The 44th: Where are the Real Solutions?

Tony Abbott has always been a curious character in Australian politics. He was effective as a minister in John Howard’s government, and triumphant as Opposition Leader because he has the political instincts of a cornered Rottweiler.

As Prime Minister, we are yet to see if he can deal with the actuality of governing.

Remember the ubiquitous Liberal pamphlet entitled Real Solutions for all Australians? Remember the slightly vague policies that were released as little more than handy slogans, and were rarely discussed in any detail.

The contents of the pamphlet were the Liberal Party’s election manifesto – their handbook to winning, their campaign talking points and their promise to Australian voters.

Here, in these pages, is the stronger Australia – a truly 21^st Century Australia – that the next Coalition Government will build.

I didn't keep my copy of the Liberal pamphlet, but due to a catastrophic lack of trust in the Liberal Party, I kept a soft copy, complete with those juicy little talking-point-sized “policy priorities”. As we approach Treasurer Hockey’s first budget, seems as good a time as any to revisit the Liberal’s Real Solutions for all Australians, and see what progress is being made against the areas that the Coalition identified as their priorities for government.

1  1. We will build a stronger, more productive and diverse economy with lower taxes, more efficient government and more productive businesses that will deliver more jobs, higher real incomes and better services for you and your family.

The Reality

This statement is an equivocal catchall, with plenty of vague concepts that make the feel warm and fuzzy about life with a Liberal-Coalition government. Even if people were to read no further, this statement is positive and comforting. Post-election, the reality looks less certain.

•  Taxes are unlikely to be lowered as the debt has doubled since the election.
• Unemployment for March 2014 is at 6.0%, 0.2% higher than when the Coalition Government won office in September 2013. The unemployment rate in January was the higher than at any time during the Rudd-Gillard years, which included the GFC.
• The average adult wage for the September 2013 quarter was $1420.90. Childcare and Aged Care workers had their pay rises revoked.
• Better services is a subjective measure. The following changes have been made to services provided by the federal government:

o   Compensation to victims of bushfires has been reduced

o   Twelve advisory groups abolished

o   Medicare offices on are now closed on Saturdays

o   The Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia has been axed

o   The Multicultural Communities Programme has been axed

o   Funding for the Indigenous Legal Services has been reduced

o   The Public Interest Advocacy Centre has been defunded

o   The Food Grants programme for small farmers has been axed

o   The tiny welfare payment to orphans of ADF members has been discontinued

        2. We will get the budget back under control, cut waste and start reducing debt – to keep interest rates low as possible and to protect the Australian economy from future economic shocks.

The Reality

This statement is predicated on the assumption that the budget was out of control – an assumption not shared by the IMF, the three major credit ratings agencies and the rest of an envious world. The reality of a healthy economy makes this Liberal objective redundant. Despite that, the Abbott Government and Treasurer Joe Hockey have succeeded in reversing the situation, leaving room for improvement where little opportunity existed before.

• According to the Australian Financial Review, “Australia has posted the fastest budget deterioration over the past six months of any of the world’s 29 most advanced economies tracked by the International Monetary Fund”. This would indicate that the budget is out of Joe Hockey’s  control 
• Mr Hockey has effectively doubled the budget deficit, adding $68 billion over the forward estimates in MYEFO
• 300 jobs from the Department of Treasury have been cut along with thousands from other departments
• According to the Government, it’s all Labor’s fault

3. We will help families to get ahead by freeing them from the burdens of the carbon tax - to protect Australian jobs and reduce cost-of-living pressures, especially rising electricity prices and gas prices.

The Reality

The Carbon Tax has not been repealed, and will not be repealed until the new Senate is sworn in in July. Even then, it’s not a certainty, although with the Palmer United Party holding the balance of power in the Senate, it does look likely.

• The Government has also introduced legislation to allow employers to pay junior wages – half the minimum wage, to workers under 25. This may encourage some employers to employ more people, but younger workers will find it impossible to live on half the minimum wage, so cost of living pressures will be insurmountable for those under 25.
• The Home Energy Saver Scheme, which helped low income households to reduce their energy consumption and hence electricity bills, has been axed.
• There doesn’t seem to be any provision for the instance where removing the Carbon Tax does not reduce electricity prices – and there’s absolutely no guarantee that it will.

    4. We will help small businesses grow and create more jobs – by reducing business costs and cutting red and green tape costs by $1 billion every year.

The Reality

The entire Australian economy is now under more pressure than it was at any time under the previous Labor government, including during the GFC. Businesses of all sizes are suffering. At this time, there have been no specific measures to support SMEs, aside from the following changes

• Tax arrangements for small businesses were amended, effective January 1 2014. 
• The government has introduced Repeal Days, an initiative with it’s own website dedicated to the red tape being cut.

