It’s been a year since I last wrote to you. I was very angry back
then, but you’ll be pleased to hear that this letter is not being
written in anger, but has much more of a triumphant tone than my
previous correspondence. The reason for this turn in my mood has
everything to do with the reversal in your political fortunes over the previous 12 months.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, you are incredibly unpopular. Looking
back at my grievances with you in the past, I can see that much of my
frustration about your behaviour was born from the fact that you were so
obviously getting away with being a complete wanker while still
managing to be elected Prime Minister of Australia. No matter how much I
tried to tell people just how dangerous a prospect you were as a PM,
and no matter how violently opposed I was to everything you stood for,
the Australian voting public went ahead anyway and chose to eat shit because they didn’t like spinach,
and I must admit I may have gone a little mad with the injustice of it
all. But I feel better now because you’ve been exposed. And you’re done
now Tony. You’re finished.
Unfortunately the realisation that your character and your behaviour
has finally caught up to you, hasn’t made up for the terror that you
have inflicted on the Australian public during your first year as Prime
Minister, and obviously won’t save us from the two years of terror we
have to come. No matter what happens to your job Tony, your government
is still ruined. I assume you’re fairly concerned about the permanency
of your position as Prime Minister in the short term, considering just
how unpopular you are, not just with the voting public but also with
your own colleagues. You know as well as I do that the distraction of
blaming Peta Credlin for all your faults can only last so long before
those who used to support you start to question how it is that you
either a) let Credlin make all your decisions for you and put words into
your mouth considering you are meant to be the Prime Minister of
Australia and capable of being the Prime Minister without a
puppet-master controlling your every move, or you b) don’t let Credlin
make all your decisions and instead make all the decisions yourself in
which case the problem is with you and not Credlin and therefore you’re
not capable of being the Prime Minister and should clearly be moved out
of this job. I’m predicting a couple more Newspolls and you’ll be facing
one or both of these questions. But either way, the problem with your
government Tony is that you’re all as bad as each other. I’ve given up
playing the ‘which Liberal MP is the worst in the government’ game
because every time I settle on a winner, another contender reminds us
why they are indeed the worst, and in fact you’re all competing to be
the worst every day as if you’re running a sweep for which there must be
a sizeable prize as you’re all trying your very hardest to piss off the
electorate to the point of total electoral demise. It would be much
more fun to watch this scene unfold if it wasn’t reeking such havoc on
the fabric of my community in the meantime. But thankfully, the damage
you are doing in the short term is just cementing in the minds of
Australians an absolute determination never to let you or anyone like
you anywhere near the job of Prime Minister ever again. So we can take
the short term pain for the long term relief of you being a forgettable
blip in an otherwise successful generation.
There’s one thing I want to make clear Tony. I’m not upset because
members of your government are prone to ‘gaffes’, because I don’t think
anything you or your other badly performing team members say are
actually ‘gaffes’. A ‘gaffe’ is defined as ‘an unintentional act or
remark causing embarrassment to its originator; a blunder’. A gaffe
would therefore be something you said that you didn’t really mean, which
you could easily apologise for and could be written off as a mistake
and something that would never happen again. But no. It’s not just that
the outrageous things you and your fellow Liberals have said are deeply
offensive, and have helped Australia to get to know the true colours of
you and your government, and to discover just how much we don’t want you
running our country. There are no accidental slip ups when Peta Credlin
is feeding words into your ear, which you carefully recite, slowly,
mechanically, repeatedly, eerily, nastily, and sometimes with a
perverse, psychopathic, lip-linking grin. You say exactly what you mean,
and more importantly, you follow through on exactly what you say. So
it’s not the sales pitch, the slogans, the sound bites, the ‘coal is
good for humanity’, the ‘best thing I did for women was to repeal the
Carbon Tax’, the ‘I’ll shirt-front President Putin, you bet I am, you
bet you are’ memorable moments of your harrowing first year as Prime
Minister. No, it’s everything you and your team say, constantly, every
day, backing up your actions; your nasty ideological agenda, your
culture war, your assault on social services, your refusal to take
responsibility and instead blame Labor response to everything, your
policies, your interest only in the super-rich, your hatred of the
disadvantaged, your attacks on health and education, your inhumane
treatment of asylum seekers, your vandalism of the environment, your
racism, your sexism, your mismanagement of the economy, your attack on
unions and the jobs they support, your campaign to use fear to control
us, your beating up of what you call ‘leaners’, your self-entitlement,
the most unfair budget Australia has ever seen, it’s everything you have
ever done.
So forget about looking at your message Tony. Forget about the words.
Your problem isn’t that the ‘left’ has figured you out and has found
the best way to exploit your weaknesses to our advantage. The problem
isn’t the budget sales pitch, something you can solve by hiring one of
your ABC supporters as your new media manager. No Tony, the problem is
you. The turd cannot be polished. We don’t like you and you keep digging
the hole bigger. Scott Morrison as Social Services Minister? You’ve got
to be fucking kidding Tony. If you think that’s going to fix things,
you’re dumber than I thought. And that’s why it’s over for you. Your
government will be voted out in 2016, with or without you as their
leader. It’s over Tony. Australia doesn’t want you as our Prime
Minister. Australia doesn’t want a Liberal government full of
conservative fundamentalists. And there’s nothing you can do now to stop
us correcting our mistake.
