Bluff, Bluster and Bulldust

Bluff, Bluster and Bulldust

By John Kelly on May 5, 2014 • ( 11 )

What
a load of codswallop. How stupid do they take us for? Many would not
have noticed but this government has begun its term of office reading
directly from the Book of Howard. So deprived of ideas, of savvy, of
intellectual nous, of vision and pretty much everything else that
constitutes leadership, they (mostly Abbott and Hockey) simply copy from
the tactics of bluff, bluster and bull-dust employed by the Howard
government in 1996.


They do this to condition the electorate to the pain that is coming
and to blame the previous government for putting them (us) there. They
blatantly cloud the already heavily polluted atmosphere of political
skulduggery by casting doubt, fear and uncertainty across the landscape.
They want us to accept the conservative government philosophy of
favouring the well-off by dressing it up as repairs essential to our
future and presenting themselves as our economic saviours. They do this
because when all is said and done, they really do represent the big end
of town. The NSW ICAC inquiry makes that plain for all to see. It is
endemic in national Liberal philosophy. They then try to pass it off as
fiscally responsible in the mistaken belief that backing big business
will ultimately benefit the not so well-off at some stage in the future.
Codswallop! In his budget preparation, Hockey seems to be ignoring or
overlooking glaring examples of tax expenditure waste such as mining
subsidies, generous tax brackets for high income earners and unnecessary
superannuation perks in favour of squeezing those they deem as easy
targets.


And last week they shot themselves in the foot.


So determined were they to paint a picture of impending doom that
they have frightened themselves. A back room revolt is brewing. The
troops are in disarray. The Paid Parental Leave scheme has been modified
to placate backbenchers on the government side. The planned changes to
the Racial Discrimination Act will be scrapped or watered down largely
due to backbench pressure. Tony Abbott’s management style is aggravating
his own side. His ‘captain’s call’ decisions are fragmenting former
supporters. Coalition backbenchers have a nervous eye on the 2016
election. They are haunted by voter reaction to the bluff, bluster and
bulldust that preceded the 1998 election. Labor won 18 additional seats
in that election with a 4.6% swing and 14 of them were taken off the
Coalition. In a poorly balanced electoral distribution Labor won 51% of
the two party preferred vote but only 45% of lower house seats. In 2016
the electoral boundaries will reflect a better balanced position than
1998. This time Labor needs a 3.6% swing to win 21 seats and many
Coalition backbenchers know already that the damage Abbott has done to
the credibility of the government means they will lose their seats. They
have nothing to lose in voicing their discontent.


What
Abbott and Hockey have failed to learn from their previous time in
government is that anxiety politics is an unpredictable animal and can
bite both ways depending on voter mood. This constant harping on about
Labor’s wasteful spending has backfired. It was the Coalition’s reckless
spending of a decade ago that has placed us in the position we are now.
One could argue that the Howard/Costello spending spree of a decade ago
was affordable then. It was, but the Howard government failed to
realise it was not sustainable. It was affordable on the back of a
mining boom. Were they so short-sighted that they could not see the
mining boom had a use-buy date? Could they not see that a more
responsible policy would have been to put the money away for a rainy
day… Or a GFC? No, all they could see was that they had enough money to
dish out enough middle class welfare to buy enough votes to win in 2004.
The budget position and the longer term outlook that they now find
themselves addressing is of their own making, not Labor’s. What goes
around comes around…..spectacularly!


The Commission of Audit has also backfired. I cannot see one
recommendation on raising revenue. It’s all about cutbacks. They have
also conveniently ignored tax expenditures, i.e. concessions and tax
breaks for big business. This leaves Hockey and Abbott highly exposed.
They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. They will, of
course, implement the least damaging to their reputation and leave the
rest for someone else. The impact will be minor initially and the
deficits and debt will continue to rise. But the reputation of the
Coalition as the more responsible economic managers will be in tatters.
After all the bluff, bluster and bull dust, they won’t have the balls to
match the rhetoric. They will squib the hard choices and hope to be
forgiven at the polls. The voters saw through that deception in 1998.
They will do so again in 2016. But this time the electoral boundaries
will reveal a different story.


And
as for the retirement age, changes will happen sooner than you think.
The increase will be phased in over an 18 year period beginning in 2017,
just 3 years from now. That is when the original increase in the
pension age to 67 introduced by the Rudd government begins. In 2017 it
begins climbing by 4 months from 65 in each of the next 6 years. By 2020
it will be 66. By 2023 the pension age will be 67. Then it climbs by 3
months each year so that by 2027 it will be 68, by 2031 it will be 69
and by 2035 it will be 70. It will affect people born after 1952, not
1965.


No surprises indeed.