Right Pulse

A few great one-liners from Tony Abbott’s recent address at the National Press Club. On Rudd:

…he sees bureaucracy as a solution rather than as their main problem…

Like Santa Claus, the prime minister is popular because he has never taken anything away. Sooner or later, though, the accumulated surpluses of the former government will have been spent and the government will lack the capacity to borrow more without raising interest rates. The prime minister would have it that his superior economic management has saved Australia from a recession. Instead of a Rudd recession, he warns us, we will have a Rudd recovery with higher interest rates, business closures, more unemployment and government spending cuts that will make it seem like the recession we supposedly avoided. Everyone who wants the best for our country has to hope that Mr Rudd really is the first world leader to have abolished the booms and busts of the business cycle but it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that his real expertise is in spin rather than economics.

The appearance of the great helmsman at today’s Labor conference again bearing gifts was as dull and as choreographed as a speech to the Chinese Communist Party people’s congress.

And on conservatism:

Conservatism is attentive to ideas but it’s not very ideological. It’s an eclectic, pragmatic creed, above all respectful of the values and institutions that have stood the test of time. To a conservative, truth tends to be provisional, wisdom relative, and success ephemeral. A conservative, as John Howard once quipped, doesn’t think he’s morally superior to his grandfather. In this sense, conservatism is the characteristic approach of a genial, easy-going and successful society.

Tony Abbott’s conservative manifesto, Battlelines, is receiving wide coverage in the media, including the ABC. The book is a positive step forward for Abbott because it shows he is a thoughtful, intelligent and principled politician. Not that MT is not as well, it’s just that Abbott has a ‘headkicker’ reputation from the main stream media that he needs to shake. Also writing a book will have forced Abbott to do an audit on where he stands. Clearly Abbott stands for something, unlike Rudd who just stands for himself. Abbott is also a well rounded individual, a future PM no less. An interesting comparison in the media coverage – from Greg Sheridan:

Given that Abbott is one of a handful of people who could plausibly be prime minister in the next decade, his ideas are worth examining.

Some of them are conventional, some distinctive, and some still need a little work.

However, this is how the ABC’s Kerry O’Brien described Abbott’s ideas:

The often outspoken hard man of conservative politics has written a book called ‘Battlelines’, offering a range of sometimes provocative policy ideas for the next Coalition Government.

Provocative to the left, which gives a fairly good indication of the direction of Abbott’s book. I read Costello’s book and despite some glimpses, it was mediocre. Which was surprising because Costello writes great newspaper articles. The main problem was that I really didn’t learn anything that I didn’t already know or was interested in learning. Battlelines sounds like it has an air of hope and intellectual excitement that should make up for some ground lost by Costello in the publishing arena.

I was heartened to hear Tony Abbott promote on 2GB radio, the idea of local health boards to reduce the levels of health bureaucracy, and certainly avoid a Rudd-style central bureaucracy. From the CIS report Why Public Hospitals are Overcrowded: Ten Points for Policy Makers:

Between 1996 and 2006 the number of acute public hospital beds fell by 18% per 1000. But between 2001 and 2006, the number of administrators increased by 69%. The large and costly area health services which administer public hospitals in most states are better at paying for bureaucrats than for beds, and have a deservedly notorious reputation among overworked hands-on hospital staff for warehousing armies of clerks and managers who have no involvement in patient care.

Rudd of course is looking to continue to break his no new and/or higher tax election promise, with the possibility of people having to pay more money for public health – around $1000 per person. Even a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation reveals what poor value for money public health is. Public health expenditure of those people in the public system is around $4000 to $5000 per person. One could purchase a high end private insurance plan for that type of money. Frankly, I’d just privitise all the public hospitals to encourage private sector investment, use the proceeds to establish a health fund to pay for the insurance for the poor, unemployed and retired, and turn current annual public health expenditure of $70 billion to $80 billion + into an annual income and goods and services tax cut to give people the means to buy their own insurance policy. Or do what ever they want with their own money.

Abbott demonstrates again why he should be leader, although I may disagree with individual points, he makes a coherent and at times convincing argument for passing the ETS. Basically to avoid a double-dissolution election, which they feel they would lose. Not all is lost though:

The problem, at least for politicians who prefer rational debate to following fads, is the public’s perception that climate change is uniquely dangerous and particularly associated with man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

The slight cooling that seems to have taken place during the past decade despite large increases in emissions associated with the rapid growth of China and India does not seem to have shaken these beliefs. Similarly, mankind’s ability to live well in cities as climatically different as Ottawa and Singapore and to produce an abundance of food in countries as environmentally diverse as Australia and Canada has not persuaded people that adapting to climate change may be more sensible than trying to create a largely carbon-free economy.