On Wednesday 19 March, following a statement by the Prime Minister, the Government introduced legislation and tabled documents to repeal more than 10,000 pieces and more than 50,000 pages of legislation and regulations and save over $700 million of compliance costs from across the economy. 

This is a significant move, yet the bulk of deregulation initiatives are unrelated to small business.

Another move which may assist small businesses to employ more workers, but is more likely to be an ideological war waged for political gain, is the government’s relentless pursuit of unions.

• Established a Royal Commission into Unions
• Stated that SPC Ardmona workers were receiving favourable conditions – this was later proven to be false
• Tried to strong-arm SPC-Ardmona into cutting the “excessive” wages and benefits of its employees
• Blamed the unions for Toyota’s  decision to pull out of Australia, despite Toyota denying that workers’ wages were a consideration
• Decreased the wages of Australian troops deployed overseas by almost $20 000 per solider
• Re-established the controversial Australian Building and Construction Commission

     5. We will create stronger jobs growth by building a diverse, world-class 5-Pillar economy – by building on our strengths in Manufacturing Innovation, Advanced Services, Agriculture Exports, world-class Education and Research, as well as boosting mining exports.

The Reality

Four of the five pillars of the Liberal’s economy - Manufacturing Innovation, Advanced Services, world-class Education and Research - have been disadvantaged, with the following actions blatantly limiting the government support that these pillars would receive. The concepts of innovation, advancement and research in every area are being challenged, and the government’s approach to education is in disarray.

• The 44^th Parliament does not include a Minister for Science
• The 44^th Parliament does not include a Minister for Innovation
• 600 jobs have been cut across Australia’s peak scientific body, the CSIRO
• Axed 400 jobs at the Industry department

The Prime Minister’s recent Asian tour has resulted in a number of Free Trade Agreements. The National Farmers’ Federation is less than enthusiastic about these agreements, particularly on the key FTA with Japan, which is strong in the upmarket areas of beef, seafood and wine experts, but falls short in other areas. The Sydney Morning Herald reported 

"The agreement does not improve – or marginally improves – market access and terms of trade for a number of sectors such as dairy, sugar, grains, pork and rice," National Farmers Federation president Brett Finlay said.

    6. We will generate one million new jobs over the next five years and two million new jobs within a decade by growing a bigger, more productive and prosperous economy.

     The Reality

    Former American Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney might take issue with this: he believes that jobs are created by the private sector. Nevertheless, let’s assume the Liberals were thinking about generating the conditions to support creation of new jobs and assess progress towards this priority on that basis.

    Unemployment figures released in February 2014 placed Australia’s unemployment rate at its highest point in the last ten years. In fairness, the Abbott government has moved to make it easier for businesses to employ more young staff, by

• Placed penalty rates and other Award conditions in doubt in the government’s submission to the Fair Work Commission’s review of all Awards
• Introduced legislation to allow employers to pay juniors (under 25) as little as half the minimum wage
• Introduced legislation to remove the responsibility of employers to protect rights of younger workers to access basic workplace health and safety provisions 

Aside from winding back workers’ wages and conditions to favour employers, it is difficult to see how the government plans to support the creation of any jobs at all, based on their actions since the election. With unemployment not falling, little effort to support small and new business, and the government's willingness to see significant Australian employers cut jobs, there is little good news.

   

    Terry McCrann, writing for NewsLimited, suggested this alternate reality: 

    There are two broad ways of looking at this. There’s the positive — perhaps, insanely optimistic — way. We are closing down the industries where we simply can’t compete with low-cost Asia.   They’ll be replaced by 21st century hi-tech industries more generally, with growth in areas, more specifically, like professional services, health and education services. 

But the development of those hi-tech industries is not being supported by the government, so it appears that Terry McCrann’s less optimistic future may be more likely:

    The negative way to see this, is Australia becoming China’s quarry, surrounded by very expensive real estate — much of it owned by high-achieving both non-resident Chinese and Australians of Chinese heritage — and producing very little of much else.

           

     7. We will build more modern infrastructure to get things moving – with an emphasis on reducing the bottlenecks in our gridlocked roads and highways.

The Reality

Were it not for last week’s announcement about Sydney’s second airport at Badgery’s Creek, it would be fair to assume that infrastructure chapter had been ripped out of the pamphlet and thrown to the four winds. Having said that, a new airport in Sydney’s west will do little to address the bottlenecks on Sydney’s roads.

