Why Labor Are Like The Romans!

Rossleigh

2 years ago

Some of you will undoubtedly be familiar with the film “The Life Of Brian” where Reg (John Cleese) rhetorically asks what have Romans ever done for us, only to have one of his followers pipe up with: “The aqueduct”. A minutes later:

“All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

“Brought peace.”

“Oh. Peace? Shut up!”

I was reminded of this the other day when someone tweeted a list of Labor’s achievements in the first ten months in office which included the national anti-corruption commission, the increase in the minimum wage, cheaper childcare, commitment to the Voice, etc.

Ok, I won’t go on with the list because I’ll start to sound like Reg’s followers. However, I would just like to point out that two of the major criticisms of Labor are things bequeathed to them by the dead Coalition government: the Stage 3 tax cuts and AUKUS. While it’s true that they’re in government and they could stop the Stage 3 tax cuts, AUKUS is a little bit more problematic for them. Were Albanese to stand up and announce that we’re cancelling another submarine deal then he’d leave Australia looking like it really has no idea what it wants in a submarine and by the time we work that out, we’ll have missed the war that we need them for and it would be a shame to be left out because – like the Olympics – when it comes to wars we’re there any time we’re invited.

As for the Stage 3 tax cuts, it’s generally agreed that they’re far too generous, potentially inflationary and the money could be better spent on a whole range of things. The difficulty is that tinkering with them requires the sort of political will that Sir Humphrey would describe as “courageous”. This is not to say that Labor shouldn’t do something courageous; merely that they’re concerned about squawking over broken promises after Labor changed the superannuation rules for balances over $3 million was bad enough because apparently when they said “no SIGNIFICANT changes to superannuation” that included a change that only affected half a percent of the wealthiest accounts.

The question all political parties frequently ask themselves is: Do I want to do the right thing or do I want to get elected? Of course, one could take the view that – long term – doing the right thing should lead to you being elected more often than not. However, this completely overlooks the fact that even when politicians get it right, it may not be until several years later that this becomes apparent. For example, when the Whitlam government approved the purchase of Jackson Pollock’s “Blue Poles” for $1.3 million they were not only attacked for such a waste of money on something as silly as a modern art piece, but, even worse, it made them the subject of ridicule. The fact that the painting is now worth at least $500,000,000 hasn’t led to any of the critics saying that they were wrong… Possibly because a lot of the critics are dead, but the point remains.

There’s hardly anyone who’s trying to justify keeping the Stage 3 tax cuts and refusing to raise the rate of the unemployment benefit on any other grounds than: We promised not to touch the tax cuts and we still intend to keep our promise no matter how silly it is to do so because we remember how much criticism Julia Gillard copped because of the “No Carbon Tax thing” even though she only said it once. But Stage 3 tax cuts aren’t an issue for this Budget because they don’t come in till after then next one, so Dr Jim can just keep saying that, “We have no plans to change them,” and leave it at that.

No, I suspect that the reluctance to raise the rate has to do with something that the Liberals call “sound fiscal management”, which is all about balancing the Budget and that’s the thing about Labor is that they’re all about spending. And tax. Spending and tax. Whereas the Liberals are all about Jobs and Growth, which they had a plan for even if that plan was never explicitly stated beyond the fact that they were in favour of both and opposed to taxing and spending. (Of course, most people would think that if you want to balance the Budget that raising taxes is one way to do it but I’m not the expert here…)

Anyway, I did go out on a limb a few months back and speculate that it would be funny if the Liberals could drag those “Back In Black” mugs out of the warehouse and sell them to Labor if Labor were to actually do the impossible and actually deliver a surplus.

As someone once observed: “Making predictions is hard… especially about the future.” And I once said that I don’t make predictions and I never will.

But, with the Budget only eight days away, I’m prepared to make a series of bold calls :

In the next week, while some in the Coalition will lambast Labor for reviewing the spending that they set up under the Infrastructure Fund, Angus Taylor will call for restraint and demand that Labor rein in their spending to reduce the deficit and ease pressure on inflation. Nobody will ask about the apparent contradiction here.
The Pharmacy Guild guy will continue to wear his white shirt everywhere, as though he’s just come out of the pharmacy where he works as a pharmacist even though it’s highly unlikely that he has. He will call for greater support for pharmacies and talk about all those bankrupted by a decision that’s yet to have an impact.
Malcolm Turnbull will announce that it’s about time that someone did a Menzies, by which he means that an ex-PM forms a new political party from the remnants of the conservative parties.
Tony Abbott will remind people that he was once PM and if it hadn’t been for his removal we’d all be a lot better off now because he’d have fixed everything.
Malcolm will say that he didn’t mean Tony because he’s too divisive.
Tony will say that Malcolm’s the divisive one.
Labor will announce a surplus for the first time since the GFC.
Peter Dutton, Angus Taylor and Michaelia Cash will all say that they would have delivered a bigger one. This – not the surplus – will be the front-page story in The Australian.
Someone will ask the obvious question that if you can deliver a surplus why couldn’t you raise the rate? It won’t be anyone from the Murdoch Misleaders.

Ok, I may be wrong but I did predict Malcolm Turnbull knocking off Tony a year before it happened, Scott Morrison doing the Bradbury when everyone was talking about whether Dutton or Julie Bishop would be PM and one or two other things… All right, two or three good predictions out of thousands may not be a perfect record, but it’s better than the Reserve Bank and most economists.

Finally, just so I’m not called a Labor sycophant, I would like to point out that there is a flip side to the “What have the Romans ever done for us?” scene. While they may have done all those things, in the end, they were still an occupying army so the good that they brought did come with a price… although when I think about it, they may still have been better than Herod who, by all reports, didn’t like children very much.