Wayne Swan

The left wing here likes to bag New Zealand, but how do the Aussies see us…well, a little differently than you would imagine.

Larry Pickering makes some astute observations as Australia heads into election season.

New Zealand was on the brink of recession prior to the Conservative government of John Key taking the reins in 2008. This small economy of 4.4 million people is now preparing for a series of record surpluses… and without the help of a mining industry.

Helen Clarke’s [sic] Labour Government left the country facing severe recession with a bloated Public Service sector and disastrous losses due to her takeover of the NZ rail system.

Abbott could do worse than take a look across the Tasman when attempting to repair the damage left by the union government of Julia Gillard and the incompetency of Kevin Rudd.

Are unions really the problem? They seem to be in Australia, having never really really dealt with them like we did in the 90s.  Read more »

Helen Clark’s government forecast a decade of deficits…National arrested that. In Australia Julia Gillard is similarly facing a decade of deficits despite promising many times to balance the books. Predictably the Liberals have attacked.

Australia faces a decade of budget deficits with the annual total set to pass $60 billion in 2023 unless governments take tough action to “share the pain”, an expert panel has warned.

The Grattan Institute’s assessment comes as Treasurer Wayne Swan confirms the budget has taken a $7.5 billion hit since the midyear update in October.

He told the ABC from Washington: “We have seen the terms of trade come down but the dollar didn’t move. That’s caused a hit, if you like a sledgehammer, to revenues in the budget since the midyear update of something like $7.5 billion. And of course the impact won’t just be in this financial year. It will also be across the forward estimates.”

The institute says that while notionally on track to surplus now, the combined state and federal budget deficits should reach 4 per cent of gross domestic product by 2023, which is about $60 billion in today’s dollars and would be about $100 billion in 10 years’ time.

Read more »

What a shambles.  What a disgrace.

Labour’s circular firing squad reveals many things about the state of that party.  Firstly it reveals a lack of character on the part of its leader, a man incapable of leading by example, by stature, or by design.  Secondly it reveals a lack of cohesion between the caucus and its wider constituent bodies.  Thirdly it reveals the jealousies that exist at all levels of the party.

Shearer’s ritual dismissal of Cunliffe is not a new strategy.  Shearer and his lieutenants Trevor Mallard and David Parker have taken a leaf out of Julia Gillard’s book.  When faced with destabilisation from Kevin Rudd, Gillard wheeled out her caucus surrogates to denounce Rudd as a demagogue unfit to lead his party or his country.  Whereas Gillard had Wayne Swan, Simon Crean and Nicola Roxon, Shearer had Hipkins and Faafoi front the media to denounce Cunliffe as a destabilising force within the caucus.

Next Shearer demanded endorsement at the point of a gun, no debate, no dissent.  Having achieved ‘unanimous’ endorsement from his colleague, Shearer then dismissed Cunliffe to the back bench.  In effect Cunliffe is now the excuse for low opinion polls, a man who is to serve as toilet paper for Shearer’s failed leadership, languishing at the bottom of the Labour Party’s political long-drop.

The problem with this scenario however is Cunliffe alone is not to blame.  Labour has yet to move to a level of political support it realised when it lost office in 2008.  This is extraordinary.  Students of history will know Bill Rowling lost the 1975 election, but outpolled Robert Muldoon in 1978.  Mike Moore led Labour to a landslide defeat in 1990, but he came within one seat of winning in 1993.

Shearer leads a party approaching its fifth year in opposition and he shows no sign of leading a recovery.  Relying of a coalition of friends based on Russel Norman and Hone Harawira is a declaration of defeat, the conclusion of a failure of leadership that he Shearer’s responsibility and Shearer’s alone.

The leader of the Labour Party is incompetent, mangles his words, struggles with basic policy concepts, and has little or no feel for human behaviour.  How does he expect his diminishing band of party members to raise money and knock on doors when he has just thrown their preferred candidate for leader under the wheel of a bus?

And Shearer need not think his so-called KiwiBuild policy will make a blind bit of difference.  Communism-meets-lotto housing based on cheap homes situated on cheap land around train stations is hardly going to motivated 200,000 mortgage-paying voters to switch their party vote from National to Labour.

Cunliffe is no better off today than he was last week.  Yes he has been demoted off the front bench, but in a caucus of 34 led by David Shearer, it was never likely that Cunliffe was going to feature in a government any time soon.  Once Shearer accommodates Norman, Turei, Harawira, Sue Bradford, and a mandatory quota of feminist unionists and others from the Rainbow sector, what role would a white heterosexual male possibly have in a future Labour-led government?

However Cunliffe alone deserves the odium that he is coping.  A weak-kneed to Shearer’s ultimatum is a disappointing end.  Yes, Cunliffe should not have hedged at the weekend conference; the smart thing would have been to publicly endorse Shearer there and then.  But having been called on to front up, Cunliffe should have done just that and tested the resolve of the Labour caucus.  Having lost, he could have then resigned and moved to the back bench rather than being dumped by a political featherweight.

