TONY ABBOTT has a vision for a growing economy and sweeping cuts to government spending. But he feels under no pressure at all to tell us how he’ll get there.
And why would he invite scrutiny if he can sweep aside Labor’s budget by appealing to voters’ seething disinclination to believe anything Julia Gillard has to say?
You could almost see people in their lounge rooms nodding last night when the Coalition leader said ”budget week hasn’t just been about the budget … it’s been about the Prime Minister’s integrity and judgment”.
Some of his criticisms of the budget are well justified. In different political circumstances some of the $5 billion doled out to 1.5 million families and pensioners on Tuesday would have been used to boost surpluses, or pay down debt or improve the productive capacity of the economy.
But he didn’t explain how those complaints, or his own lofty goals, fitted in with the Coalition’s decision to wave almost every one of Labor’s budget measures through Parliament.
He hasn’t told us how his promise of bigger surpluses will be served by his decision to support family and pensioner payments that add around $1 billion to annual outlays while he also vows to repeal the mining tax which is supposed to pay for them.
The main plank of his plan for economic growth, he says, is abolishing the carbon tax, but he hasn’t explained how he will find ”at least $50 billion worth of savings” and fund personal income tax cuts at the same time.
Oppositions have the right to release their policies at a time of their choosing and Tony Abbott last night chose to unveil just the beginnings of one, an aspiration to ”work with the states” so that 40 per cent of year 12 students will learn a language other than English.
Other than that he ramped up the same ”class warfare” rhetoric he used last year (before he also waved those budget measures through).
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But the broken-down state of Australian politics means both Labor’s budget and the Coalition’s reply are, more than ever before, determined by short term political tactics rather than the real long term vision that could inspire the national mind.
• Michelle Grattan, The Age: Workmanlike Abbott presents a small target
TONY Abbott’s budget reply was little more than workmanlike. The opposition is showing limited enthusiasm for engaging with the cash-splash budget, with its unexpectedly generous giveaways. It believes the soft underbelly of the government lies elsewhere.
Abbott gave a predictable critique, once again reminding people he had a typical family life (a not-so-subtle contrast with Julia Gillard), and accused Labor of class warfare.
He ran over a litany of his already announced policies, and unveiled a modest and worthy enough initiative to promote the teaching of foreign languages in schools.
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There was the obligatory reference to Ben Chifley, and the declaration that ”as someone whose grandparents were proud to be working class, I can feel the embarrassment of decent Labor people at the failures of this government”.
He pushed the ”trust” – or lack of it – button in condemning Gillard and intoned that Labor should find a leader ”who isn’t fatally compromised by the need to defend the indefensible”. That, of course, is the last thing the opposition wants.
Abbott’s failure to be more creative will bring criticism, but the Opposition Leader does not want to take any more attention than he has to away from the government.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/workmanlike-abbott-presents-a-small-target-20120510-1yfoj.html#ixzz1uVDuejsw
• ‘Bugger the numbers’ says angry Oakeshott on Thomson saga
Pivotal independent MP Rob Oakeshott has warned he will not baulk at action against controversial MP Craig Thomson, even if it costs the Gillard government a crucial vote in Parliament.
“Bugger the numbers,” an angry Mr Oakeshott told the National Times. “It’s not about the numbers. This is about dealing with the merits of the issue.”
A Fair Work Australia (FWA) investigation report tabled in Parliament on Monday found Mr Thomson, who led the Health Services Union from 2002 until his election as the Labor MP for Dobell in 2007, spent almost $500,000 in members’ funds on electioneering, escorts, lavish meals and cash withdrawals.
“I was angry that these findings are serious,” Mr Oakeshott said. “I’m angry that it places a heavy burden on the Parliament itself.”
Mr Oakeshott was involved in a closely watched conversation with Mr Thomson, who recently left the Labor Party, in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon.
Mr Oakeshott said he advised Mr Thomson “basically to stand up and explain that if he does want to make a statement to the house on his own terms, to explain that – and to allow himself the opportunity to do that”.
Mr Thomson denies all allegations against him.
Read Tim Lester’s full article on the Narromine News here
• Liberals’ toxic war
MICHAEL Kroger is standing by claims his former close mate Peter Costello attempted to strong-arm his way back into Parliament by demanding a plum Victorian seat, telling Liberals his version is ”100 per cent correct”.
In a growing rift in the Victorian Liberal Party, Mr Kroger is maintaining he met the former treasurer for lunch late last year at a Melbourne venue at which about 100 other people were present.
According to Mr Kroger’s version, relayed to Liberals yesterday, the lunch, recorded in a diary entry, did not end well after Mr Costello demanded Mr Kroger persuade rising star Josh Frydenberg to stand aside from the safe seat of Kooyong, but refused to countenance asking his former staffer Kelly O’Dwyer to vacate his former seat of Higgins.
Mr Costello has strenuously denied reports he asked Mr Kroger to help him find a safe Victorian seat to allow him to stage a political comeback after bowing out following the Coalition’s 2007 election loss, calling the claims ”lurid”.
Mr Costello publicly accused Mr Kroger of briefing the story because his former wife, Liberal senator Helen Kroger, had been demoted to the tenuous third position on the Liberal Senate ticket.
Other Victorian Liberals have also expressed scepticism, with one senior source saying the relationship between the former friends had been ”septic” for about four years.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/kroger-stands-by-costello-seat-search-account-20120510-1yfp0.html#ixzz1uVDBSiKl
