Ken Henry missing while the rest of us wait for a package
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Ken Henry has taken the smartest option as argument rages about another stimulus package, and gone on holidays. His office today told Crikey he was on leave until next Wednesday. My estimation of Dr Henry immediately rose when I heard that. Others may not be so kind. Last time he dared to go on holiday, he copped a bollocking from the Coalition for putting the interests of hairy-nosed wombats ahead of that of the economy. He’ll probably cop one again because of this. While Henry would be just a phone call away, and doubtless has never gone too long without talking with Wayne Swan, his absence suggests either the Government isn’t aiming at a stimulus package early next week or, rather more likely, its broad direction has been finalised and Cabinet will apply the finishing touches on Monday. That Julia Gillard, one of the four members of the Strategic Budget Committee, is enjoying the cold of Switzerland also suggests the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have a fairly good idea what they’ll go for. Lindsay Tanner, the other member of the quartet, has been in Melbourne, sweating it out along with everyone else, having cunningly planned the relocation of his electorate office for the hottest week of the year. He retreated to Canberra today, where it will be a positively pleasant 38 degrees. Pedants might object that no package is currently scheduled to be announced, but the Government has deliberately let speculation run and run, and going into Parliament on Tuesday with nothing but assurances that the Government “stands ready to act” would be a peculiar way to start the year. Based on previous form, the announcement will come around noon on Monday or Tuesday; doing it on Tuesday will enable the Government to give Malcolm Turnbull two hours to respond before heading into Question Time to talk about the need for what will inevitably be described along the lines of a “temporary, targeted deficit that will create long-term jobs and invest in our people and infrastructure.” Julia Gillard will take pleasure in explaining just how much the government is investing in training compared to the dark days of the Coalition, while Rudd, Swan and Anthony Albanese will be hopping into them about their lack of infrastructure investment. You could write the briefs for Question Time now. In fact, someone almost certainly has. The following week will be given over to Estimates — bet Henry can’t wait for that — and its accompanying political static. After that, there’s only three sitting weeks until the Budget. You can bet the Prime Minister’s brains trust has mapped out exactly what it wants to do and where it wants to be between now and Budget Night. Yesterday, the PM met with John Brumby and some bloke who’s acting as NSW Premier until they sort out the mess there. The discussion, the contents of which remain confidential, presumably centred around how to quickly spend the infrastructure component of the package. Meanwhile, Wayne Swan and Malcolm Turnbull duked it out over the stimulatory effect of tax cuts. Don’t work fast enough, said Swan, citing the IMF. There’s American data that shows it boosts confidence, said Turnbull, declaring Labor “is the party of higher taxes.” That Turnbull, a member of the highest-taxing government in Australian history, said this with a straight face is testament to his powers of self-control. Turnbull is right, though — tax cuts, if directed at the low-paid, can provide an ongoing stimulus and could play a role in the ever-popular “wage restraint”, to help prevent job losses. Nothing to stop taxpayers going and wasting it on plasmas and pokies, but I’m not yet convinced that sort of stimulus is any different to worthier spending. It’s all cash circulating in the economy. Ah for the days when we knew what was good and bad economics. Warwick McKibbin recommends a temporary cut in the GST rate. Given deflation is looming as a potential problem, the Government doing itself out of that much money just to encourage shoppers 5% more would appear to be an inordinate waste. Still, McKibbin has never taken the easy route when an immensely complicated route of his own devising was the alternative. He must be a lot of fun at Reserve Bank meetings. But there’s a real problem, indeed, two problems, for the Government with NSW. It’s now evident, if it wasn’t bloody obvious before, that the NSW Government is dangerously dysfunctional. People’s lives, in the health system it is unable to run, and people’s jobs, in an economy it is mismanaging, are at risk. But the three men running it, Obeid, Tripodi and Robertson, are in effect holding 5 million people hostage. To prevent NSW dragging the rest of us down even further, the Federal Government has to somehow invest in the state, in effect rewarding NSW Labor for its incompetence and self-obsession. That’s the policy problem. The political trick will be to do so while staying as far away as possible from them. The NSW Government will become more and more like a toxic asset, sitting on the Labor balance sheet, undermining confidence and worrying voters. Some form of intervention by Federal Labor is necessary if it is not to walk into a baseball bat from NSW voters in 2010. Putting the heads of Obeid, Tripodi and Robertson on pikes in Macquarie St would probably be the most effective outcome but assassination remains illegal in NSW, unless perchance the Government repealed the Crimes Act by accident in Parliament one night. Rudd’s only public statement so far is that the NSW Government needs to “radically lift its game.” That seems to assume they’re bothering to play the game, rather than sitting in the dressing sheds plotting to knife each other. The grim reality — well, the grimmer reality, because there’s no other kind these days — is that no stimulus package, whether it’s crafted by Wayne Swan, Malcolm Turnbull or the ghost of Keynes communicating via a debt-funded Ouija board, is likely to do much to offset the collapse in confidence, credit and trade going on here and overseas. But no government could sit still and refuse to intervene until more propitious times. Democracies don’t work that way, and perhaps they shouldn’t. |
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18 Comments
#4: JamesK. Peter Costello knew a bit about his subject, and that was as far as it went. PC was an eloquent bully, nothing more, nothing less. His performances in Parliament were tragically predictable. A swathe of verbal hatred directed at the opposition. when John Howard was speaking-change that to quarking-Peter Costello sat right behind him with his mouth looking like this…:-(
Perhaps today’s politicians are different to the ones before John Howard’s devastation of decency, but Peter Costello has done bugger all for his electorate. Very old ladies on Zimmer frames natter their false teeth together at the mention of his name. Hell, he hasn’t even managed to save the obligatory cat.