Cunliffe has been unwise to rely upon the likes of Charles Chauvel, Moana Mackey and Louisa Wall.  None of his core supporters represent the aspirations of mortgageville New Zealand, and none of them were likely to have the fortitude to go through the fire on behalf of their candidate.

Cunliffe is a vain and flawed man, and someone who is deserves to be disliked by his colleagues.  But Shearer is ten times worse, a leader who seeks strategic direction from Trevor Mallard.

Well might Labour members throw up their hands in horror.  As John Key rightly points out, how can they run the country if they can’t even run a conference?

The correct response now is for Labour’s rank and file to force all MPs to face selection contests.  A contest of ideas is the only way to force its caucus to align with the party that carries it.

Wayne Swan faces a great big problem of his own making…a ginormous hole in his budget:

Revelations today that not a single cent of mining tax was paid in the first three months of this financial year indicate the $1.1 billion surplus forecast on Monday may be gone already.

The mid-year budget update estimated that due to falling commodity prices, primarily a result of declining demand from China, the revenue from the minerals resource rent tax would be downgraded from $13.4 billion to $9.1 billion over its first four years of operation.

This financial year, the MRRT revenue was downgraded from $3 billion to $2 billion. Now that appears ambitious at best.

You might not think that is a big problem but it is…because just like here the government has booked and allocated spending based on that revenue. Working for Families was implemented by Labour when they were claiming that budget surplus’ were structural. When National came in the Global Financial Crisis wiped out those surplus’ but the spending remained.

The mining tax is pegged to profits and commodity prices and if the latter is down, so is the former.

Regardless of this formula, claiming vindication today will be people such as Andrew ”Twiggy” Forrest, who claimed from the outset that the big miners — BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata — swindled the government when they renegotiated the mining tax after Kevin Rudd was ousted by being able to deduct the market value of their operations from their mining tax liability.

The crisis of the tax making little or no money will be exacerbated by several factors.

First, the government has already spent the budgeted proceeds on cash handouts for low and middle-income families, tax breaks for small business and increased superannuation contributions. It was to fund a company tax cut but the government junked that promise at the May budget because the Coalition and the Greens would not pass the legislation for a company tax cut.

Second, the government is still committed to refunding all future state royalty increases because the renegotiated MRRT had a massive loophole promising to refund the miners for all current and future royalty increases imposed by the states.

Unless the government makes good its threat to punish the states, which continue to increase royalties by withholding other forms of revenue, it faces further budget pressure.

Third, the government is bound to come under pressure from the Greens and independents to go back to Parliament and toughen up the legislation. At the very least, the Greens are stepping up claims this morning to close the royalties loophole.

Labor is already hated in the state after taking a bath in every state election. by punishing them further as a result of the budget hole Swan risk consigning Labor to the scrap heap in an electoral bloodbath.

Gillard is under pressure on many fronts by sticking up for dodgy ministers and former unionists, but now having a massive hole int eh budget to contend with things are looking dicey.

Julia Gillard and her supporters like Anne Summers are acting like big girl’s blouses:

I agree with Summers it is ”terrible” to call the Prime Minister a liar. However, when I asked her if she had expressed such a view when Howard was called a liar, she declined to answer the question. Summers also takes offence that, on occasions, Gillard is referred to as ”she” or ”her” and maintains that ”previous prime ministers were accorded the basic respect of being referred to by their last names”.

This is manifestly not so. Moreover, last Thursday Gillard used the words ”he” and ”he’s” in one sentence when referring to Abbott.

This is normal conversation.

It seems that Summers’s evident sensitivity has had an impact on Gillard. Last Tuesday, the Prime Minister complained that Abbott was ”now looking at his watch because, apparently, a woman has spoken for too long”. In the 1992 US presidential campaign, George H.W. Bush was criticised for looking at his watch when debating Bill Clinton. This is not a gender specific act. Nor is being told to shut up. Nor is being called a ”piece of work”. Last year I was called a ”piece of work” by the Sydney University academic Simon Chapman. It took me a full eight seconds to recover.

The problem with such over-readiness to take offence is that it can lead to setting impossible standards. Last Tuesday, Gillard stated Liberal parliamentary members who were present when Alan Jones made an offensive comment about her late father should have either left the room or walked up to Jones ”and said this was not acceptable”. Yet neither Wayne Swan nor Tanya Plibersek took either course of action last Wednesday when a comedian at a trade union function they attended made an indefensible reference to a senior female Coalition staffer.

Apparently online bloggers are nasty. I wonder if offline bloggers are nicer people?

ALP joy at the improvement in the government’s polling was dampened by reports the law firm Prime Minister Julia Gillard was a salaried partner at two decades considered sacking her during a 1995 secret internal investigation.

