In contrast, the Coalition presents itself as a low tax party (so, in an overheated economy they would fuel inflation and increase interest rates, grocery prices and increase unemployment). As their fiscal policy is at odds with the RBA's monetary policy rather than working together, so their economic management credibility looks tacky and fractured. Their claim that they do not support higher taxes and higher spending is at odds with their record as a government.

The Coalition's decision to oppose the tax on premixed spirit drinks (alcopops) on the same basis as spirits in general looks to me to be akin to political suicide. This is a preventative health measure designed to discourage excessive drinking among young people, particularly young women. All the tax does is tax the pre-mixed spirit drinks on the same basis as unmixed spirit drinks.

Julie Bishop on Lateline tried to justify the Coalition's opposition to scrapping the changes to private health insurance (increasing the threshold to pay the Medicare levy surcharge) as forcing people into a NHS socialist medicine model. Yet this is a tax cut that eases the penalties put in place by the Howard government to subsidise the private health insurance industry and shift people into conuming private health services. The language of choice--consumers can choose to purchase the products offered by the private health insurance---is now dumped in order to prop up the private insurance industry.

Anne Gallagher says in The Age that sex slavery exists in Australia. Individual girls are brought over here from Thailand, Korea, China and other countries to meet Australia's growing demand for commercial and "exotic" sex. When the "contract girls" arrive in Australia they:

...owe a debt of between $35,000 to $50,000, an amount that is often inflated to cover employer "costs" such as medical tests and food. They are required to engage in sex work, without any payment, for as long as it takes to discharge that debt. "Contract girls" are not stupid and most end up understanding the nature of their exploitation very well. Many decide not to fight. They accept their fate and try to make the best of the period of their debt bondage — waiting for a time that they will be free to work normally or to go home. Others try to resist and escape. Physical violence, forced detention, withholding of identity documents and intimidation are used to control recalcitrant individuals.

Gallagher says that:

There is considerable room for improving Australia’s current legislative framework. While component offences are more or less covered, existing legislation only addresses certain of the possible exploitative outcomes of trafficking and even these in an extremely limited way.xv It does not criminalize trafficking per se and in fact does not even recognize the “movement” aspects such as recruitment, transportation and transfer. It also does not recognize aspects of migration fraud associated with trafficking. In summary, and as recognized by the Government’s own enquiry, existing criminal laws do not adequately reflect the realities of the trafficking tradexvi and fall far short of international standards.

The snip and tuck pruning of the Howard government excess is the downside side of the Swan budget. The upside is the nation building--- investment in health, infrastructure and education, and a more constructive relationship with state governments. Defence spending is up university spending is down. So what happened to the education revolution? Where is the military threat to Australia's security? Why not cut the increase in defence spending and put the money into universities?

As Anna Rose observes in New Matilda Rudd and Swan missed this opportunity to make historic shift in Australia's economy by not investing enough in climate solutions to start the shift to a low carbon economy, cutting back on subsidies that encourage us to pollute and using the money to encourage emission reductions is essential.

Consequently, the proof of the Government’s commitment will become apparent when it delivers on its promise of an emissions trading system and, crucially, the target it sets in the medium term

On the other side, after the Liberal years of economic policy that drove greater demand and consumption in the short term, we have an ALP starting to make productive investments needed to underpin longer term economic growth.

The health section of the budget suggested that the reform is going to be modest---cautious reform step by cautious reform step. Nothing to rock the boat--- no major redirection under a new government. The centrepiece of the health budget is the $10 billion dollars from the huge Budget surplus ($21 billion) being ploughed back into Australia's health infrastructure under a new fund. This fund, which builds on Costello's ideas, was forgotten by Jane Hailton, the Health Department Secretary, and only recalled at the last minute. Instead we got minutiae in the presentation from the various departmental secretaries that downplayed the cuts in spending in mental health especially, without any narrative of what the health budget was trying to do. I just cannot see the Department of Health and Ageing driving reform.

The Health and Hospital Fund is to be to be managed by the Future Fund. No mention was made of a COAG Reform Fund, which will also be set up to channel reform-related payments to the States.The establishment of the health and hospital funds,(along with infrastructure, education funds) gives a good sense of the nation-building intent over the course of several Parliamentary terms.

There was a push towards preventative care (alcohol, smoking and drugs) and cuts to programs without wielding the meataxe---there's a sense of the Razor Gang going line by line through the spending inherited from the Howard Government----and it meet all its election commitments in this Budget in terms of increased funding for hospitals and GP Superclinics. There was the updating of the Medicare surcharge levy:---raising the threshold ($100,0000 for individuals and $150 000 for families) for people who choose not to take out private health insurance. Is that an indication of reform intent re the public/private health mix.

