It’s been quite a week for the Coalition government what with China calling us a joke after cancelling some of our exports, Peter “He Who Must Not Be Named” Dutton calling for the opening of borders, and Stuart Robert trying to shut down the Abbotsford Centrelink office. In the case of the Centrelink office, it was announced that they were being evicted the next day because of an inability to reach agreement with the landlord who – according to reports – had offered them an extension of the lease at the same rent. Evidently, the people in charge of Centrelink hadn’t heard that the Morrison government had announced a six months freeze on evictions.
Of course all that fades into insignificance when it’s put beside Josh Frydenberg’s remarkable achievement. He has improved the Budget bottom line by $60,000,000,000 in just twenty four hours. To give you some perspective, this is more than Rudd spent in total on his stimulus package. It’s ten times more than the entire federal Arts budget. Why it’s even more than Bridget McKenzie spent on girls’ change rooms prior to the last election.
While many people are asking how this could happen, I don’t think it’s the time for laying blame or contributing to the GoFundMe campaign to buy Josh a calculator, I think we should all just be happy that we’ve managed to save so much money… Of course, when I say “save” I don’t really mean save because after all, as our great Treasurer pointed out, “This is all borrowed money.”
That’s right, the money we haven’t spent isn’t saved, it’s just not borrowed from wherever it is that government’s borrow money. Some of it comes from bonds where the government borrow money from people who want to put their money somewhere secure. For example, your superannuation fund might be buying it up if you hadn’t just accessed your super because the government said you were allowed to. Now if you’re one of the the people who hasn’t done that then there’s a very good chance that you’re getting interest from the government bonds and you’re the sort of capitalist bastard who’s squeezing money out of the taxpayer.
For those of you who still insist on holding someone to account, let me quickly explain what happened. When the government announced that JobKeeper would cost $130 billion, they were working on a figure of $1500 per fortnight multiple by thirteen fortnights for the six months multiplied by six million workers. The only mistake they made was the assumption that six million workers would be on JobKeepeer. Now, in hindsight, it’s easy to say that six million workers is a rather large number to be on JobKeeper given that Australia’s entire workforce was only about twelve million, that some of them would be put on JobSeeker, that, not only would some businesses not be eligible or fail to apply, but some people would be essential workers who didn’t lose their jobs, that some of them were casuals who didn’t fit the criteria, that some of them worked for universities and didn’t deserve money because they think they’re too clever by half, that others worked in the Arts industry and still others had decided to jump on a cruise ship and take their chances rather than stay in the country. However, like I said, who could have predicted all these things unless they looked up the statistics on the ABS website and tried to make a more accurate estimate. I mean time was of the essence and slowing down to look up numbers and calculate a more realistic figure would have delayed the announcement to the next news bulletin.
And then, of course, there’s the fact that it was the businesses themselves couldn’t understand that how many employees do you have meant exactly that and not how much do you expect to get. I mean, who hasn’t made a simple mistake like that. When I’m filling out a form which asks how many children I have, I frequently write the cost of raising him rather than “1”. One could blame the people designing the form for not stressing that number of employees meant exactly what it said. Fortunately though, nobody who wrote 1500 was actually sent the $2 million plus in that first week, because we were told that there were no overpayments.
Clearly this is nobody’s fault – apart from the aforementioned business people and the people who designed the form and they’re not really to blame – so we should all just congratulate the Liberals and say that thank god the adults are in charge because there’s no way Labor would have done anything like this.
Yes, Josh Frydenberg is right. Liberals are there to take the credit but never the blame.
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Have I reached that point where I no longer have the energy to be shocked or even slightly dismayed at the gross, incompetence, misinformation, misdirection, corruption and down Right lies ?
Am I assisting this neoliberal government, by having no words to describe my horror at the authoritarian nature of their iachoeved and intended policies ?
Am I just like the citizens of Germany in the 1930s who turned a blind eye out of fear that they might come for me ?
Checked out the Murdoch rags front pages this morning (Saturday) Daily Telegraph missed the $60 BILLION story altogether. One had a couple of columns of mild reporting on PAGE 7. Another one did have on front page but pushing the line that it was a “$60 billion boost to the budget”. I was expecting KICK THIS MOB OUT !!!
