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April 06, 2007
Well, it does look as if the tide is finally turning for the Howard Government. It is not just the wreckage of the Bush administration, its failure in Iraq, and the collapse of the neo-con's vision for a New American Century that aimed to to reshape the world, which is dragging the Howard Government down.
Allan Moir
The Howard Government look as if it has a past by date as they are now shooting themselves in the foot, especially on developing an economic rational response to the effects of global warming on Australia. The climate is changing and Australia cannot continue with business-as-usual as if there is no tomorrow. Even business knows that things have to change.
Fear is working against the Howard Government on this issue, not for it. All its past talk about strong leadership to provide the safe shield for us to get on with our lives highlights how it is not providing leadership on global warming. It even refuses to make the link between the drought and climate change, and it is still preoccupied with looking for enemies (loonie greenies etc) to demonize and shoot down. The ground is shifting and cracking and wedging the ALP on climate change amongst blue collar workers looks like refusing to embrace new ideas to respond effectively to a changed world.
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I don't know whether business's response (at least as displayed by the BCA) is all that surprising, but at least they have stepped ahead of the government.
It'd be nice to think that at last more people are waking up to how badly they have been "governed" over the last 11 years, but I won't believe it until I hear the concession speech. But boy, am I looking forward to that. The so-called better managers of the economy have just coasted for ten years; the GST was hardly a structural reform of the type needed to build for the future. The sooner we get over this bloody single-minded obsession with budget surpluses, and Labor is on the game as well, the better. Governments can always borrow more cheaply than the private sector and where, necessary, they should do so. Twenty years of letting infrastructure run down, and what do you get? Yes, you guessed it. And why do they act so surprised?