|
May 11, 2010
The budget spin from Canberra is "no frills", judging from yesterday's news grabs on the TV news. The "no frills" will need to help restore the fortunes of a "progressive" Rudd Labor Government, since its political credibility is looking rather tattered due to its shift to the right. Kevin Rudd's popularity is in free fall. The aura is well and truly gone--the honeymoon is over. Rudd Labor are on the nose.
One explanation for the fall from grace is that Rudd Labor have adopted the NSW Labor Right's death grip script of all electoral tactics, little long-term strategy, and no substantive policies. Everything is geared to the tactical victory and the favourable headline in the 24 hour news cycle. Rudd Labor is repelling voters, who are shifting to the Greens. Nor are Rudd + Co increasing their support amongst those working families returning to being Howard's battlers.
The result of the oh too clever politics is that Abbot's Coalition is now in a "competitive" electoral position---Labor and the Coalition are suddenly neck and neck, and the recent trend is running against the Government and in favour of Tony Abbott and the Opposition. It looks increasingly as if the name of the game for Rudd Labor is to retain power for its own sake--just like the NSW Government--and that it will do what it takes to retain power.
No doubt, we will hear much rhetoric from Wayne Swan about how Rudd Labor's great success in dealing with a global recession--defying global economic gravity-- can be turned into growing prosperity --the China boom---for all Australians under the sound management and steady hands of a fiscally conservative Labor Government.
There will be few grand or big ticket expenditures---what the mainstream media call pre-election sweeteners or giving voters a raft of goodies in an election year. There will be more talk about deficit reduction and returning the budget to surplus quicker than forecast in the context of an international economy in crisis (the cold wind blowing from Athens).
That's my guess.
How will that be achieved? Will this austerity help them win an election? Presumably it will take some of the wind out of the tax and spend government out of control sails of the Abbott Coalition who claim that the Rudd Government is "Whitlamesque'' in its reckless spending. This is an opposition whose rhetoric of real action is increasingly retreating into the right corner.
Update
I didn't watch Swan's budget address. I listened to the blues whilst taking photos of dead flowers instead. A return to a $1 billion surplus by 2012-13 from a budget deficit of $40.8 billion this year. This will be primarily from faster economic recovery and higher commodity prices (the resources boom) rather than from big budget cuts.There was little slash and burn and no tax cuts as the recovery in revenues flows to the treasury and not to voters.
Gee, there is even a little new renewable energy fund to try to prove the government is still committed to climate change, even without the emissions trading scheme it still admits is essential. No money for an emissions trading scheme. How about that? I note that they've taken the axe to to several environmental programs, worth millions just to show that they are "balanced". This is not a green government.
I note that more money has been pumped into primary health care -- $2.2 billion all up, in addition to the funding deal thrashed out with the states and territories at COAG. There are cheaper prescription medicines, more GP super clinics; more money for clinics and nurses to staff them; a nationwide network of primary health care organisations; and electronic health record by mid-2012.
The biggest health reforms "since the introduction of Medicare"? Health under Nicola Roxon represents the strong reformist side of the Rudd Government. But there is no new mental health funding and nothing on a universal dental scheme. However, the government has not lifted the proportion of the health budget spent on prevention much above the level of the previous government, partly because of the huge increases in spending on hospitals and doctors.
There will be more analysis tomorrow. Too much red wine has been drunk whilst listening to Dark Star.
|
So, it looks as though the Australian People will have to learn the hard way, as to Abbot.
But the big question remains, why are Labor so anal retentitive of rightist ideological nonsenses and prepared to pursue neoliberalism even after the inevitable policy failures that follow from policies constructed on ideas so at variance with reality?