Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, delivered his much anticipated speech to the National Press Club today, which quite frankly underwhelmed.
The speech began with a procession of slogans, many of which were repeated multiple times. Examples of such language included:
- “Strengthen economy and protect the nation”
- “Sound economic management is in our DNA”
- “End the waste, stop the boats, cut taxes”
- “Fix Labor’s mis-management”
- “Abolished the carbon tax, the mining tax, and stopped the boats”.
Abbott then went on to claim that the Budget is in a mess not because taxes are too low, but because “government spending is too high”. He reminisced about the glory days of the Howard Government before slamming the $1 billion a month spent paying “Labor’s debt”. He also claimed that not addressing the Budget deficit was a form of “intergenerational theft” that would leave future taxpayers worse-off.
However, nowhere did Abbott acknowledge that his Government’s proposed Budget cuts were fundamentally unfair, targeted primarily at the young (e.g. university cuts/fee rises and reducing access to unemployment benefits) and disadvantaged, while leaving the swathe of tax expenditures benefiting richer, older Australians (e.g. superannuation concessions, negative gearing, and CGT concessions) untouched. And nowhere did Abbott suggest that the Government would take a fairer approach to Budget policy in the future. He simply referred to “strong economy” as fair.
When asked by Lenore Taylor about whether he viewed the May 2014 Budget changes as “unfair”, Abbott responded that he “is very concerned with fairness.. But what’s fair about saddling our children with debts as far as our eye can see?.. This is inter-generational debt”… Presumably, the Prime Minister has no issue with younger Australians taking on massive housing debts or being saddled with rising education costs, both of which have been egged-on by his Government, not to mention the unconscionable raising of 457 visa limits and trashing the global climate change agenda. How are these not “inter-generational theft”?
Abbott also claimed credit for the improvements in the Australian economy, including stronger jobs growth (despite rising unemployment), record housing approvals and, curiously, lower petrol prices. He also championed the Government’s planned infrastructure spend, while attacking the Victorian Labor Party’s cancelling of the East-West Link Project, without acknowledging that the project failed a basic cost-benefit analysis.
There was also little acknowledgement of the headwinds that the nation faces as the mining investment boom and unwinds and the car industry shutters.
On a positive front, the Prime Minister stated that the Government would implement the O’Dwyer parliamentary inquiry’s recommendations on tightening the monitoring and enforcement of foreign purchases of Australian residential property “to help first home buyers”. Abbott also junked his flawed paid parental leave scheme in favour of increasing support for childcare as part of the Coalition’s upcoming “families package”.
Small businesses are also to receive a company tax cut of circa 1.5% from 1 July this year in a bid to reinvigorate jobs growth, and Abbott reiterated that its upcoming tax review would “leave everything on the table”, but would not alter the GST without agreement from the states.
Overall, it was more of the same from Tony Abbott, failing to acknowledge his government’s failures (most notably around fairness), chock-full of slogans, and singularly failing to articulate the looming challenges as well as a vision for the future.
Dead Duck is gone.