The Australian reported today that Slater and Gordon consider dispensing with Ms Gillard because her relationship with the firm’s partners had ‘‘fractured, and trust and confidence evaporated’’.

Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan leapt to the defence of Ms Gillard this morning, labelling the media coverage ‘‘muckraking’’ and ‘‘without justification’’.

Mr Swan said the  17-year old allegations were being used by online bloggers mount a political campaign against the prime minister and the government.

Wayne Swan is socking it to the billionaires in Australia. 

The Treasurer has learnt how to pick a popular battle, but it’s not his job to commentate on the political dogfight.

‘To be honest, I’ve never paid much attention to you in the past, although I think you’ve proven to be a very good Treasurer,” begins one of the hundreds of letters and emails that Wayne Swan received over the past week. But “to have the guts to stand up to the mining magnates and the obscenely wealthy individuals who are trying to undermine our democracy deserves the highest praise.”

Another said: “For ages I have despaired at the arrogance of the mining entrepreneurs and now you have spelt it out.”

And a third: “Wayne, if you keep on going like this we may have to join the Labor Party! Good luck! Thanks for keeping your eye on the ball!”

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Swan’s essay in The Monthly, titled “The 0.01 per cent: The Rising Influence of Vested Interests in Australia,” followed up by his speech to the National Press Club on similar lines, won him greater public acclaim than he’s experienced. People cross the street to shake his hand. For a day, it was the most discussed topic on Twitter.

The thrust of his argument is that rising inequality is a threat to democracy; that it’s the job of government to manage inequality; and that aggressive “vested interests” threaten to overwhelm the public interest:

“I fear Australia’s extraordinary success has never been in more jeopardy than right now because of the rising power of vested interests. This poison has infected our politics and is seeping into our economy. Though these vested interests have not yet prevailed, every day their demands get louder.”

At least Australia’s billionaires are prepared to have an opinion, ours seem to not want to say anything and are largely disengaged from politics.

Labour likes to think they are inclusive when it is far from the truth. they are one of the worst parties to practice the politics of division, especially when in power.

Remember Michael Cullen’s “rick pricks” comments?

So too in Australia where Labor practises the politics of division. They are being called out for it too. Joe Hockey highlights the issue and his comments are as valid in Australia as they are here:

Governments should ensure that the actions they take leave Australians better off in terms of opportunity. Australians must not be held hostage to class divides. The role of government must be to help people to the starting line, while accepting that some will then run faster than others.

As a Liberal, I believe our success as a society is determined by the way we create the conditions for all Australians to excel and prosper, by allowing them to achieve their own ambitions – whatever they may be.

Wayne Swan appears to think that it is the role of government to run the race for people, while at the same time accusing our gold-medal winners of cheating.

I’m enjoying immensely the battle in Australia over the leadership of the Australian Labor Party. The current infighting is giving up plenty of ammunition for the Liberals:

At least when the US and Russia were locked in a situation of mutually assured destruction during the Cold War they each had the good sense not to press the button.

Not so the Australian Labor Party.

As the Rudd camp kept saying yesterday, down at Liberal HQ enough material has been recorded in the past 24 hours to make lethal attack ads for every day of the next election campaign.

The best ammunition for the Liberals has been provided by Gillard supporters against Kevin Rudd. Minister after minister fronted the cameras yesterday in a clear attempt to tear apart Rudd’s record and reputation so comprehensively that – whatever the merits of their arguments – the caucus has to conclude he is unelectable.

This is a strategy to smash Rudd on Monday and bury the idea of a second ballot at the same time.

If Rudd’s ”people power” campaign unexpectedly prevailed, the only problem for the Liberals’ federal director, Brian Loughnane, would be choosing which clips to use.

Would he start with Wayne Swan calling Rudd ”dysfunctional”, ”deeply flawed” and ”erratic”, or go for Julia Gillard openly accusing the leader she served of ”sabotaging” the 2010 election campaign, lacking the ”discipline” to stay focused in the tough times, and of leading a government ”paralysed” by Rudd’s ”difficult and chaotic work patterns”? Truly an embarrassment of riches.

But if Gillard wins, as seems most likely, Loughnane can still roll out Rudd explaining that the Labor Party organisation needed reform so it was ”no longer governed by the faceless men”.

You can imagine the scary red and black images and the deep voice-over: ”Julia Gillard isn’t the real prime minister – just ask Kevin Rudd”.

The award for best Finance Minister goes to:

Australia has struck it rich, and lucky, as it has used its natural resources to benefit from the China spending boom. But the careful stewardship of its treasurer, Wayne Swan, has played a key role in making it the best-performing economy among the world’s richer, developed nations. Not that he is likely to get much credit at home.

Not much chance for Bill English to win with our deficit going up along with our spending.