Comrades,
You gotta love Uncle Jim Chalmers' "reasonably responsible budget".
First and foremost there are a fuckton of votes in Child Care and
Paid Parental Leave. An absolute poultice of them. It seems the
rise of the 'teal' Independents has at last woken Labor up to the
enormously powerful bloc that is the 'women's vote' (although
they'll say they've been working on it for decades.) Well, how
about "equal pay for equal work", then? How's that going since it
became legislation eons ago, and has been studiously flouted
and ignored ever since? Tony Burke better have his ears pricked up.
Millions in waste and mismanagement used to make my blood boil and shit me to tears, now tens of billions of bucks worth of gargantuan pork-barrelling and other blatant vote buying by the ScoMo Govt. barely raises a shrug of the shoulders and a "Of course they did. The Dead Man Walking had no other choice". And most of it was done at the behest of the Country Party anyway, to keep them quiet in in the party room. For a good century, whenever anything goes bad on the farm, out go both hands for Govt. subsidies in every conceivable kind of rort (e.g. how long has the "Farm Diesel Rebate Scheme" been going on for? If any other small business tried that one on, they'd be promptly told where to shove it. But they gotta keep the tractors running, on the cheap). What about getting it off farm? If Tim Fischer AC - the only sensible Country Party loyalist I've ever met - was still with us, he'd still be screaming from the rooftops about High Speed Rail. Seems the Pinko's have foreshadowed some movement, though, for strict limitations on filling the kegs with ham.
Structural deficit tied to the stupendously expensive Covid
response and decades of climate denial and the miserable failure
to deliver on a "carbon tax" will look after itself over time. It
just has to. And will. Falling real estate values are perfectly
fine, even a 20% drop won't cover the insane housing price boom
seen at the end of '21/start of '22. Fingers will be burnt of
course, but so what - it's only sucko to those who got sucked in
by the FOMO. And in the end, it's the shareholders in the
ludicrously profitable banks - who just move one hill of beans
from one side of the room to the other - who will have to pay for
the debt defaults. Soon enough, fire sales will be in season.
Labor's response is building masses of new housing and social
housing stock. Very good luck with that in the current climate.
Inflation running high and the complete irony of full employment
is much better than stagflation (which Uncle Jim slightly
mis-pronounced on interview after the budget as "Stag Nation").
OK, vast tracts of productive crop land has been flooded, but
there'll be subsidies for that to keep prices manageable, and the
latest big news to come out of a completely swamped Moree is that
they've "run out of beer". Poor snowflakes. In contrast, one of
the Favourite Daughters - a denizen of Footscray - reported seeing
bar stools floating down the flooded Maribyrnong River.
Do you think the upstream riverside small bars will get any compo
for them? In your dreams. They're expected to have insurance.
But zero immigration during the Pando and the subsequent
crippling labour shortage, as well has stubbornly high diesel
prices, the world wide supply chain snarl, and China looking more
and more inwardly on matters economic are the biggest drivers of
inflation that inevitably hit the poor (again), as the rich can
easily afford to pay more for their Jimmy Choo's.
You have to admire the guts of Albo in resisting huge pressure to
scrap the Stage Three Tax Cuts. He was simply chanelling JPK here
in his famous "L-A-W. Law" line. The cuts were supported by The Pinko's
at the time, and breaking promises like that give His Majesty's Opposition
perpetual ammunition that have been known to kill Government's
stone dead when it comes to election time. Too bad the rich and
the rapidly diminishing upper middle class will benefit most, and
the working poor will get about one dollar week if that, but when
it comes to back-tracking on big ticket items, voters have very
long memories - especially as these tax cuts are phased in over
years, not next week.
Of course Albo loves nothing more than channelling Hawkie, even though he has as just about as much charisma as Old Mate Joe Biden. While he has reined in his innate combative personality, Albo would do much better if he gave away his sometimes snarky attitude and comments. He also "ums" & "ahs" too much off the cuff. Unfortunately, nothing can be done about "that voice". He's no media tart, unlike Scomo, the biggest press prossy there ever was. Albo is definitely governing "by committee", just like Hawkie, looking for consensus, everywhere and anywhere he can find it. He's not wasting his precious time on being a micromanager like his predecessor, and is unafraid to delegate responsibility as he has complete trust in his ministers to quietly get on with the job without making a great big sound about it. The PM does, and should, have bigger fish to fry on the major policy initiatives. The Wongster has being doing a top job in Foreign Affairs, diving straight into the South Pacific where she's constantly turned up to sort out some serial recalcitrants, warn them off thinly-veiled Chinese promises with "you know which side your bread is buttered on". Now she's making tentative forays in SE Asia to try and repair the damage done by successive Coalition Govts. who sent a swathe of freaks into the rarefied world of the Diplomatic Corps such as Alexander Downer, Julie Bishop, and Marise Paine. Don't think Senator Penny has made a visit to the States or Europe yet. Why bother? They are no longer the centre of diplomatic power like they used to be, and the longer she avoids the UK the better (remember Tim Tams for Penguins - a very ordinary biscuit?). Uncle Bill Shorten is even making a comeback, and telling anyone who'll listen about being the fixer of the fraud-riddled lazily bureaucratic NDIS. The crippled deserve much better, and Bill's been told to do the job properly to help restore his political capital.
Uncle Jim - like Hawkie - also gave up the drink during the Pando
(when most people hit the booze real hard) so he was clear-headed
into coming onto the Pinko Treasury Benches. He found it much easier
than just cutting back on the grog. He'll tell you Cold Turkey is the only
way. There hasn't been a sober Treasurer in a while.
Dick Dutton is also doing very well on his makeover. The other
day I saw him dressed in a checked shirt surrounded by flunkies
and reporters in suits & ties. Obviously he's eschewed the
hi-viz, and jettisoned anything remotely to do with ScoMo, having
replaced his attack dog mode with something smoother and simpler.
All he needs to do now is get a wig. When asked about it he can
say "Wot wig? Alopecia cured. Next question?". Good
job, but what kind of rump Opposition does he have to lead? Sussan
Ley is only the deputy through sheer loyalty as she voted for
Dutton in leadership spills against Malcolm Trumble and ScoMo, and
comes with some baggage as well. Tudgey is an outright creep,
Taylor is an unabashed fascist, Barbaby Joyce is well, Barnaby
Joyce, Michaelia Cash is a space cadet from another
planet, and no-one has ever heard of anyone else, with good
reason. The Tories will be smacked hard again in Victoria and NSW
(pre-selection infighting - will they ever learn?) in coming
months, making it even harder to make Mob Dutton credible again,
as they continue to be under takeover pressure from hard right
Pentecostals, even though their spiritual leader is gone.
If everything goes to shit - which is highly likely with the USA no longer great and utterly incabable of being "great again", the northern winter on the way and war in Europe - world wide recession is highly likely. But it won't be as big or as sudden as the GFC, so there will be no more Kevin07 "Free Telly's For All".
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