Month: June 2009

Gillard trashes Howard in USA

Posted by Chief Blogger – 20 June, 2009

As part of Gillard’s pathetic attempt to cadoodle up to the Obama administration, she has gone out of her way to present herself as a progressive while in the USA. This is in stark contrast to before the last election, from the ABC November 2007 she said the following:

I’m an economic conservative. I’ve always believed in an open competitive Australian economy. I’ve always believed in the value of hard work and I certainly believe we need to keep the budget in surplus over the economic cycle…and we should not increase taxation as a percentage of GDP.

Well the budget is not in surplus, the real tax burden will increase as a percentage of GDP and spending is at record levels. Where is the conservatism in all of this? This is what she is now saying, from a recent address in the USA:

It’s also a time of challenge for the global community, a time in which that challenge demands progressive responses.

But the success of those responses is not guaranteed.  For example, we are warned and worried by the advances of the right and far right in this month’s European elections, just as we are cheered that change has come and continues to come to Washington.

So when Gillard said conservative she really meant progressive. And as for the rise of the ‘right and far right’ what exactly is she referring to, the BNP? They want to abolish the monarchy – check one Gillard – they want the government to take over businesses – check two Gillard – increase government welfare- check three Gillard – more public health instead of private - check four Gillard – tighter worker conditions – check five Gillard – higher taxes – check six Gillard. The BNP has far more in common with Gillard than it has with John Howard. As pointed out by Telegraph blogger and MEP Daniel Hannan in relation to the BNP:

As Hayek wrote in 1944 in his brilliant chapter on “the socialist roots of Nazism”, the dispute between fascists and socialists is a dispute between brothers. Labour and the BNP are, in a sense, competing for the same sort of voter: one who believes in the power of the state. The one kind of voter whom both fascists and socialists regard as beyond persuasion is the small-government Tory.

She then says that Australia’s recent economic prosperity is all due entirely to “global demand for commodities”. In otherwords, Howard/Costello had nothing to do with it. This is the ALP’s luck thesis, that economic and fiscal management is all down to luck, good or bad. She goes on:

In the last period of US politics, Australia was associated with the most negative aspects of a conservatism which is still alive and potentially powerful today – a conservatism of unrestrained economic liberalisation and narrow social morality.  Of climate change denial and unilateral military intervention. 

A conservatism which sought proximity to US power and tried to bank the economic benefits of globalisation, but did nothing to build a new culture of stewardship or legitimacy with which to address the huge challenges of global interdependence that this conference is discussing.

The Rudd Government was elected in late 2007 with a mandate to change that direction.  We stand on the shoulders of the reforming, progressive governments which have driven progressive politics through the 1990s and into the 21st century.

Once again, so much for economic conservatism. Gillard would never speak like this in public in Australia. As for “unrestrained economic liberalisation”, where was the downside in Australia to this? And then she uses a number of left-wing code words like social mobility, denial and unilateral. Then questions the very legitimacy of the Howard government: ” did nothing to build…legitimacy.” Legitimacy is not built like some Trotsky terror guard, but is bestowed through the people via something called voting. Gillard might want to google it.

Our Government was elected just in time to form a response to the global financial crisis. Our response has been in keeping with that of the US, the UK and other economically progressive governments.

In a nutshell, massive amounts of unsustainable levels of debt to be repaid by those not yet born. Progressive, no? In an Orwellian kind of way.

Aussie Spectator gets it wrong, again – update IV

Posted by Chief Blogger – 19 June, 2009

This is what the Spectator published last week:

The Rudd government has shown commendable rectitude: only one ministerial resignation in 18 months, compared with five in the first term of the previous government. Whatever its policy failings — and we have highlighted many — this government must so far be one of our most upstanding.

I think you’d struggle to find any real criticism of Rudd’s government from the Spectator. They have basically supported Rudd’s cash-o-rama from the very beginning. In terms of conservative journalism, the Australian version is a poor shadow of its British parent.

As to Ministerial resignations. Those under Howard in the early years were due to technical breaches of the code of conduct. There was never any evidence of improper or corrupt behaviour, as outlined in Costello’s memoir. By contrast, Rudd’s former Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon (JF) tried to cover up his relationship with a lobbyist for the Chinese government and military. A relationship that included undeclared free trips, accommodation and meals. JF also rented a place from the lobbyist in Canberra. Then JF tried to sully the reputation of the Defence Department by claiming they were leaking against him - even saying it was like Judas betraying Christ – even though after an extensive investigation no evidence could be found. Good grief! Of course, the Spectator Australia has given JF the benefit of the doubt. The full extent of JF’s relationship with the lobbyist has yet to be uncovered.