In fairness, achievement in infrastructure is rarely fast. The ribbon cutting ceremonies attended by Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss have been for projects commenced under the previous Labor government. New projects which Mr Truss has announced are years from completion, and the High Speed Rail Advisory Group has been disbanded.

The key piece of infrastructure available for delivery under this government is the National Broadband Network, which has been scaled back to a B-grade facsimile of what is needed.

    8. We will deliver better services including health services – by putting local communities in charge of hospitals and improving co-operation with the States and Territories.

The Reality

Presiding over health services has become an unfathomable tug-o-war between state government, federal government, the AMA and private corporations in the health arena. Undeniably, health care in Australia is becoming more expensive for consumers. Whether restructuring the provision of services to put locals in charge of hospitals is debatable; all the Abbott Government has achieved in the health services space is a few token manoeuvres.

• Threatens to impose a $6 Medicare Co-payment
• Cut $150m out of the health budget
• Cut the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council
• Cuts the website providing information on the ingredients and nutritional content of foods
• Announced a plan to decommission the GP Superclinics
• Closes Medicare offices on Saturdays
• Approves private health fund premium increases of an average 6.2% a year

     9. We will deliver better education – by putting local communities in charge of improving the performance of local schools.

    The Reality

    One of the major achievements of the Rudd-Gillard administration was the delivery of the report into the funding of education – the Gonski Report. In contrast, one of the more entertaining performances of the Abbott Government so far has been their triple somersault with full cowardly pike over the Gonski Reforms.

    Bernard Keane described the endof Christopher Pyne’s gymnastic routine in Crikey:

    Now, with Pyne’s third backflip yesterday, at the instruction of his Prime Minister, there’s no funding model of any kind. States can direct the additional funding (for four years) wherever they like — which allowed Pyne to partially restore the promise about individual schools to say they wouldn’t be worse off “as a result of Commonwealth actions”. But there’s no requirement on the states to adhere to the needs-based funding model developed by the Gonski panel — a state could direct all the additional funding to wealthy private schools if it so desired.

10.   We will take direct action to reduce carbon emissions inside   Australia, not overseas – and also establish a 15,000-strong Green Army to clean up the environment.

The Reality

Speaking of backflips, Tony has donned the sequinned lycra to reverse his crappy 2009 position on climate change. While maintaining vehement objection to the Carbon Tax – which he also used to support – the Prime Minister’s attitude to climate change and the environment suggest a quiet return to his original position, where climate change was crap and all was good in the world. 

             

Issues loosely described as green have attracted much government attention in the seven months since the election

• Abolished the Ministry of Climate Change
• Abolished the Climate Commission
• Denied any link between bushfires and climate change
• Approves the largest coal port in the world to be established on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area
• Dumped the Murray Darling Basin area from the list of Critically Endangered habitats
• Axed the COAG Standing Council on Environment and Water
• Moves to remove the Tasmanian forests’ World Heritage listing to allow logging to commence
• Changes national environment laws to allow WA to enact their infamous Shark Cull
• Announces a review into Australia’s Renewable Energy Target, to be headed by Dick Warburton – who admits to not believing that excess carbon dioxide is causing global warming 
• Blamed the Carbon Tax for the closing of Alcoa smelters, despite Alcoa denying that it was a factor. 
• Axes 480 jobs from the Environment Department
• Moved final authority on some  environmental issues from federal to state level, downgrading their value and allowing for inconsistencies across the country
• The Green Army will not be administered by the government, but will be sent out to tender 

    11.   We will deliver strong borders – where the boats are stopped – with tough and proven measures.

The Reality

The single most memorable quote from the last two Liberal election campaigns is the sound of Tony Abbott promising to Stop the Boats. Of course, this priority is open to interpretation. Clearly, the Liberal Party’s goal was to stop asylum seeker boats from reaching Australian waters – and that, they have done. Whether it’s permanent stop is yet to be seen.

Unfortunately, their solution has been messy, diplomatically fraught, the subject of deliberate obfuscation, and has included undermining the objectivity of our military forces and has resulted in one death, countless injuries and the abandonment of our own humanity.

