Some people have unkindly suggested that the Liberals new slogan “Jobs and Growth” is directly borrowed from their old pre-Turnbull slogan which was “Jobs and Growth”. However, this overlooks the fact that Malcolm assured us that he doesn’t do slogans, after his accidental foray into slogan terroritory when he happened to use the phrase “continuity and change” which was the same as the slogan used in the satirical “VEEP”.
This was unfortunate because neither Malcolm nor the Liberals intended “continuity and change” to be a slogan. Not because of “VEEP” but because it’s an oxymoron, and also because it gave Labor a free kick where they could suggest that the continuity is the Liberals support of the big end of town, while the only change was what’s left in your pockets after Scott Morrison takes away all your notes.
No, “Jobs and Growth” isn’t a slogan. It’s what they have a PLAN for. As has been pointed out many times, they seem pretty reluctant to tell us exactly what this plan is. Ok, I know they’ve said that their plan is to get the economy growing again by sound economic management which will take care of the growth aspect which will, in turn, lead to jobs, but that’s a bit like me saying that my plan to become independently wealthy is by making lots of investments where I make more money than I put in. It’s not a bad plan per se, it’s just that it probably needs a little bit more fleshing out before I ask each of you to trust me with $1000 so I can invest it for you… (Mm, that may actually be a better plan. Well, it seems to work for Henry Kay!) Anyway, the investment idea may be really good if I’m investing it in the stock market after careful research, but if it involves placing money on the faster horses, then I think that you’re wise to keep your $1000. Actually, investing in the faster horses is the best way to make money at the track – it’s just that you often don’t know who the faster horse is until after the race, and due to a terrible flaw in the system nobody will take your bets at this point.
But back to the Liberals. I couldn’t help but notice that a lot was made on the first day of campaigning of Turnbull’s popularity, and I’ll make the point I’ve made many times: In an either/or contest popularity is relative. Would you rather stand knee deep in cow manure or neck deep in horse manure? While most people would rather do neither, I suspect that the knee deep option will be a clear winner until the second option changes.
And speaking of changes, that’s a big part of Turnbull’s popularity. It’s like if you went to the dentist and Dr Abbott announced that – as part of a plan to save money – he wouldn’t be using any anaesthetic, but this is all because of the previous dentists, Rudd and Gillard and so just lie back and relax while he does what needs doing because you’re one of the lucky ones who gets to sit in the chair while your teeth are pulled – some people don’t even get a chair… As for pulling out all your teeth, another saving, it’ll stop you needing to come back later, just put your food in a blender and you’ll find that teeth are obsolete, besides if it was good enough for grandpa…
When Dr Turnbull steps in and says that this is no way to run a surgery, the immediate feeling is one of relief. And a bit of gratitude. God, isn’t this the man who invented dentistry in Australia? However, when he continues to tell you that he’s there for continuity and change, you start to get a bit concerned about which bits are the continiuty and which bits the change. When he says, “innovation”, you immediately hope that it’s not going to be trying to find a better way to pull teeth without an anaesthetic. And when he starts using the same phrases as predecessor about saving money, while telling you that his commitment to recycling is just as strong as ever, it’s just that he doesn’t see any need to any more than Abbott did, then you start to think it’s time to change dentists.
Opposition leaders have rarely been prefered PM. Or Premier. Even when Labor were completely on the nose in Victoria in the early nineties, Kirner was still prefered Premier over Jeff Kennett in the polls. It didn’t stop Labor losing then, just as it didn’t stop Rudd losing to Tony Abbott.
Of course, the Reserve Bank report on negative gearing should slow down the Liberals attack on Labor’s negative gearing proposals. And it would, were it not for the Liberal approach to anything that’s bad news. As Mathias Cormann said last night, we don’t care about reality, we find that just repeating something over and over again is enough for people to become hypnotised and then “jobs and growth”, you’re getting sleepy, we’ve fixed the budget, “jobs and growth” and you will do what we say…
Actually that’s not what he said at all. He merely pointed out that the document was written before Labor’s policy so therefore it had no relevance to Labor’s policy – unlike the BIS Shrapnell report which was an indictment of Labor’s policy even though it was written well before – and besides it was an INTERNAL document. As we know, a report that isn’t released has no validity whatsoever. That’s why so many reports have to be suppressed.
So that was day one. I was going to write about Labor but they just did a lot of boring talk about “putting people first” and the “environment” (whatever that is, I mean it wasn’t in the Budget so how important can it be?) and a discussion about how there was disagreement because not every Labor person thinks that locking people up forever in order to prevent people trying to come here by boat is good move. On that last one, has anyone pointed out that it would be cheaper to bring them all over by plane rather than running Manus and Nauru if stopping deaths at sea was the aim. Sorry that’s the sort of simplistic nonsense that could get me the Republican nomination for President.
Ok, let’s see what day two brings!
