"The verdict on the election campaign is in. Tony Abbott is an opportunist on a scale rarely seen in federal politics. It started with his four-year insurgency against carbon pricing, a policy Abbott had previously supported. Predictions of economic ruin from Labor’s carbon tax, with whole regions and industries wiped out, were made to look absurd by ongoing income and employment growth. Then he turned to debt and deficit, in May proclaiming a “budget emergency”. The shallowness of this strategy has now become clear, with Abbott crab-walking away from his commitment to improve the budget bottom line compared to Treasury’s forward estimates. In his policy speech on Sunday, all the Opposition Leader could promise was a surplus of 1 per cent of GDP in 10 years’ time – four elections away. Perhaps he plans to hold a 2023 summit to work out the details. This is a new low in democratic transparency. By the normal standards of public life, a leader who declares a national budget emergency, trying to create panic in the economy, has a moral and political obligation to set out a solution. Yet to avoid scrutiny, Abbott has refused to release a full list of savings and funding sources. If there is an emergency, the net impact of the Coalition’s policy announcements has been to make it worse. A consensus has emerged among private-sector economists that an Abbott government will add substantially to debt and deficit. The exact figures have been obscured by the Coalition’s fiscal secrecy and the type of rubbery numbers released on Wednesday by shadow treasurer Joe Hockey. On average, economists are predicting a deterioration in the budget position of $25 billion over four years."
Posted on: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 06:42:00 +0000
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