Now it is Rudd’s turn to face the fire. One might be able to hazard a guess who the Spectator will support:

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd is facing serious allegations that he misled Parliament after lobbying for a car dealer and friend to secure a taxpayer-funded financial lifeline.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal Queensland businessman John Grant was offered financial support by Ford at the very time the car giant was desperately trying to secure a $550 million Government “loan”.

…Senior political staff have been aware of suspicions that Mr Grant – a friend and neighbour of Mr Rudd – received special treatment as he tried to rescue his dealership.

Emails allegedly suggest the Prime Minister was keen to ensure that John Grant Motors was considered for attention under the OZ Car scheme.

…It is believed Mr Grant approached several senior Government figures.

…The Coalition has been pursuing Mr Rudd’s links with the car dealer. The two men live on the same street in Brisbane and belong to the mysterious 51 Club – which closed down its website several weeks ago after it received public attention.

The PM has also been forced to defend the use of a 1996 Mazda ute, given to him by the car dealer.

“Upstanding”, no?

UPDATE I

Desperate is the only word to describe Wayne Swan’s attempts to divert attention away from Rudd’s impending drama:

Mr Swan says Mr Turnbull made threats to the Prime Minister’s economic adviser Andrew Charlton “over his career” at the press gallery mid-winter ball on Wednesday night.

Of course the ABC is giving the story wall to wall coverage. Swan even concoked a play like narrative – which the ABC faithfully reports – outlining the conversation between MT and Charlton. Even if the story is true, which seems unlikely given that Charlton is no objective subject when it comes to protecting the government, why wait to release it now? A cynical ploy, the desperation of which probably indicates the seriousness of Rudd’s alleged offence. And besides, if a ministerial staffer covers up an legal act by his/her Minister then they would most likely lose their career. MT was probably just remaining Charlton of that very fact.

UPDATE II

Gutsy stuff:

In explosive evidence before a Senate Committee in Canberra this afternoon, Godwin Grech – the senior Treasury official running the OzCar financing scheme for the motor industry – recalled an overture from the Prime Minister’s office concerning Ipswich Kia dealer John Grant.

Mr Grech said he thought he first heard about the case via an email from the Prime Minister’s Office, although he could not be sure. However, Mr Grech was clear the first overture came from the Prime Minister’s office.

“My understanding (was) the initial contact that I had with respect to John Grant was from the prime minister’s office,” Mr Grech told the inquiry.

Mr Rudd has previously said neither he, nor his office, made representations on Mr Grant’s behalf.

I wonder what his boss and ALP stooge boy Ken Henry has to say on the matter? Grech complained that he should not have to be put in this position. He is right, but if Rudd won’t come clean with the truth what other course of action can the Senate take but question public servants on the matter.

UPDATE III

Now we know why Wayne Swan was so quick to try an divert attention from Rudd’s relationship with a QLD car dealer:

A series of emails released on Friday night showed the extent of the attempts by Mr Swan’s office to assist Ipswich businessman John Grant, The Sunday Telegraph reports.

Swan is claiming the email from Rudd’s office is fake. However, from MT:

“Furthermore – and this is perhaps the gravest revelation – in the full knowledge of Mr Swan, Treasury officials were asked to seek finance for Mr Grant at a meeting with the chief executive of a major finance company at the same meeting that finance company was seeking access to $500 million of taxpayers’ funds.

“Mr Swan has offered no explanation for any of this, and today should tender his resignation.”

UPDATE IV

Rudd is now saying that MT should resign over the Ford dealership scandal, even though it was a newspaper that sourced the emails that cast doubt on Rudd and Swan and MT is merely asking for answers. Glenn Milne:

In a supposedly mature democracy in the 21st century, the leader of an opposition political party uses a newspaper report referring to a leaked email to raise questions about the behaviour of the government and on that basis calls for the resignation of the prime minister of the day.

The same prime minister responds by immediately ordering a police investigation into the opposition leader and the journalist who wrote the story using the full force and authority of the office of the attorney-general and the commissioner of the national police.

At the same time, the Treasurer in the same government repeatedly refuses a public invitation to explicitly submit either himself or his department to a parallel investigation by the national Auditor-General into the same issue.

…under Australian law — assuming that still applies — the conclusion of whether or not Turnbull has a case to answer is now surely one for the commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to reach based on the evidence provided to him by the Australian Federal Police.

And it’s not only in the area of police inquires that decent process and standards are going by the board, sacrificed to the government’s attempts to defend Swan. It also goes to public service standards and threats to public servants themselves.

Milne also has an interesting response from former Treasury head John Stone about the matter and what he would have done to resolve the issue with the Treasurer. Needless to say it does not look good for current Treasury SEC Ken Henry.

