Hey Australia!
For the last couple of years we’ve had a budget emergency. We’ve been living amongst a debt and deficit disaster – we know this because Tony and Joe told us – and if you didn’t agree with Sweaty Joe’s plans to fix it, then you were stealing from your children. You heartless bastards!
But hey, that was 2014. It’s 2015 now. Relax. Have a cigar. There’s nothing to worry about. Tony and Joe told us so. The 2014 budget fixed everything (even though most of it is still stuck in the Senate 12 months later).
Look how relaxed they are…..
—
Red vs Blue
Last night’s federal budget was a soft, toasty marshmallow of a document that was designed to do one thing, and one thing only – protect the jobs of the men who constructed it. It was a document designed to offend no-one (that matters) and postpone any real decisions until after the next election, an election that many are now predicting will come early given that Sweaty Joe and Tony The Smirk have buttered up their base with this financial fig leaf.
If you’re a Lefty, like me, then you’re likely to be completely nonplussed by last night’s mini-drama. The outrage from 2014 remains. The Coalition still wants to Americanise our higher education sector. They maintain their abandonment of the Gonski reforms. The reduction in pensions might have been stared down, along with the Medicare co-payment, but don’t fool yourself into thinking these are done and dusted. They’re merely on hold until the coalition wins the next election.
It’s a positive that they want to boost childcare but note that this measure, which will primarily benefit wealthier families, is meant to be propped up by taking Family Tax Benefits away from lower-income families. It’s the same old story – belt the little guys in order to prop up the big end of town and disguise it with words like ‘incentive’ and ‘aspiration’.
If you’re a right-winger then you should be more concerned than I am.
Tony and Joe have done more flips and twists in the last 12 months than Greg Louganis did in his whole career and this budget might just be the biggest yet. The iron-clad commitment to fiscal consolidation and budget repair is out the window. The gilt-edged PPL scheme that Tony didn’t believe in, then believed in fiercely through two election campaigns, then abandoned, is now a target for savings. The Minister For Women is no longer offering ladies $75,000 a year to look after their sprogs. Now he’s ripping money away from them and accusing them of double dipping if they argue!
But all’s not lost for the tax-averse.
Like Peter Costello in the Howard, era, Tony and Joe are still looking for ways to feather their voters’ nests. Costello gave the people capital gains relief and the baby bonus. Tony and Joe are offering $20K in open-slather business writeoffs and no meaningful action on tax reform at the top end of the scale – despite it being the topic of plenty of conversation.
You think that $20K business writeoff isn’t going to be rorted? Check it out:
WHAT CAN I CLAIM?
Cars, vans, utes, trailers, motorbikes, lawnmowers, ovens, fridges, coffee machines, other machinery, kitchens, tables and chairs, carpets, printers, photocopiers, tools, welding equipment, saws, generators, pumps, solar panels, heating, hot water units, water tanks, airconditioning units, sound and security systems, computers – any item used for running the business – will be 100 per cent tax deductible.
I think PJ Paintings might need a welder and a new sound system, actually…..
Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong
As mentioned at the opening, an $18billion deficit was considered to be a budget emergency by this mob back in 2013. Since then, the deficit has more than doubled under Sweaty Joe and this tough-talking Treasurer has effectively pushed his credible path back to surplus out another year – and even that is based on some very optimistic assumptions about future economic growth.
The truth is that this budget, like this government, is all about optics. It’s all about the message. The spin doctors haven’t worked so hard since Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong. It’s all there for you to see. From Tony Abbott’s Real Solutions booklet to his three-word slogans. The Coalition spent all of the last parliament creating a narrative about a fictitious problem that only they could fix. It worked like a charm, too, which is why they’ll do it again before the next election.
Spin examples?
The pillaging of a tertiary education system that works very well for the vast majority of people is OK if it’s presented as ‘opening up our universities to be more internationally competitive’. Providing a great and affordable education to everyone at home is less important than providing the best possible education to anyone who can afford to pay. Educating the masses is effective, but boring. Educating at the highest possible level? That’s something you can pin streamers and balloons to.
Climate change is another area the right wing should be angry about. Why on earth is the Coalition spending a couple of billion in taxpayer dollars to prop up a Direct Action plan when no-one in the Coalition actually believes in the science of climate change? It’s the ultimate appeasement measure.
And by-the-by, the true right-wing denialist approach to climate change is the ultimate form of intergenerational theft, a buzzphrase the righties are so fond of using.
The Sad Truth
Sadly, all this spin, posturing and feather-bedding is likely to work.
Why?
It’ll work because two-thirds of our country’s newspapers are owned by News Ltd, which effectively means most of the electorate is reading the Liberal Party Newsletter everyday.
It’ll work because Labor became so self-obsessed in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years that the Greens were able to insert themselves as a credible voting option for the progressive lefty.
It’ll work because Labor’s current messages are only half defined and rendered ineffective by their poor delivery.
Most of all, it’ll work because the Labor Party has a lettuce leaf of a leader who seems incapable of landing a meaningful blow against even the easiest and most obvious of targets.
Is Sweaty Joe really sweaty?
Only during really awkward press conferences when everyone knows he’s spinning.
This was a light trickle.
Oh, and welcome to the League of Do-Nothing, Get-Reelected Governments. We in the US have been awaiting your arrival. (It’s just business, cattle prods and the I.M.F.)
Sounds a bit like the UK election
Finding it hard to believe that they still cannot find a suit to fit the lettuce leaf. Australia has a lot of catching up to do in the age of the new economy. Unsure where our house prices will go but surely it must be down. Read an interesting piece recently stating that the state of Western Australia will be Australia’s first rust belt.
This sounds all too familiar. Here in the UK Labour had their very own ‘lettuce leaf of a leader’ and look what happened, a huge loss of credibility and relevance.
Weak, awkward looking, lacking vision and unstatesmanlike (anyone who could ever imagine Milliband having the balls and gravitas to successfully negotiate with Putin for example is living in gagaland). Leaving himself open to attack from the left by ‘progressive’ single issue parties such as SNP and Greens was also a big mistake.
It’s an evermore polarised, brand aware world where a growing number of people on both the left and right are only interested in ‘what’s good for me’ and wearing a single issue badge of honour on their chest, the notion of society is dangerously on the wane here. A dangerous ‘you’re either with us or against us’ and being against us is unacceptable attitude is emerging. The single issue parties sell impossible dreams while often creating division and unrest, they tend to like their supporters to be loud and angry.
What I wish for is a well led, principled and unifying Labour Party in Government who protect the vulnerable and do the right thing but balance that by supporting aspiration in a way that creates jobs and raises tax income through growth rather than punitive tax rates for middle income families.
Whether I am lucky enough to see this in my lifetime remains to be seen. I have a horrible feeling that division and conflict are more likely for quite some time.
Thanks Steven
I was looking forward to your post ever since my inbox was full this morning with the usual suspects ‘Executive Summaries’ of the Federal Budget.
Your views on Australian politics always makes my day.
Neil
“Australia is at its best, as a nation, when people have a go.” – Smokin’ Joe soundbite
So you don’t actually need a worthwhile job, or a strategy, or intelligent application of knowledge and ability to opportunities at a personal, national or international level, you just need to “‘ave a go [ya mug]”. Sigh. That’s the Aussie way…
Great post Swade.