The Abbott Government’s response to the ‘problem’ of asylum seekers has centred on Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB), yet has spread far beyond a border protection operation. The Government has:

• Instructed public servants and detention centre staff to call asylum seekers “illegals” despite this being legally incorrect
• Provided free of charge, two navy patrol boats to the Sri Lankan government to stop asylum seekers fleeing the same government that now owns the boats
• Turned boats back to Indonesia using military intimidation
• Offloaded asylum seekers from their boats into substandard (orange) “life boats” and towed them into Indonesian waters
•  Violated Indonesia’s sovereign waters multiple times while on Operation Sovereign Borders activities
• Shuffled existing refugees who arrived by boat to the bottom of the priority list for family reunion status
• Twice tried to reintroduce temporary visas for asylum seekers who have been found to be genuine refugees fleeing persecution
• Twice tried to introduce retrospective TPVs to apply to over 20,000 refugees already in Australia
• Sent unaccompanied minors to offshore detention centres
• Prevented the UN from inspecting the Australian run detention centre on Nauru
• Endangered around 10, 000 asylum seekers and their families by releasing their personal details on the Department of Immigration website
• Failed to provide safe haven for asylum seekers on Manus Island
• Provided incorrect information to the Australian media regarding the Manus Island riots in February, and failed to correct it for several days
• Discontinued the tradition of free legal aid for asylum seekers

     12.   We will deliver strong and stable government that restores accountability – to deliver a better future for all Australians.

The Reality

The Abbott Government is hardly a model for strength, stability, accountability, or for that matter, transparency (which wasn’t promised, but should’ve been!)…although they have proved themselves adept at obstinacy, uncertainty, indictment, ambiguity and clarity.

Consider these events:

• Indonesia characterised Australia as a threat after repeated diplomatic miscalculations by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Immigration Minister Scott Morrison
• Recent opinion polls have shown support for the government falling to a level where they would likely lose the next federal election
• Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos has appeared before ICAC over his involvement with Australian Water Holdings
• Treasurer Joe Hockey’s re-election finance group, the North Sydney Forum, has also received funds from AWH
• Public servants have been prohibited from making comments critical of the government on social media, even anonymously, and have been instructed to dob in on colleagues who do
• The government has established a covert political hit squad based in Parliament House and paid for by taxpayers to target political enemies.
• The Minister responsible has repeatedly refused to answer questions at media briefings regarding OSB – and then cancelled the briefings.
• The government is prepared to release the previous Government’s confidential cabinet papers to the Royal Commission into the Pink Batts scheme, despite the established practice of sealing cabinet papers for 30 years
• The Prime Minister accused the ABC of bias against the government, and then announced an efficiency review into the ABC and SBS
• Rejoiced in the blatant bias of the Liberal Speaker of the House, Bronwyn Bishop
• Closed down the National Steering Committee on Corporate Wrongdoing
• Privatised the Australian Valuation Office at a cost of nearly 200 jobs
• Denied human rights lawyers access to Manus Island detention centre
• Has failed to report on the death of an asylum seeker, two months after the riots during which he was killed
• Amended the Ministerial Code of Conduct to permit ministers to own shares in companies
• Appointed several former Liberal ministers and supporters to prime positions, including Alexander Downer, Sophie Mirabella, Tim Wilson and Peter Costello
• Required that all media requests be run via the Prime Minister's office for Chief of Staff approval 

We must not exclude from attention the numerous actions taken by the Abbott Government which were not listed as priorities in the Liberal pre-election pamphlet, yet which seem to have enjoyed a meteoric rise up the To-Do list since the election: 

• Pokie reform legislation to help control problem gambling has been thrown out
• The Commonwealth Firearms Advisory Council, designed to advise the federal government on firearms safety in the community, has been defunded
• AUDAid has been abolished, and with it, hundreds more public servants’ jobs
• ACT Marriage Equality laws have been struck down
• The latest version of the NBN has been downgraded to something akin to a pair of soup tins and a string
• The government failed to provide customs vessels to monitor Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean, despite their promise to do so
• Tony Abbott has re-established the awards of Knights and Dames without consulting with his cabinet
• Headed up the search for missing airliner MH370

One infamous appearance on the ABC’s 7:30 saw Tony Abbott admit that he has a fast mouth and sometimes finds the truth hard to wrangle. As Prime Minister, he’s proved his reluctance to accept dissent from anyone. He is utterly committed to his version of the truth and will not be swayed.

At the end of Mr Abbott's introduction in the Real Solutions pamphlet, the following words appear:

This is the Australia that we believe in.

The Abbott Government is now about 20% of the way through its first - and perhaps only - term in office. Is the government committed to delivering real solutions...or have the solutions become irrelevant now that they're in government?

Is this the Government Coalition voters believed in?

The 44th: Friday Morning, 3am.

In those quiet moments between the middle of the night and darkest-before-dawn on Friday morning, Joe Hockey’s spin team issued a statement clarifying the chaotic web of stories linking Treasurer Joe Hockey and Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos with donations from ICAC target, Australian Water Holdings (AWH).

The statement, which is not available on Mr Hockey’s website, but was reported in The Australian, states  

“I have never received any money from AWH. I have never repaid money from AWH,” Mr Hockey’s statement read.