Swan and Tanner reconcile the need for fiscal restraint to fight inflation while fulfilling the Government’s election promises and not crunching the economy so hard that it risks exacerbating the coming slowdown. So it is politically astute.

I saw Peter Dutton, the Opposition Finance spokesperson, on Lateline saying that this is a true Labor budget because there's high spending, there is high taxation. He gave every impression of not knowing what he was talking about as he tried to spin a line----the Rudd Government is socialist! The implication was "politics of envy"--- soaking the rich to give to the poor. The budget's big tax cuts-- copied from the Liberals during the election--- does not support that interpretation at all.

What Dutton didn't, or couldn't, say was that the tax cuts ($31billion) are clearly inflationary in an economy that is still at full stretch. Much of them will be spent. They are the centrepiece of the Budget, and in the last couple of months of Government decision making the Razor Gang been running trying to undo the effect of those tax cuts by cutting government spending. Chris Richardson from Access Economics says:

I fear that inflation will be worse than Treasury hopes. Remember, an absolute torrent of money is about to be dropped on Australia's economy. It's not just the commodity boom's continuing, it is accelerating, and this is the biggest set of risks we've had in this inflation challenge so far. The Budget helps, but whether it's helped enough, not clear.

There's a good position for the Coalition to argue from. Much better than Turnbull's "what inflation?" rhetoric that is at adds with the analyses of the Reserve Bank and Treasury; or is his subsequent defence of big centralized government with his repeated warnings against substantial spending cuts --wielding the machete and inflicting lots of pain ---at a time of a global economic downturn.

Then before any political pressure on China had a chance to build, China suffered its own disaster in the form of an earthquake which, at the moment, seems to have killed at least ten thousand people in the Sichuan province. Tim Costello reckons it will be much easier to help in China since aid agencies already have bases there, and he doesn't seem to anticipate any political interference.

Meanwhile, horrendous things are happening to stupid numbers of people and these kinds of events are likely to become more frequent as the plate that hosts Australia inches north. I thought geological time was supposed to be bigger than this? Maybe increased exposure to these kinds of things will generate compassion fatigue and we'll become inured to footage of dead people lying in the streets and floating in the waterways of our nearest neighbours?

At the moment, we can't know since media coverage is too limited to get the kind of public response we saw with the tsunami, when the extent of Australians' generosity surprised everyone. For a country like Burma where the population exists to serve the military it's self-defeating to let the population die, and self-defeating to let foreigners dole out the goodies. We've yet to see whether China faces the same dilemma. It could very well prove to be a bridge for the whole region, Tibet notwithstanding.

The headline (probably not Kerr's idea) reads:

Blogs help Libs divide and conquer themselves

Powerful things, blogs. Andrew Landeryou, blogger, who seems to have broken the story, expects much worse to come since it looks as though very few Victorian Liberals didn't know what was going on. Perhaps the Victorian Liberal Party bloggers can claim to be the first Australian bloggers to claim a political scalp. Does it still count if the scalps in question are their own?

It hardly matters since, as Kerr observes:

Real political professionals know that the Australian blog world is insular, often ignorant and has virtually no influence on mainstream debate.

When you said the Australian blog world is insular, were you aware that you were blogging? Did you mean to infer that the many commenters on your blog are all part of this insular Australian blogdom of which you are a part?

Often ignorant. If you're talking about particular blogs or bloggers that may be true, sometimes, but as an interactive network it's far from ignorant. In fact I'd argue that the sometimes scary levels of expertise are part of the reason the blogosphere is so small.

As for having virtually no influence on mainstream debate, I'll assume you're not using the term 'mainstream' in the Janet Albrechtson sense, in which the mainstream doesn't really exist. That mainstream is too busy watching Australia's Funniest Home Videos to debate about the Victorian Liberals. You must be talking about politics in news media, in which case 'mainstream debate' refers to infighting among the commentariat.

Or perhaps influence is supposed to be the big idea here. If that's the case, I'd suggest that Victorian Liberal Party bloggers currently have an enormous influence. Big enough to help the Libs divide and conquer themselves, in fact. And ruin the budget for the whole Nelson-led party in the view of political experts. Experts who get published in mainstream media.

Maybe debating mainstreamers everywhere will be tempted to take time out from Australia's Funniest Home Videos to find out what this blog thing which brings down oppositions is all about? Or will they explore the Ozblogosphere only to be disappointed at its insularity, ignorance and lack of influence? In which case they'll have to settle for reading about how a blog can wreck a party in the newspapers. And on telly. And the radio.

Stephen Leader makes an interesting point about the media coverage of the Summit in the Centre of Policy Development's coverage of this exercise in deliberative democracy. He says that:

The media coverage of the Summit has been vintage colour-me-cynical Australian-beige. Virtually none has addressed the Summit as instrument of democratic life. Instead, the dull uniformity of articles and clips asserting that no good thing can come from the Summit has been depressing. That we have a prime minister capable of scholarly reflection and grasp, at ease discussing ideas rather than sending them off-shore to an island quarantine station, has largely escaped their attention. Only a fragment of the Summit material has thus far been published and it will be weeks before it all becomes available, but most media have already closed the books.

