Sometimes you just have to lay out what’s being said to sound like you’ve just written a script that sounds like you’re channelling the late John Clarke.
For example, we’re told Anthony Albanese is a risk because he’s never held an economic portfolio. The role of Prime Minister demands a strong economic understanding of economics. But, argue Labor, Anthony Albanese was once Deputy PM. This, according to the Liberals, has nothing to do with economics and it’s only the PM who is involved in the economics of the day,.. along with the economic portfolios ministers which include things like Treasury, Finance, and Trade but not Infrastructure because Albanese held that one.
Of course, the fact that our current Deputy PM is Barnaby Joyce, who rose to such lofty heights at his NPC address this week that he got nose bleed (seriously!), does suggest that it is possible for the Liberals to argue that the Deputy is kept away from economic matters and sharp objects as much as possible.
And of course, this does raise the interesting question of a Peter Dutton led Opposition being unfit for government on the grounds that Petey has also never held an economic ministry. Or will Border Force, Health or Defence all suddenly be economic in nature.
Whatever, we also had the rather strange position of Anne Ruston on Katherine Deves. While I note that this not the only strange position that Liberals have been in, mentioning certain others could leave one open to legal action and I don’t have a spare half million lying around, but let’s stick with Anne for the moment.
I hope nobody is going to take offence for me referring to a federal minister by her first name, but it seems to be what one does when talking about a woman. Scotty does it all the time and, let’s be clear here, Anne is such a warm, caring sort of person that I almost feel like she’s a mate and if you can’t call mates by their first name, well, what’s happening to the Australia I grew up in?
Anne was asked by Patricia Karvelas – or PK, as she’s known to many – about Katherine Deves front page interview in the SMH. Her response… and I may have got this slightly wrong because I’m writing from memory and memory can be faulty, as the PM shows every time he’s asked about some past statement which doesn’t suit his present position, so if I get it slightly wrong, then I never said anything like the thing I said and you just thought that I meant something that I didn’t… Her response was something along the lines of it’s not clear whether Deves had permission to do the interview but whether she did or not, Ruston doesn’t agree with her and she doesn’t have to agree with everything every Liberal candidate says because, people have different opinions and it’s just that we happen to be in the same party and it’s up to her to explain herself but vote Liberal whatever anyone says because even if disagree about some issues when it comes down to it, we’re at least a credible, united government unlike the chaos that could occur if you have independents who’ll all vote as a block and put Albanese into power and then we’ll have interest rate rises.
Which, apparently, is both a problem AND a sign that the economy is doing well and we no longer need the emergency level interest rates.
Yes, whatever one thinks about Albo’s support for a minimum wage rise that keeps pace with inflation, it’s hard to follow the Morrison line that we don’t want people left behind but we can’t afford for them to keep up even though our economy is doing better than anywhere in the world.
Maybe it’s just me but I found the Liberal’s “There’s a hole in the bucket” ad quite confusing. It was suggesting that Labor wouldn’t be able to pay for its promises and would run deficits. This might be a touch more convincing were it not for the fact that while Labor may not have delivered a surplus for over thirty years, the Liberals haven’t delivered one for over fifteen years and they have no projections that deliver one in the life of the next parliament. So we’re being asked to choose between a Labor deficit and a Liberal deficit. Except the Liberal ad then asserts – even though Labor have consistently ruled it out – that Labor will raise taxes. Leaving aside everything to do with Labor’s promise not raise taxes, doesn’t the fact that they’ll attempt to balance the budget by raising revenue suggest that they’re the more fiscally responsible ones? All right, most people don’t actually want to pay more tax so it’s a populist move to suggest that the other side will make you, but surely it’s irresponsible – when we’ve got deficits and debt – to not worry about balancing the books?
Or are the Liberals planning a massive cut in spending on things like health and education. You know, the things that don’t matter.
Ah, it’s Friday the 13th. I’d stay away from ladders today if I were Scotty from Photo Ops.
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