“The membership fees AWH paid to a Liberal Party business and community organisation known as the North Sydney Forum were refunded for AWH membership from 2009 until early 2013.

“I am advised that the North Sydney Forum cancelled AWH’s membership and returned its membership fee of $11,000 when allegations about AWH first became publicly known in February 2013, more than one year ago.

“I am further advised that subsequent to that $22,000 was returned to AWH for membership fees paid prior to 2013 and paid since 2009.”

Despite the early morning statement, there are still many questions unanswered, and too much that is open to interpretation.

Piecing together the various media reports, the money trail is straightforward. AWH paid $33,000 for membership to the North Sydney Forum, a group of businessmen who, in return for their membership fees, have exclusive access to a calendar of events featuring the Australian Treasurer. The businessmen, and possibly women, are paying to schmooze the Treasurer.

But the NSF returned the money to AWH. First, when AWH fell under the corruption spotlight, NSF repaid $11,000, with the balance of $22,000 being repaid at some point later.

The amounts and dates in Mr Hockey’s statements are a not precise. The statement refers to membership from 2009-2013. That’s probably 2010, 2011 and 2012, but the vague wording leaves it unresolved.

The statement describes the North Sydney Forum as a “Liberal Party business and community organisation”, yet there is no Liberal Party livery on the NSF website. In fact, the Liberal Party is only mentioned a couple of times on the entire site, and never on the homepage. The focus of the website is specifically about supporting Joe Hockey. (Check out the spelling errors on the site too!)

Words and Image from the NSF website

So the biggest question is around interpreting “Joe Hockey”. His statement that he did not repay any money to AWH is correct. The funds were repaid by NSF.

His statement that he did not receive funds from AWH is also correct, strictly speaking, yet there’s a direct line from NSF to Mr Hockey. Mr Hockey’s capability to develop and extend his political career has benefited from the NSF, which appears to exist for that purpose. There are no other beneficiaries. It's impossible to say that Mr Hockey has not benefited from the NSF, so we're left with dots we can't connect.

• ·         When were the funds repaid?
• ·         Would NSF have repaid anything to AWH if ICAC's interest in AWH had not become known?
• ·         Did Mr Hockey know that AWH was a supporter, via NSF?
• ·         Did Mr Hockey know that AWH was entangled with the Obeid family?
• ·         Did NSF receive any funds from AWH in addition to the $33,000 we know about?

    I don't expect to be up at 3:00am pondering those questions.

CAAANBRA: Campaignomics

Chris Berg was bang on the money last week when he stated in The Drum that now is "Not the time to convince us of economic prowess". He was right again when he claimed that every election is about the economy. If we're being honest, its never a good bet to expect to win points or elections by talking about the economy, and Mr Berg's article is one reason why.

As I've stated repeatedly, what you see depends on where you stand. Mr Berg's two key arguments are based on the economic figures released less than two weeks ago by Treasurer Bowen and Senator Wong, and a question mark over the credibility of the major ratings agencies. Both are fair arguments, but this campaign isn't about selling the economy as healthy; it's about winning an election.

All the ALP has to do is convince the electorate that they are better economic managers than the Coalition, and Chris Berg knows this. When better than the midst of the dullest, least engaging, election campaign in living memory? When better than now?

The earlier financial statement released just before the election was called, and the PEFO, aren't flash on two fronts. Firstly, they're potentially scary numbers, easy for the opposition to frame and feed to the media. Secondly, they make the Government's ability to read the tea leaves look about as solid as the Liberal Party's policy pamphlet. 

The major ratings agencies which have rated Australia's economy as Triple A are, according to Mr Berg, largely responsible for the Global Financial Crisis, and therefore, nothing to get excited about. 

That's one perspective. Here's another: it doesn't matter that much. What does matter is the message. In order to convince Australia that our economy is in grave danger, you first need to convince Australia a deficit - any deficit - is bad. That's not hard to do; the imagery is negative. The Coalition's message was a simple sell, assisted by a compliant media. 

What does matter is that Australia, under Labor's guidance, avoided the full financial disaster of the GFC. Our official interest rate is low, but it hasn't bottomed out. In fact, it's being used as it was designed to be used - as a control mechanism. Productivity, inflation, unemployment: all of the standard measures are solid. We know the counter-argument, that it was the surplus left by the Howard Government that enabled Australia to skate around the perimeters of the GFC. Why has that argument never been challenged? 

The numbers are what they are. They aren't the entirety of this election campaign, other than by accident. As John Howard reminded us recently, context is everything. The credit ratings are a comparative measure. Australia is rated higher than about 95% of the countries in the world is noteworthy, just not hugely important. 

