lie. But there is a difference between lying deliberately to evade detection for wrongdoing or to trick someone into doing something they wouldn't otherwise do, and making a promise you later find yourself unable to live up to. Kevin Rudd's dumping of the ETS wasn't a lie, for instance.

...

Abbott has shown repeatedly that no one can beat him for judgment, taste and logical grasp of an argument. He has cut through the white noise of Rudd's leadership voodoo and shredded the Prime Minister's record popularity. He has shown he has the courage and intellect to be not just a good opposition leader, but a great prime minister.

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Gus: ahem... Dear Miranda... You can't be serious! Your praise of Tony smells fishy like an overused sanitary pad! OOOPs.... Sorry, so sorry... I know I've gone too far! My apologies for using a garbage-collector's methaphore... Tony? A great PM? Ya gotta be kiddin"! Tony sunk the ETS. Not Rudd — and the ETS is not "dumped". That's a big lie from Miranda-land. The ETS is simmering on the back burner. No point putting the ETS back on the front of the stove till Tony is kicked out of the kitchen, where he is making a big mess, claiming to be a masterchef... He can't even make a simple sauce and there is porkies in it... 

from Crikey .....

The battle of the incompetents: Hockey's up for the fight

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

BUDGET 2010, JOE HOCKEY, KEN HENRY

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

This year's election seems to be shaping up as a battle of the incompetent. Just when Kevin Rudd and his team seemed to be finding ways to trip up over absolutely everything in their path, along comes Tony Abbott, demanding that everyone look at him while he blows his own foot off. Then, yesterday, Joe Hockey found three ways to distract everyone from the message about economic credibility he was trying to get across.

That one of those distractions was intended to actually prevent everyone from being distracted made the whole business comical. It was ridiculously unnecessary and meant what was a solid and interesting Budget reply got lost due to journalistic noses being out of joint.

Not providing the Coalition's savings to journalists made sense given Hockey wanted everyone to focus on his economic reform message. But it was never going to pass muster with the assembled hacks, especially given Abbott had made such a point last week of saying Hockey would be delivering the detail in his speech. The 'pass the parcel' comments began circulating on Twitter almost as soon as it became apparent Hockey had flicked the task of handing out the cuts to Andrew Robb.

Annoying newspaper journalists is one thing -- they can only vent their frustrations by text. When I saw Seven's Mark Riley shaking his head and Paul Bongiorno rising to ask whether this was exactly the sort of spinning of which the Coalition accused Labor, it became clear the evening news bulletins were going to be as much as about Hockey's clumsy media management as about his Budget reply. Riley's confrontation with Hockey outside the Press Club, where Hockey turned and walked off, looked very bad.

So unnecessary. So Hockey avoided a few questions about cuts in the Q&A. He traded it for barbs like he got from Andrew Probyn.

Still, it's not exactly up there with admitting you make stuff up when you feel the heat from journalists, or back-flipping on the great moral challenge of our time. It was a silly mistake, one Hockey acknowledged last night, but we should all move on.

Hockey's next error was to allow himself to be lured into speculating about Treasury secretary Ken Henry's future. Henry's current appointment expires in April next year. Hockey refused to back him yesterday, giving a clear indication Henry would be out the door in the early months of a Coalition government.

Despite Henry being appointed and reappointed by Howard and Costello, the Coalition hates him with a passion. Only Martin Parkinson at Climate Change gets them angrier. It's not so much for what he's done -- apart from embarrass Coalition senators at Estimates -- as for the fact the prime minister and treasurer have clung tightly to him, making him their shield for so much of their response to the GFC. Forgotten is that Henry was their man for years; now he's Labor's and he's for it if they get the chance.

It's a tribal thing. This is the mob that was so determined to target the public service heads they perceived to be their enemies in 1996 they fired one by mistake and didn't care. But there was no need for Hockey to give the game away this early. It would have been perfectly justifiable to say that speculating about what would happen several months into a Coalition government was a bit presumptuous.

Then there was the silly effort to puff up the savings figure by throwing in everything regardless of whether it was an actual saving or not. Hockey was speaking of a $46.7 billion figure in his speech. Sounded impressive, until we got the figures afterward and saw that they'd included not proceeding with the NBN and selling Medibank (this will be the third election the Coalition has gone to promising to sell Medibank) -- that's $22 billion -- and they'd included $11 billion of "savings" from RSPT-related expenditures like the 2% corporate tax cut.

Worse, a number of savings had been asterisked to indicate the savings would offset the Coalition's own, similar programs, which might actually involve greater expenditure.

The actual savings figure, in the end, was around $5 billion. Robb coped a hammering from journalists over the numbers in his press conference, which at times threatened to get out of control. But Robb managed to hang on, repeatedly coming back to his line about the need to end Labor's profligacy. Out of the Coalition's economic leadership trio, Robb's the bloke you'd want on your side when things get ugly.

