Earlier this year, on issues like the apology to the Stolen Generations, and the 2020 Summit, the Prime Minister used declarations of bipartisanship to play Brendan Nelson off a break. For a long time, Nelson was wearing the fixed grin of someone who knew he was being treated like a mug, but didn’t have the faintest idea what to do about it.
Now the Government has used the Budget to hand out similar treatment to Malcolm Turnbull.
Turnbull has already demonstrated a willingness to take risks as shadow Treasurer. His whole “what inflation?” routine flies in the face of every credible economist in the country, not to mention the Reserve Bank and Treasury. So the Government gave him enough rope to hang himself with in its pre-Budget rhetoric. Rudd, Swan and Tanner endlessly talked about how tough the budget was going to be, and how unpopular many of their decisions would prove, and Turnbull took the bait, repeatedly warning against substantial spending cuts.
Now the Budget has delivered what Swan termed a “mild tightening” of spending – 1.1% real growth, well below the spending increases of recent Coalition budgets but still not the wholesale slaughter of the first Costello effort. The meat axe was nowhere to be seen – just a rather bloody scalpel which has been used to cut a few programs out of every portfolio.
Turnbull was left with nowhere to go. He’s been played for a mug. So, with nothing else to do, he turned on a dime last night and began criticising the Government’s profligate spending. You get the feeling that another billion or two in cuts and he would’ve been getting stuck in about that, in line with his original strategy.
It’s not only Nelson who seems to have a problem with keeping his message consistent from the start of the soundbite to the end.
Some Liberals are still adjusting to their changed circumstances. One backbencher yelled out “give them back” when Swan last night noted that the surpluses belonged to taxpayers, suggesting the Budget bribe mentality dies hard in Liberal ranks. There’s also press speculation about possible amendments to Budget measures in the Senate. If they have any brains, the Coalition won’t go near that. The Government would love to have a double dissolution trigger up its sleeve.
And we’ll be seeing a lot more of this “politics of envy” rubbish from the Opposition. It’s a ridiculous cliché, dreamt up by conservatives to demonise anything faintly progressive in government taxation and spending policies. Taken to its logical extreme, it means we should abandon progressive taxation and give everyone a set amount of Government payments, regardless of circumstances.
The electorate also reckons it’s rubbish, with means-testing having widespread support – and at lower levels than $150,000.
Brendan Nelson has reserved his position on means-testing family payments and the baby bonus, and he and his advisers have some hard thinking to do on it. They can take a public stand in support of millionaires getting welfare, or they join the rest of us on Planet Earth. Don’t bank on the latter. Nelson told the Coalition partyroom yesterday that the Government was “reverting to type” – i.e. turning socialist. There’s about as much chance of that happening as of Brendan Nelson becoming Prime Minister.
And on current form, Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t look like doing much better.
As thorough analysis begins to take place, its clear that this budget is stimulatory and founded on the ‘politics of envy’. Lets get the rich, whoever they are! I enjoyed the anecdote reported to-day of someone saying that they had decided to play the ‘budget drink game’. Every time Swan used the term “working families” ( whoever they are!), he had a sip of his drink. The ‘budget drink game’ player said he was “smashed” by 7.30pm.
Further to your dismissal of the ‘Politics of Envy’ claim, it is very clever selling by Rudd, Swan, Tanner et al by reminding people that they themselves are ‘the wealthy’, being on +$200k. Hardly looks like class warfare.
Mark Colvin part of the right wing media? Venise, you promised never to read my postings again. Remember? I’m a ‘fundamentalist”. Please, keep your promises.
Watching the meeja trying hard to find the place to sink the slipper in is almost as funny as watching Nelson and Turnbull flapping jaw to no avail: the whole shrill pitiful charade falls to bits if it turns out that, gosh, the gumment ain’t so very, very bad after all. You can see them looking at each other, wondering, So what do we do now? ‘Course, eventually the Labor gumment will get tired and do itself in (if we’re waiting for the Opposition to do it we could be here forever), but for now I’m impressed. It’s good to see the usual paradigm – talk up a storm and do nothing new – turned on its head: Rudd and co talk cringing cliche, but they ain’t half getting on with the job. Hurrah!
At a personal ‘around the kitchen table’ level it is difficult to find anything to complain about with the regards to the Budget. However, watching Malcolm Turnbull on the 7.30 Report was painful. He’d been snookered and knew it. I think half the pain Malcolm feels is the struggle to hold back his temper when things aren’t going well. Having listened to him being interviewed a couple of times during the election campaign he seemed to me to have a short wick when he doesn’t like the direction/tone of questioning. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I’d be very surprised if the Canberra hacks aren’t running a book as to who will be the first to set off the Turnbull fireworks when Turnbull does finally gain the leadership.