Having said that, the biggest failure of the past six years of Rudd and Gillard Labor Governments has been their inability to sell good news. We have heard ad nauseum about debt and deficit and big black holes and bigger new taxes and failed this and dodgy that. We've heard relatively little about the governments' successful navigation of the GFC, or the relatively smooth implementation of the carbon economy. These things happened. No spin required.

Ask the question: are we better off now than we were under the Howard-Costello team? Voters seem to be terrified that the cost of living is being driven ever higher by the loathesome carbon tax when in fact, 

Demographic Analyst David Chalke from Australia Scan is another who suggests a disconnect between economic reality and economic perception. The fear-of-the-future mindset has seen more and more discretionary income squirrelled away for that rainy day instead of being spent.

Feeding into that fear is the haze surrounding costings for the Coalition's policies and promises. Will they or won't they release their numbers, and if so, when? In 2010, the Coalition decided that they didn't trust Treasury, and had their coatings independently audited by WHK Horwarth, who produced a flimsy one-pager just two days prior to the election. It was subsequently shown that the "audit" provided to the Coalition, and subsequently to Australian voters, breached professional standards and was the result of  cosy deal between Horwath and the Coalition.

This time around, would-be Treasurer has ummed and ahhed at Olympic standards, suggesting at one point that if we wanted a Coalition bottom line, we should add it up for ourselves. The Coalition's reluctance to share their costings has become the basis for Labor's first really provocative ad of the campaign.

And Joe Hockey's response is to assure us that economics are boring and we don't care anyway. Chris Berg was right - now isn't he time for Labor to sell their economic credentials. At this stage, all they have to do is show up.

CAAANBRA: WONKSPORT DAY 1

Originally Posted 5th August 2013

Welcome to Day 1 of the semi-regular poliwonk festival known as the Election Campaign. It's a glorious time for fans of political contests, particularly if you disregard the notion that the winner gets to be The Government for the next three years. Block out the consequences of those nasty policies and an election is sport, plain and simple.

As with sport, though, every member of the team must be clear - crystal clear - on the the strategy. Every single member must know their role and responsibility, and be warmed up and ready to play the moment the whistle blows.

The Prime Minister blew the whistle yesterday. It's Game On...And that's enough of the sporting metaphors.

Brian Loughnane, Federal Director of the Liberal Party, has experienced the full gamut of emotion today. Breakfast must've been buoyant with two polls both delivering the Coalition a 52-48 2PP lead. But then Joe Hockey opened his gob and suggested that if the Reserve Bank cuts interest rates tomorrow, it's bad.

"The fact of the matter is, we should not be in a position where interest rates are being cut, because the economy should be growing faster. That's what the government said was going to happen. And they got it wrong. And they keep getting it wrong, because you do not tax your wage prosperity.”

I'm sure that Joe Hockey didn't mean to suggest that Aussie battlers in western Sydney would benefit from higher interest rates, but this is a federal election campaign, and the man who wants to be the next treasurer of Australia simply can't afford to make stupid gaffes like that. 

It got worse when Liberal candidate for Greenway, Jaymes Diaz, flaked in front of Channel Ten's news cameras. It's not his first campaign, but on Day 1, this performance is nothing short of tragedy...and it's not his first campaign.

But - to return to another tortured sports metaphor for a moment - it was the team captain who really stepped up to show his team how to campaign. 

First, he threw some carbon tax figures through the meat grinder he was inspecting at JBS Australia. It was another one of Tony's trademark hi-viz and hard-hat or hair-net appearances, and he announced that his first priority as Prime Minister would be to scrap the Carbon Tax. Apparently the campaign that didn't get him elected last time is stronger the second time around. 

Unfortunately, it slipped his mind that he had opposed a grant that gave the factory $4.4 million dollars, which was saving the company $1.1 million in power costs each year and helping JBS Australia to lower its carbon emissions by up to 81 per cent. Lucky for Mr Abbott, local ALP member Shayne Neumann was there to remind him. Perhaps Mr Abbott didn't want to mention that he opposed a measure because it is proof that the Carbon Tax is working as it was designed to work. 

My personal favourite from Day 1 was news that Mr Abbott had attended an event this evening in Western Sydney, where 500 Muslims were celebrating Eid el-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. Mr Abbott, whose signature slogan "Stop he Boats" refers primarily to boats carrying Muslim asylum seekers, spoke of multicultural Australia as "beacon of hope to a troubled and divided world".

My irony detector was going off like a frog in a sock. 

He continued:

"I am the sworn enemy for anyone who seeks to divide Australian over Australian on issues of class, gender, birth place, race and particularly over faith. I believe that all religious faiths seek to come to grips with the complexity of human condition. We have to respect the specialness of that faith to every person."