The government’s emissions trading scheme is the perfect political response to the public’s fears.

The issue for Abbott is that by supporting the ETS, they will be destroying jobs and people’s standard of living. How can they then claim to be good economic managers in the run up to other elections? They should stick with principle, even if it means losing a double dissolution election. The Party will be better off for it in subsequent elections. And on the other side of politics, Martin Ferguson argues against renewable energy snake oil salesmen:

Those who oppose the development of Australia’s uranium and LNG resources, and low-emission coal technologies, need to answer the following two questions.

Do they want the world’s poor to have access to electricity? If so, how do they propose to generate it? The answers would be yes and renewables. Admirable, but impossible today. I have yet to meet anyone who opposes the use of cheap, reliable renewable energy. However, the factors limiting the uptake of renewables remain technical, not political. We must have a rational, science-based pathway to overcome those hurdles. Faith alone will not get us there.

Problem for Ferguson, like Abbott, is that Rudd’s ETS will heavily drive up the cost of electricity for traditional suppliers, which will flow through the economy and produce a higher rate of inflation. So either way, traditional or renewable energy approach, the economy will lose its major competitive and comparative advantage in the world economy because of this fixation on human carbon emissions.

AAP has hit rock bottom with an error riddled article about activist Lowitja O’Donoghue receiving some made-up award from the Governor-General.

Born in 1932, Ms O’Donoghue was taken from her parents and raised by missionaries before beginning a career as a nurse.

No, she was abandoned by her father. Given that she perpetuated this falsehood for so long – probably to garner sympathy and support - is it any wonder that she no longer refers to ‘the stolen generation’ but ‘a stolen generation.’ Continuing:

Her advocacy on behalf of aboriginal people reached new heights with the 1967 referendum that, for the first time, recognised indigenous people as Australian citizens.

Wrong again. From No Republic:

There is a widespread belief, reported in the media, that the 1967 referendum gave the Aboriginal people, for the first time, Australian citizenship and the right to vote. But they were already citizens. Moreover the right to vote had been granted in a piecemeal way, in four States, at least in law, if not in practice, before Federation.

A secondary purpose of the 1967 referendum was to remove provisions from the Constitution against counting Aboriginal people (then considered mainly nomadic) in reckoning the number of people for electoral purposes. The principal purpose was to give the Federal Parliament a power, with the States, to legislate with respect to Aboriginal people.

And then we have this ridiculous statement from an equally ridiculous minister:

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin told the function the award carried congratulations from every single Australian.

“It does place you among the greatest of Australians, the greatest,” Ms Macklin said.

You can count me out, thanks. This is what Lowitja O’Donoghue said in April 2009:

Ms O’Donoghue said she did not support a directly elected body because Aboriginal people would always want to support their own people. “My view is that we are not a democratic people…”

So we should have a referendum to take away the vote from Aboriginals then, like the 1967 referendum in reverse; cause apparently Lowitja O’Donoghue lobbied so hard for the vote to begin with? If you believe AAP’s take on history that is.

The extreme left-wing political lobby group Getup, which targets youth with indoctrination campaigns via the teacher unions, received a free get-up from ABC Insiders last Sunday when they played their new TV advertisement in its entirety.

I wonder what deals were done with the Insiders editors and with the Getup activists to get the ad aired on TV at tax-payers expense? I know the programme occassionally plays ads from political parties and politicians, and then have journalists make editorial comments on the ad, however the national broadcaster should not be airing the advertisementof a political lobby group, especially one with such subversive and extreme views. Their undying support for self-confessed terrorist, traitor and former POW David Hicks comes to mind.

Oxfam Australia’s James Ensor has written an essay for ‘your’ ABC about the ‘deep injustice’ human carbon induced climate change has had on the third world. And what examples does he use to support his case?

…Pacific Islanders losing their homes to rising sea levels, the poor of Bangladesh coping with more frequent floods and rural African communities dealing with devastating drought.

And then he gives the reader a bunch of ‘tug ya heart’ stories, none of which have anything to do with human carbon induced climate change. From the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change on sea levels for the mysteriously unnamed Pacific islands that Ensor refers to:

The mean rate of global sea level rise has not accelerated over the recent past. The determinants of sea level are poorly understood due to considerable uncertainty…until these uncertainties are satisfactorily resolved, we cannot be confident that short-lived changes in global temperature produce corresponding changes in sea level.