I still can’t understand why the people of this country have such a low opinion of politics,after all,they’re all doing the best they can………For themselves.The Liar’s rabble are starting to make the Lying Rodent’s pack of hyenas look respectable.
I am seriously considering buying and sending a set of Cuisenaire rods and a calculator for 5 – 9 year olds to our incredible and wonderful treasurer, Josh. I also believe that the “not for use $60 billion borrowed money” will magically find it’s way into general revenue. Scummo won’t be able to resist it.
Frydenberg is an insult to the Kippah.
Kronomex
“I also believe that the “not for use $60 billion borrowed money” will magically find it’s way into general revenue. Scummo won’t be able to resist it.”
C’mon now. A nice little down payment on the next election campaign. No having to scrabble around with sports rorts at the last minute. And once again, it’s all funded from you know who.
Stephengb
“Am I just like the citizens of Germany in the 1930s who turned a blind eye out of fear that they might come for me ?”
I’m old, so I’ll do what I can.
It’s the comfortable middle class that will bring this country down. Formerly working class from the left who took full advantage of strong unions,working conditions and remunerations. Now they vote for the Nazi’s; because they own a few properties.
I’d like to think that all those Liberals who burst neck arteries from screaming so much at Rudd’s huuuuge stimulus package are now somewhat embarrassed with the current Liberals.
Nah. I’m dreaming.
Brilliant! Satirically real
Now Rossliegh, a quiet word about our Joshie ….. you know that he was once a not very good professional tennis player who counted to five by going “Love, 15, 30, 40, Game” so it really is understandable that he could confuse a million with a billion because the “m” and “b” are only two keys apart on a typewriter.
But why does a sovereign nation have to borrow money from international fraudsters masquerading as friendly bankers when the Australian government can simply print money to meet the relevant need? Oh, I remember ….. Australian citizens have to prop up the US bankers who gave us the 1929 Great Depression and the 2008 GFC ….. without any of the bankers who created these financial disasters ever being called to account ….. because the banks were “too big to fail” and Scummo Sacked from Marketing is seeking brownie points from his unChristian mate Trumpery.
Now Sucker has come on television tonight (230520) and said that the COALiiton cannot spend the apparent windfall on Australian taxpayers who are employed as casuals or less than 12 months with the same employer or international students who are starving to pay exorbitant university fees, compensating for Little Johnnie Howard cutting university funding by $1 BILLION and later Liarbral Nazional$ misgovernments have failed to make up this deliberate shortfall, because that would mean that the money would be spent and have to be repaid over several years.
UHM….. but communist PRC, our biggest trading partner, has just scrapped economic targets to concentrate on economic recovery and looking after the people. Jacinda Ardern in NZ is talking up a four day working week to encourage internal tourism but Trumpery is threatening state governors while Boris the Bore is “jailing” international travellers to Britain for 14 days because he failed to act early enough in the pandemic.
Hod did I get here??? Forgive me Rossleigh, all I really wanted to say is that Friedeggburger lacks the necessary personal skills and talents to satisfactorily fill the position of Australian Treasurer, just like too many other Liarbal Nazional$ politicians who would be better off in other positions better suited to their underwhelming talents.
love it rossleigh.
Yesterday a Nth NSW national sent me fryden…’s newsletter(see below) and I sent him chalmers report card and he sent me” Headed by ‘ne of these pollies is honest’ the other is spinning.
Answer:
Take it easy Wam,
Some people filled out the ATO form wrongly and members of the Public Service Union didn’t pick it up and advised poor old Josh with the wrong statistics.(nb he could resist blaming the union)
This is an error in our favour mate, be thankful, $60 B less to borrow!!!!!
Your mob think that the money is sitting in an surplus account somewhere and straight away want to spread it around all the comrades.
All it means that your and my grandchildren have to pay back a little less during the next decades.
and I:
me and the last word:
“Imagine if labor had said them every tv show would have been screaming but silence on how joshua sounded his trumpet out of tune
You need a little adjustment to this rapidly fat faced liar.
“He has just duped himself because he was so traumatised by such labor tactics that partially helped workers
the $60b will go quietly into the coffers for the future
Still errors of $60 billion to workers via the bosses, puts bridget’s sports rorts to shame and hides the angus jiggery pokery???
