When I was 16 and still at school, Brother Egbert occasionally tried to teach us some of the more rudimentary elements of economics. But, he being a Marist brother, and my school being a Catholic College, the subject invariably got muddied and soon went missing in the deeper waters of the religious perspective. Still, he did his best. My memories of Brother Egbert came back last week watching bits and pieces of the speech given by Tony Abbott at the World Economic Forum in Davos. What can I say other than he did his mediocre best.
Tony Abbott spoke to the attendees at the forum in similar, monotonous undertones of simplicity as Brother Egbert spoke to us. At best, Abbott sounded like a Vatican appointed Honorary Prelate exercising jurisdiction over the faithful and the converted trying to impart the teachings of the privileged few. And the information (teaching) passed on was, again, spoken in similarly simplistic terms to a point of being juvenile. I get so tired of listening to Abbott speak about anything. It is consistently so lame-brain, so one-dimensional and skewed as to suggest neither he, nor his writers, his minders or his colleagues are able to grasp its immaturity. Recalling his past comments about the Syrian crisis as “the baddies against the baddies”, or to GMH workers about to lose their jobs as being “liberated” smacks of an intelligence vacuum, a naivety that one would only tolerate from year 7 students at school. And to then demonstrate that same vacuum, that same naivety at an international forum where one expects to hear inspiring words of leadership, direction and moral responsibility can only leave those who heard it wondering how we, in Australia, could have elected such a man to lead us. And how do we answer that? One might argue that we have been the victims of some strange alignment in the cosmic order, where the stars of misfortune gathered to offer a celestial mirage that pretended to be something it was not. But that is not true either. We knew exactly who we were electing and we did it anyway.
Glancing across the transcripts of Abbott’s speech left me breathless for its infantile minimalism. Is this really the best he had to offer? Most prominent was the now often repeated Rush Limbaugh phrase, “No country ever taxed its way to prosperity.” Abbott uttered this quote not for the first time (although I have never heard him acknowledge its source), from the man whom Ronald Reagan once thanked, “for all you’re doing to promote Republican and conservative principles.” You remember Reagan; he was the president who believed in the principle of trickle-down economics that in 1988 left America with the largest government debt that country had ever experienced. And what an incredibly stupid and short-sighted quote it is! Every western democratic country in the world has taxed their way to prosperity using a balanced combination of capital markets and individual contributions that, in return, provide infrastructure and social programs like health care, education and aged care to reward those who spend their working lives paying those taxes. And the companies and individuals in those countries who pay the taxes are the beneficiaries. If you are looking for countries who tried to be prosperous without proper taxation you come up with the former Soviet Union, Mao Ze Dong’s China and pretty much all of Communist Eastern Europe. And, oh yes, the Reagan/Bush years of the United States of America.
Some of Abbott’s other classic references at Davos included, “Stronger growth requires lower, simpler and fairer taxes that don’t stifle business creativity.” That was the policy of George W Bush’s presidency that led to the GFC. Bush pandered to the princes of Wall Street and they did him proud, until their greed brought them down. In the process the rest of the world came down with them and today we are still climbing out of the hole they dug for us. So, rather than try to sell Australia, its past achievements and all it has to offer, Abbott would rather employ phrases from past conservatives of the US Republican party and try, so lamely, to stick the boot into our previous Labor government with, “You don’t address debt and deficit with yet more debt and deficit.” Well Tony, I have news for you. That is exactly what your government will be doing over the next three years. In the meantime, Paul Bloxham, the chief economist at HSBC’s Australian head office gives Labor its due. “I think the response to the global financial crisis by the previous government was actually the right response in terms of supporting growth in the short run,” he said.
There is so much evidence out there to vindicate the previous government’s management one would have thought that the message had got through. But instead, Abbott boldly preaches the Reagan/Bush philosophy, the philosophy that created the ingredients for the GFC. Not content with that, Abbott goes one step further with the most hypocritical comment of all when he called upon the world, “to honour their agreements and live in justice and charity with their neighbours”. This from the man whose government, at this very moment, is vehemently defending itself at the International Court of Justice in The Hague against claims ASIO stole vital documents from the offices of East Timor’s Canberra lawyer, Bernard Collaery.
Our present government is so ideologically opposed to anything that remotely resembles a balance between growth and social equality that they cannot see how a market driven economy performs far more effectively with well paid, highly skilled, highly educated workers receiving benefits and incentives. Their attitude to social equality suggests they think it is a by-product of a market driven economy, not a partner with it. They only know how to do this when they have a barrel load of money, from sources they weren’t expecting, as happened when John Howard and Peter Costello were in control. When times are tough they don’t know how to manage and always default to cutting spending in the areas of social welfare. Listening (so painfully) to Tony Abbott’s speech at Davos last week only served to confirm that.
One can only lament this grand mediocrity so reminiscent of the efforts of Brother Egbert and dream of better days ahead.
John Kelly blogs at: The View from My Garden
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