The immorality of the climate change Taliban

Posted by Chief Blogger – 19 June, 2009

Scientists Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks and Bill Kininmonth writing in the Australian noted the cost of Rudd’s climate change agenda:

…the cost to Australian taxpayers of the planned emissions trading bill is about $4000 a family a year for a carbon dioxide tax of $30 a tonne. The estimated benefit of such a large tax increase is that it may perhaps prevent an unmeasurable one-ten-thousandth of a degree of global warming from occurring. Next year? No, by 2100.

So much for supporting ‘working families’. And then we have this spin-doctoring:

THE solar power industry is warning that hundreds of workers will lose their jobs after the Coalition and independent senators joined forces yesterday to force a two-month delay to the government’s proposed 20 per cent renewable energy target.

And tens of thousands of workers will lose their jobs if the ETS goes ahead.

Give Keynes some credit

Posted by Chief Blogger – 19 June, 2009

While Keynes advocated expansionary fiscal spending during a downturn, he also advocated balanced budgets during the good times. Something the ALP have always struggled with. In relation to Gillard’s education ‘revolution’ or cash splash. From Stutchbury:

The short-sighted priority of Julia Gillard’s Building the Education Revolution program is not to ensure that the next generation of kids get better schooling.

Instead, the explicit $14.7billion priority is to hire brickies, chippies and sparkies to build libraries, halls and gyms rapidly at thousands of primary schools in every federal electorate, ASAP.

It’s the classic policy conflict of Keynesian short-term budget stimulus packages.

…the borrowing that is financing this construction investment has to be repaid at some stage. That’s when the building revolution is supposed to deliver an education and productivity payoff.

Is this (a) cynical politics, (b) questionable education policy, (c) guaranteed to produce stuff-ups and, consequently, cover-ups or (d) all of the above?

The Australian has been running a convincing line that the spending is wasteful and un-needed, with ample examples of schooling being funded to build facilities they already have, or could be built at a fraction of the cost:

…Mr Turnbull said it was clear the program was a complete shambles.

“We see day after day, example after example of schools who are being, having expensive buildings foisted on them, forced upon them often at prices way above what they could achieve them or acquire them if they were locally contracted,” Mr Turnbull said. “And as we see in these examples in the press today buildings that aren’t even needed.”

He said the program was designed to glorify the Labor Party and provide opportunities for Ms Gillard to cut ribbons and unveil plaques.

“This is the most gigantic electoral pork-barrelling exercise we have ever seen in our history,” he said.

The Opposition Leader contrasted the program with the Howard Investing in Our Schools program, which he said was a partnership with schools.

“School communities worked out what infrastructure they wanted whether it was a shade cloth in the playground or a new classroom or IT or whatever it was,” he said.

“They worked it out and then were able to assess those that were in greatest need and provide the funding.”

This is what happens when union hacks get a hold of the purse strings.

Obama cans Holden USA exports

Posted by Chief Blogger – 18 June, 2009

Now that Holden is a US government business enterprise, any decisions GM makes can now be put at the foot of Obama:

14:45 [Comment From Greg Migliore--AutoWeek]
Does the Pontiac G8 have any kind of future within General Motors as a re-badged model? What kinds of changes would need to be made to the car for it to be sold under another brand?

14:45 Fritz Henderson: I am not a fan of rebadging.

That’s a terse, disappointing, answer – especially considering that of GM’s four remaining divisions, GMC is made up almost exclusively of warmed-over Chevrolets.

It is a political decision. After Obama fired the last GM CEO, Henderson was obviously read the riot act on hybrid vehicles and other small car fantasies. There has also been some speculation that Henderson may not even see out the night himself. I’m not opposed to small cars, but not at the expense of mid-priced larger cars which is what GM is meant to do best. Profit margins on small cars are tiny by comparison, and you are directly competing with Italy via Fiat/Chrysler. Good luck with that, especially now that GM’s European operations are now dead to Detroit.

And where is Rudd in all of this? Holden is now an Obama business. It’s all political now. Rudd needs to give Obama’s GM wonder kid a call:

Despite having no formal business education, no business experience and no auto industry experience, 31-year-old Brian Deese is now in charge of dismantling General Motors…until a few months ago, the closest Deese came to an automobile plant, was sleeping in a GM parking lot, where Pontiac G5s have been made since the plant’s 1960s heyday.

About the same as Obama.

Our own winter of discontent

Posted by Chief Blogger – 17 June, 2009

Get ready for national collapse:

Staff at the federal government’s arts funding and advisory body will walk off the job on Tuesday as they continue a campaign to win a new agreement on pay and conditions.

It is the first time Australia Council staff have taken strike action.

The Community and Public Sector Union says its members are deeply frustrated by management’s agenda of cuts to jobs, pay and working conditions.

Don’t speak too soon

Posted by Chief Blogger – 17 June, 2009

Andrew Bolt writing today:

At last the Opposition Leader had the gorilla off his back. Now there’d be no more speculation that Costello would take over just before the election, and lead the Liberals to an unexpected win.