And it could have been much worse. If Barnaby Joyce had been giving that press conference, it would have turned into a circus.

 

Murdoch and the Mining Companies Target Rudd Government The Battle for Australia's Wealth

By BRIAN McKINLAY

Australia, sometimes dubbed “the Lucky Country,” is now the scene of a mounting and increasingly acrimonious struggle over a proposed new tax of 40% on the profits of the major international mining companies.

Australia had for some time seemed to be living inside a charmed circle, as the waves of the global financial crisis battered less fortunate lands.

This was primarily due to two factors. It has been the main supplier of mineral resources needed for the  Chinese economic “miracle”--that miracle has been made from Australian iron ore and  fired by Australian coal and gas, of which "The Lucky Country" has vast reserves. These reserves are serviced by a transport and maritime infrastructure largely made by Australian governments, but which make extraction easy and relative inexpensive to operate, and  by Australia's proximity to those nations involved in the Asian economic  boom.

Add to that the generous subsidies given by the government to the miners....and you have a paradise for the multinational companies.

As the Global Financial Crisis has unfolded the Chinese demand for Australian resources has continued, making Australia the sole OECD nation to have escaped the global recession, and the only place on the planet where unemployment has actually declined.

Add to this the fact that the Rudd Labor Government has followed a stimulus program which the OECD has actually praised and by an outpouring of money to many projects has been able to ensure a quite remarkable degree of prosperity--so much so that many Australians seem blithely unaware of just how bad things are elsewhere. But then there is a word for people who live on an island: “insular!”

But a month ago this tranquility was rudely shattered when PM Rudd announced a 40% Tax on the profits of mining companies operating in Australia to help fund initiatives in health and education.

Rudd, anything but a radical, has led a fairly timid Labor Government since 2007,  but has   now  aroused the right-wing parties to a frenzy, assisted and abetted by the mining companies, who  talk as if they are merely charitable organizations, working to help orphans and widows and who are being set-upon by a ruthless leftist regime. Shades  of Venezuela!!

Newspaper advertisements and a new TV-Radio campaign by the miners seek to depict Rudd and his Government as bandits and wreckers.

The wealthiest man in Australia, a mining magnet named Andrew Forrest, talks of sacking thousands of mine workers, and has produced a document saying that his Chinese customers are deeply worried by the planned tax. At the same time a Conservative Canadian minister has been persuaded to offer the miners a better deal in Canada 
               
There is talk of a strike of capital (shades of Allende's Chile) and of general economic ruin and now the Conservative National Party Leader Barnaby Joyce, long known for his hysterical hyperbole, has compared  PM Rudd to Hugo Chavez, complete with pictures from Caracas to drive home the point.

Chavez and the mild-mannered ex-diplomat Rudd would make a very odd couple!
One waits for the Joyce to introduce Castro/Qadaffi and perhaps Lenin into the debate!

Indeed there is a curious parallel here with events elsewhere,

Australia, is one of the world wealthiest countries--10th on a recent OECD listing--but has in common with many countries in the Third World the fact that it's prosperity is founded in part on great resource wealth. So it is has more in common with counties like Bolivia and Venezuela and nations in the Middle East in regards  to the importance of getting its fair share of the  wealth derived from those  extractive industries.

The conservative parties, led in recent months by a hard-line right-winger and former Howard Government official, Tony Abbott, have risen  in outrage to defend the largely foreign-owned mining companies, and Rudd and his ministers have responded in  what is now a bitter and increasingly class-based debate with much being said about the need to see that these Australian resources  are used to benefit  the  Australian people...Hugo Chavez would love it!

Suddenly Rudd is seen  in a new light and his supporters are rallying notably in the trade  union movement.

With elections due later this year the battle is one for the survival of the Rudd government

In this battle the Murdoch press has a played a major role for the Mining Lobby. Murdoch owns  dailies in most Australian cities and the national newspaper"The Australian" always a harsh critic of Rudd has been even more shrill and  extreme than usual..

Murdoch seems  determined to bring Rudd down and no statement seems too extreme or outlandish, including  a campaign to say that Rudd might be challenged from inside the Labor Party by his Deputy Julia Gillard, a claim without a shred of evidence,

Gillard had ridiculed this suggestion, and coming from one who has been identified with the Labor Left, her indignation seems more than justified, as her loyalty to Rudd is unquestioned.

Suddenly a shrill and bitter note disturbs the air of a nation where enjoyment of it's economic good fortune has been taken for granted

When the national parliament resumes, the debate will take on a new urgency, for no one doubts now that Rudd's critics a determined to destroy his Government.