The mainstream media said very little about linking 'talkfest' to deliberative democracy's ideas about active citizenship and more public involvement by citizens. The effect of their narrow view of democracy made me depressed, as the media gave the impression that the same old ideas were being recycled- yet again; and that there was little practical point in transgressing the horizons or limits of the liberal democratic present.

From this perspective we can interpret the media discourse as a critique of deliberative democrats as nostalgic romantics. The media's discourse is that the stress on the positive values of political participation and the limits of negative freedom of a utilitarian based political culture, should be dismissed as unrealistic. It's pie in the sky stuff, despite the democratic deficit.

Stephen Leader questions this media critique by stressing the significance of the ideas that arose from the citizen deliberations in the health stream. He says that the single most interesting idea in the Health Strategy Stream related to prevention: to the government having a conversation with the major urban developers, food manufacturers and retailers in order to make it easier for people to choose goods that do not screw up their health.

Rudd could convene such a meeting as a follow-up to the Summit, in the spirit of the Summit. Seated around the table in this forum would be:

....the CEOs of companies that build our cities, design our parks and cycle ways, determine the style of new buildings, decide upon the walkability of a new suburbs, choose what food will be retailed, advertise it, run our commercial gyms and more.[The] PM could say "Ladies and Gentlemen: we have a problem and its called obesity. What are we going to do about it?" Small changes by CEOs ripple into waves - slowly reducing salt, fat and sugar in processed foods, designing mandatory park spaces so that people use them rather than avoid them, developing coherent walkability plans for cities and so forth could all be done at low cost through the combination of commercial, community and political will.

We citizens need to actively involved in the deliberation and debate surrounding the laws that govern us, rather than seeing these laws simply as instruments externally provided to protect individual pursuits.The 2020 Summit was a step in this direction.

The economy is slowing down. But that was the goal of economic governance, wasn't it. Are we going to have some good old fashioned therapeutic politics along the lines of ' I feel your pain' as well? A sharing of the tears as it were in the form of economic populism.

No doubt those on high incomes and free marketeers will applaud the attack on middle class welfare and deploy the postponement of tax relief for high income earners---the rich. Why so? Their argument is that doing well from hard work is being punished rather than rewarded. It is the politics of envy for those who have done better than the working families during the boom times. Reduce the tax on luxury cars! Increasing the tax on luxury cars is inefficient, as it distorts decision making and rewards the wrong kind of innovation. A progressive tax system is the wrong way to go. It smells of Karl Marx.

Update:13 May
The strategically placed "leaks" about the "tough as hell" budget have been freely flowing the last few days. This media management can be seen in the leaks about the rise in luxury car taxes, the increase in Medicare surcharge levels, the climate change package, the collapse in revenue, the cuts in taxation expenditure, aged care funding etc etc.

The ghostly pale Liberal Opposition appears to have gone into hiding as the voice of their leader and shadow ministers are nowhere to be heard in the media. What is heard is distant Liberal voices attacking themselves.So who questions the Rudd/Swan spin about them being economically responsible, delivering on its election commitments, responding to the inflationary pressures inherited from the irresponsible Coalition, and investing in the long term future of the country. The media? Are they going to show us the extent of the rise in unemployment as economic growth is slowed?

Americans are probably witnessing a changing of the guard, the final days of the House of Clinton, after 16 years of dominance. Yet a large part of the Democratic electorate, – especially white, blue-collar and the elderly – remain passionately loyal to the Clintons, and openly hostile to Obama.

Update: 12 May
African-American voters have broken for Obama in margins that make Hillary Clinton look about as popular in the neighborhood as Rudy Giuliani. So much for Hillary Clinton's alleged roots in the black community. Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Nation says that:

so much of what's been said about Barack Obama and African-Americans has been so shockingly wrong. Intellectuals examining Obama are trapped in an ancient dynamic--one that even in its heyday was overstated--in which white and black America are constantly at each other's throats, and agree on nothing. The either/or fallacy is their default setting.....Obama has redefined blackness for white America, has served notice that wherever we are, we are. What he is positing is blackness as a valid ethnic identity with its own particular folkways and yet still existing within the broader American continuum.

Now that it's clear Hillary's presidential campaign is all but over, the right is proceeding apace with their attempt to attack Michelle Obama as radical, unfeminine, unpatriotic. One of the most basic rhetorical tropes in the Republican and Right's tactic book is that all Democrats are radicals who hate America, that all female Democrats are ball-busting bitches and all male Democrats are girly-men (Barack Obama is an effete latte-sipping snob). Then the racism will be poured on. Read Kathy-G's post on this at The G Spot.