Turnbull finally had a clear gallop. No wonder many Liberals, especially those of the Left, smiled with him.

I am fairly confident the MSM will invent another leadership contender to fill pages and air time with speculative stories in order to undermine MT.

Common sense has prevailed

Posted by Chief Blogger – 17 June, 2009

The Senate has defeated Ruddbank – the $2 billion in tax-payers money Rudd wanted to give to the banking and unionised commercial construction sector to sure up their investments and commercial property contracts. The total liability would have been $26 billion. Economic history writer Niall Ferguson recently noted the propensity of government to over regulate and spend in response to an economic downturn:

Financial crises will happen…For reasons to do with human psychology and the failure of most educational institutions to teach financial history, we are always more amazed when such things happen than we should be. As a result, 9 times out of 10 we overreact. The usual response is to introduce a raft of new laws and regulations designed to prevent the crisis from repeating itself. In the months ahead, the world will reverberate to the sound of stable doors being shut long after the horses have bolted, and history suggests that many of the new measures will do more harm than good.

Ferguson also goes on to argue that deregulation is not the cause of the current downturn – more like bad regulation:

There are just three problems with this story. First, deregulation began quite a while ago…If deregulation is to blame for the recession that began in December 2007, presumably it should also get some of the credit for the intervening growth. Second, the much greater financial regulation of the 1970s failed to prevent the United States from suffering not only double-digit inflation in that decade but also a recession (between 1973 and 1975) every bit as severe and protracted as the one we’re in now. Third, the continental Europeans — who supposedly have much better-regulated financial sectors than the United States — have even worse problems in their banking sector than we do. The German government likes to wag its finger disapprovingly at the “Anglo Saxon” financial model, but last year average bank leverage was four times higher in Germany than in the United States. Schadenfreude will be in order when the German banking crisis strikes.

Ruddbank would have transferred private risk to tax-payers, with all the associated moral hazards. The failure of governments and financial institutions to recognise the true risk and therefore costs of their investments, and to modify their behaviour accordingly, is one the reasons we are in this financial mess to begin with. Ruddbank would have simply replicated this problem by allowing banks and commercial property ventures to seek higher yet riskier returns for their investments because of the government guarantee. In other words, exercise less discretion and risk aversion in their investment decisions. Government should have no role in guaranteeing speculative in-nature private sector investments. Let the private sector bear the full risk of their decisions, while also reaping the full rewards.

Chris Bowen and something called history

Posted by Chief Blogger – 16 June, 2009

ALP self-styled intellectual Chris Bowen has once again demonstrated his ignorance of recent economic history with these comments:

PETER Costello was the luckiest treasurer in Australia’s history, a Rudd Government minister has said…long-serving Liberal treasurer certainly wasn’t the greatest, Financial Service Minister Chris Bowen said.

“He was treasurer during what was a very good time time internationally, very good time for Australia,” he said.

The facts remain that Costello was Treasurer for six years when Australia’s terms of trade were worse than what they are now, including having to deal with the Asian financial crisis. And the budget was in much better shape than what it is now. This little tip bit is ignored by the ALP elite who have again quickly demonstrated their inability to govern the budget in a prudent manner. If economic and fiscal management is all about luck, as the ALP would have us believe, then we might as well do away with a host of government programmes including a raft of taxes and charges. Don’t hold your breath for that to occur though. This merely demonstrates the hypocrisy of the ALP. Either government management is relevant to national economic success or it is not. Claiming as the ALP do that Costello’s success is all down to good luck, and when in power themselves that their fiscal mess is all bad luck, says more about the ineptitude of the role of government in the economy and therefore the apparent misplaced ‘government knows best’ ideological preferences of the ALP, than any shortcomings of Costello.

The upswing

Posted by Chief Blogger – 16 June, 2009

Looks like MT has been able to claw back some ground on the ALP in the latest Newspoll. On primary vote the Coalition are only 1 point behind the ALP, with voting intentions moving mostly to the Greens and Liberals. Well within the 3 per cent polling margin of error and with 4 per cent of voters uncommitted. The ALP have lost two points from the last election. On two party preferred, voting intentions are back to the result at the last election, 53 to 47 per cent. How MT manages Green preferences will be a key to victory. MT’s personal rating has risen slightly, although still well behind Rudd. Now that Costello is going, support behind MT might solidify as voters realise that there is no get of jail free card with a Costello leadership rescue down the track. Voters are obviously thinking about politics again, but it is going to take many a little more time to admit that they made a mistake at the last election by voting for Rudd.

If MT can get the Coalition within 3 points of the ALP, Rudd’s volatile personality could compound the shifting trend as he struggles to find traction in an economy beset with stagflation, rising interest rates and high government debt.