Brian McKinlay is the author of a number of books on Australian History, notably on the Labor Movement, and writes and comments on Politics in the Australian media, including commentaries on Radio 3CR Melbourne 

COMMENT:  This person’s interpretation of what is happening to the once “Lucky Country” is undeniable and a warning against the extreme right Murdoch and co., again abusing his position of power to remove a Government of the people, by the people and for the people.  In lieu, he demands of us to give his Corporations the nation by getting the Corporation’s extreme right Liberal party led by the Mad Monk.

God Bless Australia and may the Australian people throw off the yoke of the dishonest and foreign owned media.  They, along with their disgusting allies, the Abbott/Bishop rabble, have only one object in mind and that is to claw back the control of our nation until our resources and public assets are exhausted. 

 

 

A good start after that headline would be to further demonstrate the "no holds barred" gutter tactics of lies and misinformation by the declared enemies of our Federal Government and therefore, every Australian voter.  When war is declared, the Government of the Nation targetted used to be informed - now, the US/UK/Jewish alliance, does it without any niceties at all.  So, it's on!

From The Australian tabloid today - with my emphasis added.....

TREASURY secretary Ken Henry has rubbished Tony Abbott's claims that the government's mining super profits tax would raise the cost of living.

Asked about the Opposition leader's claim that the tax would hit the cost of living, Dr Henry said he had learned in high school that a “profits-based tax should not affect prices.”  “Prices should not be affected,” he said.

He also said the mining industry had actually experienced quite a deep recession, undermining claims it had saved the nation from the global financial crisis.

“I've heard it said on a number of occasions, in fact I have lost count, that the mining industry saved Australia from recession,” Dr Henry told the hearing.

“These statements are not supported by the facts.”

In fact, he said, the mining industry had shed 15 per cent of jobs in the wake of the GFC.

“Had every industry in Australia behaved in the same way our unemployment would increase from 4.6 per cent to 19 per cent in six months,” he said. 

COMMENT:  To find any writer employed by the "Murdochracy" to report even this much of an expert’s evaluation, especially when it is contrary to the Corporation’s lies, must be as rare as rocking horse poop.

Perhaps readers of the Murdoch garbage newspapers must be starting to wake up to his absolute power; with his absolute corruption of truth, and for the express purpose of removing our Federal Government for one controlled by the Corporations and their Liberal/National representatives.

Why? Because it is becoming obvious that the Rudd government will not bend their knees to the US/Jewish alliance.  That’s why I believe that Kevin Rudd has no option other than to go ahead with his plans to begin reforming an outdated tax system. Conversely, Abbott now has to depend on the Corporations of foreign interests and the "multi-passport" Murdoch to drag him and his "slightly off balance deputy", out of the mess they continue building for themselves.

Rudd is our Prime Minister and the Corporations can pick up and leave any time they like and then, due to the massive advantages the whinging foreign Miners are receiving; we will have the opportunity at last to “Buy back the Farm”.

God Bless Australia and open the eyes of all Australians to the ramifications we would suffer IF the Corporation’s have their Liberal/National Representatives in Government. NE OUBLIE.

 

 

Don't bother about arguing that Howard lied continuously; that he abused his government's massive spending on corporate advertising with taxpayer's money and that he was able to do that because he kissed the bum of the rich and powerful Jewish/American Murdoch. 

This forum is the only place that you will have the opportunity to read the truth until the Australian Government meets fire with fire against the Coalition of foreigners and constitutionally defends all Australians and the working families of our middle and lower class who Labor has represented so well.

Now the Liberals under the Mad Monk, a person who has no idea of economic matters and who has back flipped and changed direction and made cardinal errors in every area of National Interests, (far more in months than Rudd has in years) is the “chosen one” to lead the Corporation’s government if we fall for the same lying media cons as in 1996.

The Coalition that the Rudd Government has to fight on our behalf is the foreign Miners/foreign Media/foreign Corporations/the Liberals and the Nationals and is a bigger threat to Australia’s independence than even Howard was.  In fact, Australians are facing their biggest threat of a sinister take-over by foreign interests since World War II.  And so far with all methods of information being controlled and bastardized by that infamous Coalition.

It is against all principles of freedom and democracy for a nation’s elected Government to be blackmailed and have its very existence threatened by people who have not been elected or even sworn allegiance to our nation per se.

However, the lingering truths of the Foreign Miner’s Revolution against the Australian democratic government, has been manipulated - by the infamous Frank Packer methods - into a charade of bits and pieces of misinformation which have been quickly lumped together to hide the major  issue of this election - which really is a form of sedition.

This all out war of vested interests to take-over the Australian government from the Australian people is just that – a class war by foreign Miners who will use their billions of dollars to keep up the misinformation through what they euphemistically call Coalition ads?