Tony Abbott should have demoted himself. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
When Prime Minister Tony Abbott shuffled the government's
ministry at the weekend he should have blackballed himself as minister
for women.
The demotion would be performance based. He is out of date and behind the times when it comes to women and the modern family.
His appointment of himself as the minister for women was
always seen as a cynical PR stunt, designed to compensate for the many
gaffes he has made about women over the years, including the gobsmacking
comment in 2010 that "housewives of Australia need to understand as
they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it's going
to go up in price, and their own power bill when they switch the iron on
are going to go up."
He has desperately tried to curb his old fashioned views
about women because pre-election polling showed it was hurting him. But a
question on breakfast television on Monday morning shows his attitude
hasn't changed at all. His answer to a question what was his biggest
achievement as minister for women was getting rid of carbon tax because
"as many of us know, women are particularly focused on the household
budget".
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Guess what Mr Abbott, not all women manage the household
budget, do the shopping or even cook. In my case, I don't shop, manage
the household budget or do the cooking. I share household chores with my
husband, who works full time. It is based partly on ability, he reckons
I can't cook. Gender doesn't come into it.
It follows ignorant comments made by him back in March when he said Australia
had "smashed just about every glass ceiling". He didn't leave it at
that. He said "Anyone who is in Australia has won the lottery of life
and if you look at our country and the deal that it gives to women, it
is obviously pretty good."
The statistics show there is still a long way to go to bridge
the gap between men and women on so many levels. For instance, one in
three women experience physical violence, one in five women at some
stage in their career experience sexual harassment, the gap between pay
is still double digit and the number of women in senior executive
positions or on boards is still too low.
In his cabinet reshuffle he doubled the number of women in
the ministry to two. He could have easily made way for one more by
giving the role of minister for women to someone better able to do the
job. This would be a long list given his track record.
Yes things are improving in Australia but it is no
thanks to him. Companies have started to take action to lift the number
of women on boards, but as Fairfax Media recently demonstrated in a
survey of the ASX100 companies, there is a long way to go. It found
companies "have steadily bolstered the number of female directors in the
boardroom in recent years, there has been negligible progress when it
comes to adding to the ranks of senior female executives."
Does Mr Abbott think many of these women are standing over iron boards praising the removal of carbon tax?
Change comes from the top and with a prime minister with such outdated attitudes it might be time to move him on.
Tony Abbott’s recent comments comparing himself
with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and John Howard prompt some
interesting afterthoughts. Without commenting on either Reagan or
Thatcher’s credentials, they are still strange bedfellows with whom he
chooses to be associated.
“This is not the first government to have a rough patch in the polls,” Mr Abbott told Channel 7’s Sunrise program. “The Howard government, the Thatcher government, the Reagan government all had rough patches in the polls.”
Firstly, to have the gall to compare himself in any context with
either Thatcher or Reagan is a grossly conceited act and not just
ignores the political climate for both leaders at the time, but fails to
see the vastly different economic world we live in today. And trying to
claim some comparison with John Howard sounds like a vain attempt to
restore some of his own crumbling reputation by association.
Neither of these pathetic efforts will work, even with the most
rusted-on Liberal supporters. They may still plan to vote for him, but I
can’t see them doing it with any conviction. Abbott has also forgotten
how John Howard fared in the1998 election that so nearly made him a one
term prime minister.
In
that election Labor gained an additional 18 seats and fell short by
just 6 seats of winning even though they won 51.54% of the two part
preferred vote. The 2016 election will be more difficult for the LNP.
The electoral boundaries will not be as kind to Abbott as they were to
Howard.
If the LNP lose just 15 seats they will lose their majority and the
independents will have the balance of power. Assuming the 5 independents
are returned (unlikely as that is), it is hard to see all of them
aligning themselves with the LNP. However, if Labor win 21 seats they
will win government in their own right; not a huge ask if the present
polls are any indication.
Upcoming state elections due in Queensland and New South Wales will
doubtless restore the balance for Labor in both states after their
previous disastrous results, even if they don’t win. This will place
additional pressure on Abbott and will likely result in him making more
mistakes, more gaffes, more blunders.
But even before that, Abbott needs to take a closer look at what the
Howard government achieved after they scraped home in 1998. As economic
managers their record is not very flattering.
They sold off highly profitable and productive assets
including, Telstra, our remaining share of the Commonwealth Bank,
Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth Airports and Dasfleet together with a
litany of others. They ignored glaring infrastructure projects that
could have been financed with the windfall of money pouring in from the
mining boom.
They chose not to increase compulsory superannuation contributions at
a time when salaries were going through the roof. They sold off 167
tonnes of our gold reserves at ridiculously low prices compared with
what happened subsequently.