What about this:
Yesterday the mass distribution of notification letters have been mailed to the Australian public having identified over 686,901 wrongfully and illegally issues Robo-debts.
there is no room for artificial intelligence in welfare.”
ake it easy Bill,
Some people filled out the ATO form wrongly and members of the Public Service Union didn’t pick it up and advised poor old Josh with the wrong statistics.
This is an error in our favour mate, be thankful, $60 B less to borrow!!!!!
Your mob think that the money is sitting in an surplus account somewhere and straight away want to spread it around all the comrades.
All it means that your and my grandchildren have to pay back a little less during the next decades.
Dear Albert,
This was another very tough week for Australia.
The latest jobs figures show that there were 594,000 fewer Australians in jobs in April. This is heartbreaking.
Across the world, this health crisis has become an economic crisis.
In the United States, over 36 million jobless claims have been made in the eight weeks to 9 May, with the unemployment rate rising to 14.7% in the month of April.
In China, GDP fell by 9.8% in the March quarter – the first fall on record.
Here in Australia, we saw consumer and business confidence have their largest falls on record.
In just over a month, our share market lost more than a third of its value.
New vehicle sales fell by 48% through the year. House sales fell by 40%.
Domestic and international air travel is down by more than 97%.
Unfortunately, the economic news will get worse before it gets better.
Treasury forecasts our unemployment rate will increase to around 10%.
But for our unprecedented $130 billion JobKeeper program, which now has more than 860,000 businesses formally enrolled covering over six million Australian employees, they predict it would reach 15%.
Other measures to support Australians include:
690,000 businesses with payments of up to $100,000 to boost cash flow.
117,000 apprentices with a 50% wage subsidy.
1.9 million Australians are now receiving the $550 Coronavirus Supplement.
The first $750 payment to over 7 million Australians was made in April and a second $750 payment will be made in July.
Lower deeming rates and halving the superannuation minimum drawn down requirements to help retirees.
Australians know there is no money tree.
Our measures are not designed to go forever, but to build a bridge to the recovery.
Australia entered this COVID-19 crisis from a position of strength.
In six years, over 1.5 million jobs were created. Last year, we balanced the budget for the first time in 11 years.
Compared to most countries, Australia is in a stronger position to recover.
The rate of increase in new COVID-19 cases has fallen from 25-30% per day at the end of March, to less than 0.5% per day now.
Having suppressed the spread of the virus and put vital protections in place, we can now begin lifting restrictions which Treasury estimates could see around 850,000 people go back to work in the coming months.
Our measures are working, protecting lives and livelihoods.
Australians can be confident about our future.
We must stay strong. We must stay together. We must maintain our resolve.
Regards,
Josh Frydenberg
Treasurer
ps
Michael. not much chance albo reads your posts
wam, I have noticed an interesting difference between your work day posts and your weekend posts.
I have a theory!
Geoff Andrews
Are you suggesting ‘substances’ might be involved?
We all make the occasional grammatical or punctuational error but I wish ‘Billy” would take a few moments to review his offerings before hitting the post button. I got seriously lost in today’s post.
As I (sort of) understand it, as long as the borrowing is in AUD, the money doesn’t exist until the government spends it.
wam: UH?
In all the years Wam worked for The CIA no one ever cracked his code. And feel very fortunate to have attended many of Wam night classes on cryptanalysts years ago. It’s been invaluable.
Maybe WAM’s codescrambler needs servicing.
the quotes are from me and a national party official who sent me last week’s frydenbergs newsletter and I was having fun with his billions
I have taken my afternoon pills and still cannot understand what I said but it was not what you said I said or what I thought I said or meant to say showing me to be the second suppository of knowledge
sorry my skill at cut and paste is equal to my proofreading.
Can you imagine the screaming headlines in the Murdchracy if this monumental blunder had been perpetrated by the Labor government. Barely a mention in them as far as I can see. Mind you I am sure if Morrison or Hockey had been treasurer they would have picked it up. Yeah right! And the grinning Corman blethered away in Belgise or whatever language he purports to dribble in. Clive Palmer and Queerland, you put us in this position and have a lot to answer for.