“Economy’s going well, isn’t it, Jake?”
”Too right, I was overjoyed at how energy prices are going up. It’s really great for the economy.”
”Yeah, I went to fill up my car last night and I noticed that the fuel price was only $1.89 a litre.”
’Gawd, some people…”
”Yeah, well, I went in and pointed out that everywhere else had it at plus $2. They understand that high energy prices are good for the economy.”
”And what about those floods, eh?”
“Yeah, imagine all the rebuilding and how much that’s going to boost the GDP.”
“And all the ruined furniture. Harvey Norman’s going to get a real boost…”
Yes, well, you’re right. Nobody talks like that. Although when I say nobody, of course I’m excluding the Coalition and a large number of economists. Don’t believe me? Well, have a look at how good the news is according to our Treasurer.
‘Looking ahead, Mr Frydenberg said the omicron COVID-19 variant had not derailed the recovery, Australian trade with Russia and the Ukraine was negligible, current flooding was not as disruptive as in the past, and strong energy and soft commodity prices such as wheat would be beneficial.
‘“We have already seen significant price increases across a number of these commodities since the invasion began with oil prices up more than 15 per cent, wheat prices up around 25 per cent,” Mr Frydenberg said. “Coal prices are also up significantly since the start of the year with thermal coal up more than 50 per cent and metallurgical coal up by around 30 per cent.”
‘As a net energy exporter, Australia will get an income boost from the price shocks caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the same time the International Monetary Fund is signalling a downgrade in global growth.’
Ronald Mizen The Australian Financial Review
So there you have it. The economic recovery hasn’t been derailed and the floods aren’t all that disruptive and strong energy prices are just great. Australia’s going to get an income boost from exporting energy so you can look at the price of petrol and thank Vladimir for our boost…
Of course, I’m obviously out of step because I think it would be better if energy prices were lower and we transitioned out of coal as soon as practical, but apparently leaving that to the market is really risky and some people are suddenly becoming socialists who believe that the government should intervene and force those naughty companies to keep burning coal because it’s really efficient in the sense that you have to keep your coal-fired power stations running 24/7 and therefore they don’t stop even when there’s no need for them but that’s efficiency according to some on the Liberal side of politics.
One of the interesting things about the excellent economic growth that Australia is apparently having is the lack of anyone pointing out that the government is running an enormous surplus which has the effect of pushing billions of dollars into the economy which, as everyone knows, should lead to growth because that’s the whole idea of it. The fact that we’re having strong economic growth at a time when we’ve given up the idea that we’ll get budgets to balance any time soon is about as remarkable as the record deluges in Queensland and NSW causing heavy flooding.
Mr Frydenberg is facing a challenge from Monique Ryan for his electorate of Kooyong but in what I can only assume is attempt to look like he has some idea about sensible spending, he announced yesterday that the car parks he promised before the 2019 election wouldn’t be going ahead. Apparently after consulting people, there’s no need for them and they’d be a waste of money. Fair enough, but wouldn’t you think that any sensible government would have worked that out before announcing four car ‘porks’ in the Treasurer’s electorate. Nobody would thank an MP if they suddenly decided that their promise to put a fax machine in every home is a wee bit last century.
Strangely, Mr Frydenberg’s broken promise wasn’t the front page of “The Herald-Sun” in Melbourne today. No, there was a much bigger one. The Independent challenging him for the seat has a secret. She doesn’t like the government and, even worse, she once declared her love for some Labor politicians on Facebook. Now, given that it came out that she was once a member of the Labor Party a few months ago, I wouldn’t have considered this front page news, but I guess that’s why I’m not likely to ever be asked to edit any of the Murdoch propaganda sheets.
I would have presumed that the announcement that Josh doesn’t intend to demonstrate his commitment to recycling by using the same car park policy that he took to the previous election would be an indication that he feels completely safe. However, when the papers feel the need to do a hit job on his opponent and not some Labor person in a marginal electorate, the polling must be closer than I thought.
Ok, well, it’s only a matter of weeks before Morrison has to either call the election or else we’ll all know that it’s on May 21st. Unless he really is intending to have a half-Senate election and hold off the House of Representatives so long that all the newspapers running Clive Palmer’s ads become viable businesses again.
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