Despite the obvious grammatical...aahhh...challenges, it's a surprisingly inclusive sentiment from a man who was almost a Catholic priest. In fact, its downright lefty! Perhaps Mr Abbott meant to that we should be a less beacon-like...?

For now, I invite you to enjoy the cultural, religious and racial diversity of the Liberal Party's first official advertisement of the campaign, which was played at least eleventy-seven times today on Sky News Australia. 

Behold, New Hope.

Hockey One

Originally Posted 1st August 2013

When did Joe Hockey change from the avuncular bloke from the Liberal Party into Joe Hockey, master meanie, ham-fisted politician, crazy man? Was it about the time that he realised he’d never be Prime Minister? Or was it when the reality of serving alongside Tony Abbott sunk in? Whenever it was, it was one of those insidious things that happens while your head is turned.

And here we are, with the man who thinks he will be federal treasurer, criticising the proposed increase in tobacco excise because he believes it’s been proposed to financial gain, not to benefit the health of the nation.

Honestly Joe, who cares? Increase the tobacco excise and hit two targets with the same shot. Doesn’t that sound like good policy? Joe even mentioned that the increased cost of smokes would hurt the cost of living for low income Aussies addicted to smokes. That didn’t seem to be an issue during the Howard years, when the cost of living was increasing and the pension failed to keep pace.

If I was as cynical as Joe, I’d suggest that all this blustering this morning is more about protecting the Liberal Party’s close relationship with Big Tobacco, who contributes an obscene amount of money to the Liberal Party. If I was cynical…

I still think that Joe Hockey is basically a good guy, but the angst of being in opposition, the torture of sitting opposite a female Prime Minister, the persistent smell of failure of being on the lesser side of a hung parliament has left such a bitter taste in the mouths of Liberals that even cheerful Joe was not immune.

Now it’s all snide little digs here and bitchy retweets there…and when there are no easy targets, he fabricates. There’s this, for example, from earlier this week.

@JoeHockey: Seriously a delay on the election timing is a joke. Aussies are fed up with the games from Labor on election date.

Australians are used to having about 5-6 weeks’ notice prior to an election. When Ms Gillard announced the election date eight months before the date, it was a new precedent. Aussies aren’t fed up; this is nothing more than a continuation of the Liberal catch-cry we’ve been hearing since September 2010. We get it; the Coalition wants an election now. But Joe Hockey can sit back down again; the Prime Minister calls the election, the Opposition doesn’t. And he knows that. He was just being vicious.

That wasn’t the only questionable tweet from Joe Hockey in the past this week. There was also this gem:

@JoeHockey: Another pro-ALP Politifact report – it’s just co-incidence! But too hard for Politifact to check #krudd claim of $380pa benefit of ETS!

Let’s take the first part of this tweet. Clearly Mr Hockey feels that there is a pro-ALP bias to Politifact Australia’s fact-checking results. That’s pretty standard response from right wing trolls, but I expected better from Mr Hockey.

Unless, of course, there is a left wing partiality that is skewing Politifact Australia’s interpretation of facts. On checking all of the rulings handed down by Politifact Australia since they started their operation in Australia, I found this.

Both the ALP and the Coalition have been fact-checked in excess of thirty times each, and both show a disturbing distribution which ranges from True all the way to False, and in one case, Pants on Fire. The chart below displays the rulings – lots of green is good; lots of orange is not good. Both major parties are showing a lot of both.

Just a quick visual check here indicates no bias towards the ALP that I can see. Can Joe Hockey see something that I can't - or is he just making it up?

CAAANBRA: Missed the Target

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey addressed the National Press Club today in what was effectively the woofteenth attempt by the opposition to deliver a Budget Reply Speech. Just an hour or two earlier Independent Rob Oakeshott announced via Twitter than next week he will be mounting a Confidence Motion to reaffirm Parliament’s faith in the departments of Treasury and Finance.

The proposed Confidence Motion is in response to the projectile vomit-like stream of doubt that Joe Hockey and his colleague Matthias Cormann have aimed at the Department of Treasury over the budget figures.


The one thing that irked me most about Mr Hockey’s and Senator Cormann’s suggestions that the figures quoted in the budget are untrustworthy is that they are trying to launch another political attack at the government. It's an election year; if the Opposition wasn't trying to undermine the Government, you'd need to check for a pulse. In any case, they missed their huge, floodlit Government-shaped target by about t--h--i--s much, and hit the public service instead.

Treasurer Wayne Swan has stepped in this morning and labelled their attacks as ‘profound insults’ to the public service. Understatement, much?

