“When It Rains Everyone Gets A Rising Tide To Lift All Boats!” says Scott Morrison

Let’s begin by giving our PM a big round of applause for cutting short his Queensland trip. I know he deserves one because most of the stories in the media were about how he had to rush back to Canberra to deal with the crisis in Viictoria’s aged care, but I don’t know why he was in Queensland travelling around in the midst of this pandemic but I presume he had a good reason or why else would he be doing it? The bit that is hardest to explain is why he rushed back to Canberra which is too unsafe for everyone else to travel to, when the crisis was in Victoria.

Once back in Canberra, Scotty the Saviour…

Apparently that’s his name now. In case you missed it, last week he was at the beach and a woman fell and injured herself but the Saviour was on hand and he sent one of his men to help before coming over himself and laying his hands upon her at which point she was able to walk again after feeling his power…

Anyway, back in Canberra the Saviour was able to quickly explain the situation in aged care facilities:

• The challenges are not unique to Australia so don’t try and blame the Federal Government who is responsible for the regulation of aged care.
• It’s inevitable that Covid-19 will get into aged care facilities because of the high rate of community infection.
• It’s being brought in by staff and not spontaneously appearing in the residents who are under lockdown and not allowed to leave.
• Brendan Murphy still agrees with Morrison even though he’s no longer CMO but he’s always available for a press conference.
• “When it rains, everyone gets wet.” This I presume is because the profit motive is so strong and the regulations so lax in Aged Care Facilities that there’s no necessity to fix the holes in the roof.

Of course, that last point he made is a bit of a cliche that comes from the financial markets. It’s something like “A rising tide lifts all boats”, which was one of the justifications for Reaganomics and Thatcherism and the idea that tax cuts for the rich will trickle down in much the same way that rain gets everybody wet. However, neither thing works the way that the saying suggests that it should. For a start, many people choose to stay home until the rain stops and others have an umbrella. Similarly, while it’s nice to think that a rising tide lifts all boats, some have leaks and just sink while the vast majority of people don’t own a boat at all and consequently won’t be lifted by the tax cuts to the richest people in our community. This is true on both a symbolic and a literal level. Of course, the other problem with the whole cliche is that the tide rises and falls on a daily basis, so the inference I draw is that tax cuts may increase the height of those lucky enough to have a good boat but before long the tide will fall and everything will return to the way it was.

And speaking of the way it was, it was certainly strange to see our Treasurer’s nostalgia for Thatcherism and Reaganomics. His idea that they were successful was even more odd. Thatcher increased unemployment and Reagan massively increased America’s debt. Although given his record as Treasurer so far, you’d have to say that he’s certainly succeeded in his aim to use them as role models!