On floods:

The cumulative discharge of the world’s rivers remained statistically unchanged between 1951 and 2000, a finding that contradicts computer forecasts that a warmer world would cause large changes in global streamflow characteristics…Flooding in Asia, Europe, and North America has tended to be less frequent and less severe during the twentieth century.

Precipitation and drought:

…Research on Africa, the Arctic, Asia, Europe, and North and South America all find no evidence of a significant impact on precipitation that could be attributed to anthropogenic global warming…Droughts have not become more extreme or erratic in response to global warming. Real-world evidence from Africa, Asia, and other continents find no trend toward more frequent or more severe droughts. In most cases, the worst droughts in recorded meteorological history were much milder than droughts that occurred periodically during much colder times.

Ensor demonstrates another case of not letting the facts get in the way of telling an already sad tale of poverty in Africa and Asia.

I am a tad disillusioned with local politics right now. Sounds as if Turnbull is ready to roll over on Rudd’s carbon cap and trade plans. I suppose it was inevitable he would. Right out opposition is the go. The Coalition could then campaign in every working class, mining, rural and regional electorate about the adverse effects Rudd’s scheme would have on employment, the cost of living and overall standard of living; and do so without any exaggeration or hyper-bole. But alas, it seems even though Howard’s conservatism bought 12 years of power the moderate and lefties like Julie Bishop, et al, in the Liberal Party all of a sudden think they know best.

On a brighter note:

If the 2012 presidential election were held today, President Obama and possible Republican nominee Mitt Romney would be all tied up at 45% each, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

3 per cent are undecided and 7 per cent want another candidate. 45 per cent is a very good opinion poll result for MR, especially considering that Obama’s approval numbers are still in the mid to high 50’s – although the margin is narrowing. Palin only scored a losing 42 per cent. Certainly in Australia, Turnbull would be over the moon with an even 45 per cent result and MR has not even decided if he will run again. Consider that Nixon, Reagan and GWB Senior all ran twice before they won the top job.

Chinese state owned steel maker Shougang is probably taking directions from their political masters to lock up Western Australian Iron Ore assets in communist government hands. Looks like this deal might fall through:

The deadline for the finalisation of the funding agreement has been extended repeatedly since its original deadline of September last year. Australasian had given its Chinese partner until June 30 to finally reach an agreement, but it is understood China was pushing hard to take control of the company through the purchase of a significant chunk of Mr Palmer’s stake.

Australasian said yesterday that it was aware Mr Palmer had recently held discussions with Shougang over the potential sale of part of his shareholding, but that no agreement was reached.

Mr Palmer is fast emerging as a significant independent player in the Pilbara region and is likely to be high on China’s radar as an alternative source of supply following news of the $US116 billion ($145bn) iron ore joint venture between Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.

The other key player in the Pilbara, Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group, is closely aligned with China through its $645 million share deal with state-owned Chinese steelmaker Hunan Valin, which now has a 17.5 per cent stake in Fortescue.

Part of the problem is the lack of a clear signal from Canberra over their acceptance of foreign government control of strategic assets. The Coalition should introduce legislation outlawing a foreign government and their associated businesses from controlling businesses in Australia beyond a certain asset threshold. This type of regulation would have a greater impact on China’s economy than any trade we currently have with them. China still needs iron ore and would be forced to scale down their ownership ambitions in the Pilbara region. They might even consider privatising some of their government business enterprises, which would be a win for the free market and in the long-term democracy ambitions in China.

We have to turn to the US edition of the WSJ to find some criticism of China’s handling of the Rio Tinto legal case:

China has upped its ore purchases in recent weeks even as mainland growth seems to be slowing, suggesting an effort to lay in a stockpile for a longer showdown against Rio-BHP.

If the Rio arrests mark the beginning of a Chinese war to remake the global ore market more to China’s liking, Beijing might want to think again…Ensuring nobody wants to do a business deal with China for fear of being charged with a death penalty crime hardly improves the case. Then there’s the epic civil disorder in Xinjiang.

The final casualty may be China’s overblown reputation for macroeconomic competence, on which so many hopes for global recovery depend. There are already signs its stimulus efforts are running off the rails. The world might appreciate a signal right now that China’s government actually knows what it’s doing.

I’d like a signal from Rudd that he also knows what he is doing. Unfortunately Rudd’s goons say that the PM is on “informal leave” or to the average Australian, taking a sickie because work is getting too much for him.