What evidence does the Opposition have that there is anything suspicious in the Budget figures? I had hoped that Mr Hockey’s speech at the NPC today would answer that question. Instead, Mr Hockey offered five reasons why we can’t believe the budget that Mr Swan handed down last week. (Five is the Coalition’s favourite number at the moment; their campaign features a five pillar plan to save us all from more ALP thingamyjiggery. It's Newman's CanDo Plan for Queensland all over again.)

Here’s Mr Hockey’s Big Five:

1. The Government broke their promise to deliver a surplus (which he suggested later had lead to the “fiscal emergency” we’re now facing, here in Oz where we have the healthiest economy in the world.)

2. An ALP Government would have to borrow more money, which would undermine the budget forecast

3. If they borrow more money, they’d need to increase the debt ceiling

4. (And this is the clanger) the Budget assumptions are "courageous"

5. The ALP Government spends too much money

It makes you wonder if Mr Hockey has ever had to construct a budget for anything in his life. Cattle stations notwithstanding, he seems to lack even a basic understanding of forecasting, so here's the simplest possible explanation: forecasting is taking the facts that you have right now, and using experience and expertise and wisdom (including everything from Grandma Queenie’s common sense to sophisticated economic modelling and even some wishful guestimation) to try to predict what is going to happen in the future. As for economic forecasting, it’s hardly a science. In fact, getting two economists to agree on what to have for lunch is impossible. But that’s about future, and the Liberal’s beef is with the present. Or not. Confusing.
Let's revisit Mr Hockey’s number 4. The Shadow Treasurer and the Shadow Assistant Treasurer (whose portfolio also includes Financial Services and Superannuation) are both publicly questioning the accuracy of assumptions provided to the Government by the Departments of Treasury and Finance.

It’s important to note that neither of these shadow ministers have any formal education in economics; both have qualifications in Law, as do Wayne Swan and Penny Wong. That has always struck me as a little odd…but like all of us, Ministers and their Shadows rely on subject matter experts – usually public servants - for advice and information.

In the case of the budgetary dollars and sense, the current Secretary of the Department of the Treasury is Dr Martin Parkinson, an economist with a long history in and around politics, and as a senior public servant. He’s copped the brunt of the attacks from the Opposition. In today’s Australian, Senator Cormann continued the tirade:

Senator Cormann said Dr Parkinson provided the government with forecasts behind closed doors and he would "of course" defend them publicly. But he said the budget was the government's document, not the Treasury's.

“I don't believe for one minute that the Treasury, left to its own devices, would have come up with some of the unbelievable assumptions that Wayne Swan and Penny Wong have based their budget figures on,” he told ABC radio.

Yes, the Opposition is suggesting that the Government has somehow coerced public servants within the Departments of Treasury and Finance to fudge figures that would make the Budget look better than it really is? That is one helluva serious allegation, one helluvan insult and quite probably, grounds for investigation. It’s also close to unbelievable.

Senator Cormann wasn’t finished:

“His job as secretary of Treasury until the election period is to serve the government of the day.”

That much, at least, is true, although I suspect his words were thick with unspoken agenda.
Section 1.2 of the Australian Public Service Values and Code of Conduct document is a pretty dry read, but there is no ambiguity around the relationship between public service and the Government. This document lists the Australian Public Service (APS) Values as follows:

•The APS is apolitical, performing its functions in an impartial and professional manner.

•The APS is openly accountable for its actions, within the framework of ministerial responsibility to the government, the Parliament and the Australian public.

•The APS is responsive to the government in providing frank, honest, comprehensive, accurate and timely advice and in implementing the government's policies and programs.

The document continues:

The role of the APS is to serve the Government of the day: to provide the same high standard of policy advice, implementation and professional support, irrespective of which political party is in power. This is at the core of the professionalism of the APS.

If Mr Hockey or Mr Cormann have legitimate concerns around the veracity of figures included within the budget, and if they believe that the wobbly figures were provided by a member of the APS, have the suspected breaches been reported to the appropriate authorities for investigation? (Note to Mr Hockey: Sky News and The Australian are not appropriate authorities.)
If they don’t have anything more concrete than wishful thinking and a desire to hurt the Government’s chances of reelection, they should sit down and shut up now…and in an astonishing turn, even Tony Abbott agrees. He’s visibly placing his trust in the Treasury, and restricting his budget related hostility to attacks on Wayne Swan and Penny Wong.

Where does that leave Joe Hockey and Matthias Cormann?

With no tangible proof of wrongdoing by the Government or the Public Service, no support on this issue from their Leader, and Mr Oakeshott’s decision to lead a Confidence motion in the Departments of Treasury and Finance, their campaign to discredit the numbers is looking pretty fragile.