Labor’s Wasteful Spending And Sound Economic Management…

Scott Morrison told us that Labor “know how to start spending but unlike the Coalition, they never know how to stop.” Morrison certainly knows when to start and when to stop. You start a few months before the election and you stop immediately after.

That’s not entirely true. If it’s something that’s dear to your heart, like coal or gas, you keep on spending, but if it’s something like a car park for a marginal electorate, you explain that having looked at the figures again, the case for the car park doesn’t stack up. The figures being how much you won the seat by.

Much of Labor’s problem with spending stems from the confirmation bias that it’s the Liberals who are the sound economic managers. If Labor proposes something like the NBN, it’s a shocking waste and the Liberals tell you that they can get you the NBN from a mate for half the cost and it’s not really a fake one, it’s just he’ll be expecting you to hook it up yourself.

On the flip side, when the Liberals spend, it’s good for the economy. I mean, it must be, right, because it’s the sound economic managers who are spending the money and they wouldn’t waste it on something like $5billion for submarines that we don’t get or paying a company to look after refugees an amount that would enable us to set up every refugee at the penthouse suite of a luxury hotel. Ok, there mightn’t be enough penthouse suites to go round, but it’s not an actual proposal even if it would be cheaper than what we’re doing.

And that’s the thing that seems to be happening as we approach the election.

Coalition: We will be spending money in your electorate to help save jobs and stimulate economic activity.

Labor: We’ll match whatever they’re spending…

Coalition: Look, Labor can’t be trusted not waste taxpayer money. It’s outrageous that they would suggest such a thing.

I’ve been reading a very interesting book called “FACTS and other lies!” by Ed Coper. Apparently if you say something often enough it becomes familiar and people are more likely to believe a familiar thing even if it comes from a dubious source. This is not the only insight form the book and it’s certainly worth a read if you feel like trying to understand why people with no formal training in a particular area feel as though they’ve managed to pick up things on the internet by “doing their own research” for twenty minutes that people who’ve dedicated years of study to the topic have missed.

Anyway, the main point is that this idea of the Liberals as sound economic managers, I suspect, comes from their repetition of the line rather than anything thing that they’ve actually done. If Labor want to counter this, they should probably start saying things like: “The only Australian recession this century was under a Coalition government.”

A few days ago, I heard Dan Tehan interviewed by Patricia Karvelas. He was asserting that Anthony Albanese had never held an economic portfolio, as though that was some sort of problem for a potential Prime Minister. Let’s be clear here: Was Mr Tehan suggesting that Paul Keating was a great choice for PM because he’d been Treasurer for a number of years? Or was he suggesting that John Howard was an excellent choice because he’d been the Treasurer who managed double digit inflation and unemployment under his watch? Or was he suggesting that almost anyone who’d held a particular portfolio would be better, even if, like Josh Frydenberg, they’d presided over the first recession in Australia this century? (See, what I did there? I can’t work out why no political party has hired me as a speechwriter…)

Moments later, Dan the Fan was asked about accusations of bullying and he replied that that’s all Labor did: attack the person. To be fair, Patricia Karvelas did point out that the attacks were from Liberals…

Moments later again, Dan tells the world that we have many challenges and “you don’t want work experience boy driving the bus”! The work experience boy, I presume, being Albanese.

Of course, when Labor criticise any of Scott Morrison’s actions, it’s character assassination but when Liberals refer to anything from Albanese’s weigh loss to his time in the Rudd/Gillard governments that’s just, well, it’s not playing the man… it’s… well… Did you see how well the economy is going these days? We have all sorts of professional people picking up dishwashing jobs…

I probably should let Scotty the last word here. During last night’s 7.30 he said this:

SCOTT MORRISON: Look, Catherine and I have known for a long time. She made pretty similar criticisms of Gladys Berejiklian actually.

So when people have become frustrated in the political process, they have lashed out. People have axe to grinds in political parties. Connie the same.

They will express this and particularly at a time when it is sought to do most damage to the individual and, look, they’re the things I have become very used to in politics.

Now, I don’t wish to bring up the late Labor senator again, but were it not for her unfortunate heart attack, couldn’t her behaviour have been dismissed in exactly this way? Whatever, I thought an interesting follow-up question might have been:

“So, Mr Morrison, when you become frustrated in the political process do you lash out and seek to do most damage to the individual?”

Or would he simply say that he’s prepared to sign a statutory declaration that he’s never lied or said anything about Michael Towke?

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