Yet that has been undercut by the alternative narrative of addressing inflation through big budget cuts and substantial surpluses so as to help the Reserve Bank's use of monetary policy to squeeze inflation. And yet this alternative narrative is undercut by the big personal income tax cuts that are in opposition to the use of interest rates to squeeze inflationary pressures in the economy and reduce economic growth.

So which is the economic narrative? Do these different narratives cohere in a broader big picture? If so, what is that big picture? It is not clear. Are the conflicting tendencies being thought through? It is not clear.

This is despite 100,000 dead with tens of thousands still missing, whole villages and townships wiped off the map, a complete loss of physical and communication infrastructure and 1 million of Myanmar's citizens left bedraggled, homeless and susceptible to water-borne diseases by Cyclone Nagris.

Zao Noam in Asia Times Online says that:

The Myanmar government has yet to offer any assistance to those devastated by the cyclone, despite the vast number of sufferers and the area's vital importance to the national economy. Yangon is the center of business for the country, and the delta region provides the nation's rice.

The alert among us will have noticed that vital information has already begun to circulate more freely. I, for one, feel far more informed about grave issues than at any time since 9/11. Take this for example:

"Grave-robbers 'used skull as bong'"

Authorities in Texas have filed corpse-abuse charges against two men who allegedly removed a skull from a grave and used it as a bong.
One of the men allegedly told police they dug up a grave in an abandoned cemetery in the woods, removed a head from a body and smoked marijuana using the skull as a bong.

These guys should have been in the creativity stream at the 2020 summit.

The big news of the day though is Burma, where freedom of information is a problem and media has apparently had trouble getting in.

"Rambo takes aim at Burma's junta"

Sylvester Stallone, whose latest Rambo film takes him to fight baddies in Burma, has ripped into the junta's handling of a devastating cyclone.

"As a result of Rambo and the cyclone, world attention is increasingly turned toward Myanmar [Burma]. I hope that the situation will improve and am honoured if I could be of any help."

So there you go. With a little help from a cyclone Sly has saved the world again. So much for those who think celebrities are a waste of space.

Amazing how easily reality is confounded with entertainment to the point where somebody who spends their time pretending to be other people can be confused with an authority on a topic because they once pretended to be somebody in a vaguely similar situation. Still, it's nice to know our media has the freedom to obtain and share this information with us. We'd be so much the poorer without it.

Many middle-class people are converts to the wellness cult: they have stopped smoking, improved their diet and started to exercise. But many others, particularly those on lower incomes, prefer to live for the day and have ignored the healthy lifestyle message. Recent reports on public health policy in Britain and Australia found that despite decades of spending on prevention programs, levels of physical activity have not increased and obesity levels have shot up. Obesity-related chronic disease already puts pressure on the health system and it will accentuate the challenges we face as the population ages.

Okay, that is pretty right. So where to next? What policy options do we have to address this?

Obesity has been redefined as an epidemic, as if victims passively contract it (infected, of course, by wicked and coercive fast-food advertising). As the victims of this epidemic are concentrated in lower-income groups, obesity has also been classified as health inequality, which makes it a social problem. The failure to curb obesity demonstrates is how the system failed to provide help to turn knowledge into practice. So-called ordinary Australians therefore need Medicare-funded preventive health care, of course, because unless the government was prepared to help them, how could they be expected to take care of their own health.

The word 'force' is misleading in this context given that the health prevention has been one of persuasion. So is the idea of liberal subjects seen as passive victims of an evil fast food industry. No mention is made of fast food being an unhealthy product.

What is the alternative? Sammut turns to the individual:

But the evidence suggests the Government's policies won't work. It should let ordinary Australians be and help ordinary taxpayers instead. Millions of taxpayers' dollars are already wasted every year preaching the virtues of brown bread, wheatgrass juice and jogging to those who won't be converted.

Girls exchanged sex for food, grog and marijuana. Social dysfunction caused by despondency, alcohol, drugs, petrol sniffing and gambling has already destroyed countless lives. Parents do not know how to care for and protect their children or have become unable to do so. There has been a failure of government agencies in South Australia who were responsible for children being left vulnerable to sex abuse in indigenous communities. The Rann Government has been negligent in providing the numbers of police and child-protection workers on the APY lands.

Mullighan proposed an interactive approach, including stationing more police in the communities, and boosting the over-stretched ranks of welfare workers. Night patrols, backed by police, should be re-instigated and access to pornography strenuously restricted, a measure that has overtones of the territory intervention.

He focused on an uncomfortable topic that most Americans would rather leave unspoken. He turned the topic over and examined it from several different angles and made it personal, and sparked a conversation about race relations that doesn't invoke the spectre that haunts America: racial violence.