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August 22, 2007
So the 2006-07 budget surplus ended up $3.5 billion more than Treasury had estimated even in May confirms that the economy firing and that the Howard Government will have far more money to throw around than the budget foreshadowed. That means pork barrel: buying votes bigtime. As Tim Colebatch says in The Age:
The "aspirational nationalism" Howard outlined in his speech to a Liberal Party fund-raiser on Monday is a euphemism for Government plans to spend our money wherever it will buy votes, even if they are not areas of Federal Government responsibility. Your taxes at work to re-elect the Government.
I've read Howard's speech. It's mostly about his economic achievements and it uses the language of reform, which is then cashed out in terms of large budget surpluses and lowering the tax burden of working Australians. Lowering the tax burden is equated with tax reform.
True, reform does means more than budget surpluses of 1% of GDP in future years with surpluses locked away in a fund so that only the earnings would be available for investment in infrastructure. Presumably, any surpluses over the 1% is available for vote buying. Howard's reform narrative says that he is going to try harder:
Going the extra mile on economic reform today means maintaining strong budget surpluses, keeping downward pressure on interest rates, saving for the future, investing on the nation's infrastructure, ensuring our workplaces are flexible and competitive, and keeping the tax burden as low as possible on Australian workers, savers and risk takers.
Not very inspiring for a fifth term policy agenda is it? It's all about the economy.This reform is the key to locking in more growth, prosperity and opportunity. The new synthesis of aspiration and fairness is the 2004 election package. Has nothing changed?
What about sustainability, water shortages and climate change? How does that square with freedom of choice and reward for individual effort, within a secure community based on strong families? The holes are papered over.
In terms of electoral politics Howard is basically selling fiscal restraint as a cover for interfering where he likes in the realm of state governments, and then bypassing the states to work with local communities. This selectively taking over state responsibilities in an ad hoc, one off way undermines co-operative federalism and the CoAG process. It makes a mockery of that process. Aspirational nationalism implies that federalism has failed.
What we have is a power grab--centralising power---with the "aspirational nationalism" slogan functioning as an apology for Canberra cherry picking projects to retain its hold on power. The Howard Government is constantly berating the states for proposing to borrow $70 billion to fund infrastructure investment over the next five years. The justification for centralism is that the states are ineffective, incompetent and inefficient, even though the Commonwealth is intervening against the Queensland state government that is reforming local government to make it more efficient and to reduce unnecessary duplication.
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I thought bribery and vote buying was illegal in Australia.