I applaud our Rudd/Gillard/Swan/Tanner government for its economic stimulus that saved tens of thousands of jobs and kept us out of recession and is still the envy of every industrialized country.  This while the foreign miners making billions out of Australia, sacked 15% of their Australian employees, and made their own recession.  (Tax dodge?)

How can our people of all walks of life even listen to these exploiters? This is a war of the worst kind. This War is about the Mining Industry avoiding paying a fair tax to the Australian Government (and therefore ALL Australians) by openly defying all laws of political decorum by funding the aspirations of what was once called an alternative government to prosecute their anti-Australian intentions.

To me as a returned serviceman that is tantamount to Civil War.

Support our elected Government in this seditious war because any other result will mean we have been subjugated by foreigners without even having a voice to defend ourselves.

The Rudd government believes that we are worthwhile defending and I support them entirely.  I do not want my country to be controlled by slobs that I didn't even have opportunity to vote for or against.

God Bless Australia and think; reason and be logical.  These Coalition forces are NOT a charity.  NE OUBLIE.

 

 

What a filthy war this will be?  As an agnostic and an older Australian, I would like to believe that the Australian people in general can read between the lines of captive and corrupt reporting - at least I hope so.

This is not an interpretation but a fact.  The Corporation's Coalition in Parliament has for weeks and perhaps months, tried to conjure up some “criminal activity” by the "up front" Labor Government and it was equally obvious that they thought the best play was to defend the foreign Miners against our elected government simply because is had traction in the foreign media.

If any of our readers watched the last issue of "Question Time" on the ABC yesterday, it was very obvious that the Corporation's Coalition had suddenly changed direction and started peppering away at the many isolated and irrelevant issues of the dead yesterdays.

Why?  To my mind, by “The Coalition” fast becoming the factual name of the Corporations opposing our elected government, as I have mentioned, is a very powerful “Coalition” of Mining Corporations/media Corporations/Liberal and National puppets thereto and is more of a threat to Australia’s independence than was the Howard/Bush/Blair axis of evil.

We Australians cannot defend our elected government by joining the military, nor can we use the wealth that the Corporations have crafted from our national assets to dictate who will govern our country – but they can. We do not want the traitorous behavior of the Corporation’s Coalition in Parliament to cause our citizens to be forced into costly demonstrations and unruly behavior like the subjugated people of India/Pakistan/Thailand and Greece just to mention a few.

Let’s be fair dinkum.  Does anyone truly believe that this is about bad government? Or is it about removing a government of the people and for the people before they become a password for elections being a well informed  freedom of choice.  Murdoch has long ago learned that if you control the information then you control the people.

God Bless Australia and try hard to save our independence from the extreme right forces of fascism.  NE OUBLIE.  

 

Even if you think you know the “Chindia” story, odds are you don't really know the Chindia story. And if you're still caught up in China “housing bubble” and US-consumer-dependency yarns, you're blinded by Western conceit and actually don't have a clue.

To put it simply in Bachman Turner Overdrive's 1974 words, baby, you just ain't seen nothin' yet.

That's been rammed home by four serendipitous speeches and papers in the past week, each reinforcing the other. They started with an article on Indian economic change in the RBA Bulletin, expanded by RBA assistant governor Philip Lowe's NatStats paper on the development of Asia and was rounded off last night at an Investec clients briefing with speeches by visiting Investec Asset Management strategist Michael Power and BHP's former China senior executive, Clinton Dines.

Combine those four and what emerges very clearly is that this week's or month's or year's passing concerns about whether China is growing at 8 or 11 per cent are irrelevant. As Dr Power frames it, China is just finishing its labour-intensive growth phase and starting its capital-intensive phase while India is about to enter labour-intensive growth. Never mind the boom that's already occurred, look to what is coming...

http://www.smh.com.au/business/chindia--you-aint-seen-nuthin-yet-20100923-15o2v.html

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Since the inception of this site, I've been saying that China will be number one soon... ten years ago, I betted on 2015, but it could be as soon as 2012... But what's 3 years between friends. India despite its massive poverty and dubious commonwealth games venue is catching up and may overtake the US by 2025... For us oldies it sounds bloody far but it's only two to five years for China and about 15 for India... Meanwhile as a "small" country, Australia will play with whomever...

 

CALLS by retailers and the Productivity Commission for the renewed deregulation of the industrial relations system have been endorsed by the Coalition, creating the potential for another Work Choices-style brawl.

The opposition workplace relations spokesman, Eric Abetz, called yesterday for the government to bring forward a review of its Fair Work Act that is scheduled for next year after the Productivity Commission called on the government to address workplace concerns when it conducts the review.

The shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, said greater wages flexibility was needed.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/coalition-joins-push-for-workplace-shakeup-20110805-1ifbv.html#ixzz1UKJHoqMz