Between 1997 and 2002 they lost $4.5 billion gambling on foreign exchange markets.
They squandered vast amounts of revenue that could have been used for
projects that contributed to growth (GDP) and spent it buying votes with
middle class welfare handouts that no one needed.
Peter Hartcher wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald in March 2009, “The
big picture of Howard fiscal policy was much worse. As the Treasury
reported last year, from the 2004-05 budget to the 2007 election the
China boom and a robust economy added $334 billion in windfall gains to
the budget surplus. Of this, the Howard government spent, or gave away
in tax cuts, $314 billion, or 94 per cent.”
Another comprehensive article on the fiscally irresponsible behaviour of the Howard government can be found here.
Yet despite this damning evidence, the general population still
believes those wasted years represented good financial management. And,
even today they rate the LNP as better financial managers.
If this is what Tony Abbott wants to be compared with, a government
where he and Joe Hockey were ministerial members, he has overlooked one
crucial factor.
Abbott
and Hockey do not have a truckload of money to waste. They are in the
opposite position to John Howard and Peter Costello.
It’s only going to get worse from here and compared with Howard,
Thatcher and Reagan, he and his treasurer are out of their league and
dropping further behind each day.
TONY ABBOTT aka VOLDEMORT THE DARK LORD Sally McManus @sallymcmanus Abbott
has now racked up 35 broken election promises. All fully referenced
here http://www.sallymcmanus.net/abbotts-wreckage … #auspol
The shortly to be released Mid-Year Economic and
Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) for 2014/15 is expected to tell us what we
already knew. There is a blowout in the current budgeted deficit from
$29 billion to $34 billion. By any measure one could have seen that
coming as far back as June 2014.
Furthermore, budget deficits projected in the forward estimates
through to 2017/18 will be exceeded as well. Again, no surprise there.
Reduced revenues, largely in the mining sector, and a host of other
miscalculations have led us to this point which means the much sought
after surpluses that the present government so desperately yearns for,
will not be happening.
Is anyone surprised? If they are, they shouldn’t be.
What it means in very simple terms is that the government is spending
more money than it is taking in. Well so what? With the private sector
not spending what they were expected to, the government should be
spending more. That’s how our economy should work. But don’t tell Joe
Hockey or Mathias Cormann that. They think government should spend less
and tax less all the time.
In a perfect world they might be right but the economies of the world
haven’t been perfect for 100 years. And they are not going to start
now. Joe Hockey is a captive of neo-liberal economic philosophy
proffered by conservative think tanks and business lobby groups that
thrive on surpluses.
Why?
Because continued surpluses mean continued unemployment at a level
sufficiently high enough to control wages growth. Joe Hockey’s austerity
budget will only serve to redirect national income away from working
families and increase the income of the already wealthy in our society
through company profits, higher share prices, imputation dividends and
so on.
Surpluses undermine economic growth when they are achieved by
austerity measures which is what Hockey et al, are trying to impose.
That is the backward, twisted nature of neo liberal economics. All they
are going to achieve is a reduction in domestic spending power.
When people don’t spend, business slows and unemployment and
underemployment grows. It’s not rocket science. MYEFO will likely show
that the combined unemployment and underemployment rate is now at 15%
and rising. That is not a signal to try and achieve a surplus.
If our most important trading partner, China, continues to slow down
its growth rate, Hockey will continue his austerity policy which will
mean even slower growth, or no growth for us, leading to recession,
increased unemployment and underemployment. How stupid is that?
The
Australian public have been deceived. They have continually been led
down the garden path by politicians and media economists giving the
wrong advice. The metaphors of doom have been allowed to overshadow
responsible reporting with crisis headlines like: ‘budget emergency’,
‘alarm bells are ringing’, ‘budget black hole’, ‘burdening our
grandchildren’, ‘mushrooming budget deficit’, ‘unsustainable spending’,
‘spending like drunken sailors’ and a dozen others I could mention.
But no one seems willing to give the credit where it is due.
In 2008 the world faced the mother of all economic meltdowns all of
which was due to the excessive greed and the most irresponsible actions
piloted by sections the wealth sector. What did our government do under
Kevin Rudd’s leadership? It ‘spent like drunken sailors’.
And what was the result? We were the only OECD country not to fall
into recession. Our GDP increased, employment held steady and we were
the envy of a world that is still struggling with the aftermath of that
meltdown today.
And who opposed Kevin Rudd’s stimulus measures? The present government. And what is their solution today? Austerity. What fools!
What should we be doing?
In the words of Bill Mitchell,
Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment
and Equity (CofFEE), at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia, we
should, “Get back to doing what governments are elected to
do and that is advance public welfare and stand against the vested
interests that seek to unfairly gain income and advantage at the expense
of the masses.
Contrast
these words with what you are going to hear from Joe Hockey, Mathias
Cormann other government members over the next week or so when MYEFO is
released. Then go and bang your head against a brick wall.