Now he is desperate to get back into the real world of politics. He has run out of the usual paths of choice. So he comes up with the oldest cliché in the book. Religion, an extreme American religion. Peter Costello, the biggest hypocrite in Oz. What an appalling excuse for a human being he is.
As I haven’t had time to read your post yet, therefore unable to comment. But why, in your blast about Kevin Rudd’s extravagant-and probably futile-travel and concomitant expenditure did you have to do it on channel 7?
The only reason I heard it was because I was waiting for the tennis. I don’t disagree with what you said, but channel 7 for Christ’s sake. It was like masturbating in public.
Thankyou Bernard for pushing along the slow realisation that a giant pinata cannot save the economy. There is more money missing from the system now that the hedge funds gotten lost in the biars, wall st has hit the wall and real-estate has fallen to less delusional levels than can possibly be replaced by the government. I disagree that popular sentiment justifies the government emptying the coffers onto this mess when it simply cannot work. That money cannot save the economy, but it surely can reduce the suffering of the population when times get as bad as many think they could. A democracy should operate for the benefit of the many, not as a call-a-friend service for corporations who have blundered.
I think the insults thrown at NSW are a bit tedious. If the Coalition Opposition had not flirted with white supremacists we would probably have had a turn over in March 2007. But they did and we didn’t get that turnover which would have helped freshen things up.
But then if they had won then we would have a sell off of $15 in public energy assets underway right now, in the midst of a global financial crisis with no decent value for the asset.
Keane here buys into the Big Press hysteria attacking NSW which has the biggest population and takes the most immigration. Easy for some. On 7.30 recently a health economist stated cost shifting from 46% to 51% has shifted to the state from the feds under Howard. That’s going to hit the biggest populations hardest proportionally when it comes to gotcha news stories.
And we know NSW has the biggest exposure to the finance sector. Even so there is alot of truth in the sleazy politics of NSW. That’s true. Only I think you are kidding yourself there isn’t just as much sleaze in every other state of Australia, and probably federally too after AWB etc.
In other words, take a look around, making NSW a scapegoat isn’t very rational.
JamesK: Bollocks. The things that Peter peter pumpkin eater so clearly lacks. How desperately true to his subservient nature is his decision to get God on his side. Unfortunately for him there is no God. And all his pitiful machinations will be for naught. If he lacked the balls to challenge Howard, thrice at least. He’ll lack the balls to do anything else in life. Apart from leaning on an imaginary god.
Honestly James, you are not a stupid man. You know that Peter has as much pepper in his pecker as ants have walking boots.
Venise!! Thats hysterically funny and accurate about Costello. It’s amazing such a lame limp wet lettuce survived so long in the Liberal hierarchy. And Ken Henry ducking or wombatting out for some fresh air is highly plausible. Hoards of the so very ordinary have converged on Canberra in recent years making visionary governance unattainable. You wonder why Ken Henry and co hang around.
Actually……………by not going to Davos, Kevin was able to avoid the climate change whizz Stern…who wasn’t at all happy with Australia’s contribution in this area..and said as much.
In terms of the Premiers buttonholing the Prime Minister, Premier Brumby is talking about spending up to $500 million refurbishing the Melbourne Park tennis comples!!!!!!…while blithely ignoring the thousands of frustrated commuters being baked and abandoned on his discrepit railway system.They’re just not in the real world..although they face that reality as election year draws closer!
Ah yeah I didn’t see that Venise. What did I say? I’d edited it out of my head. Someone else said they thought I was very fair, which doesn’t sound like me at all. I was more focused on the important stuff like whether my groovy purple shirt could be seen.
Jenny I think you’ll find it was John Howard and Peter “And the Lord spaketh unto them, and yea verily and forsooth after he had spaketh thus, they in turn spaketh to others that also spaketh, saying “Yea verily, the Lord spaketh unto us and we’ll be in charge now thanks”“Costello that appointed Hen Kenry. It took Rudd and Swan to realise his value as a flotation device.
Bernard: It was a purple shirt was it? I know you appeared to be somewhat monochromatic. In the unlikely event of your forgetting what you said. I so believe that! No, you were fair. The punch line of your argument-if I have understood it, my mouth was wide open in shock at the time, was that the money spent on the futile and endless I thought you looked a bit furtive, but that may have been your monochromatic outfit.
JamesK: I regret to say Bernard was not wearing any Papal/Cardinal/Priestly vestments.
Totally off the topic…but doesn’t the name Ken Henry command attention? An ideal moniker for a senior government bureacrat commanding credibility and respect. He even looks like a movie star and has the trappings of quirky fame….he loves hairy-nosed wombats! He’s a must have for any political team looking to curry a cult following desperate for balance. And he has the credentials to match of course. Top choice Rudd.
# 3: ‘futile and endless’ was meant to be followed by ‘perigrinations’ (does this word exist?) of our beloved leader, Kevin Rudd, and his entourage, whose numbers are kept from the people.
True, stimulus packages are a waste of money at the moment. One can only hope the government is able to make running adjustments to the expenditure rather than writing it off with one stroke of the pen.
As for a GST reduction, that becomes a precedent for future upward manipulation, something that should be fiercely resisted. Besides, isn’t GST revenue supposed to go to the states? Doesn’t NSW have enough problems already?
…err that’s $15 billion in energy assets sell off at disgraceful discount price.
You get the impression this country would be better off without dyfunctional political parties. NSW Labor keeps throwing up gormless party members like Obeid, Tripodi, Robertson and the other guy who crawled from Orkopoulos’ office. We discussed the northern dullards yesterday and their legacy of a state more like a war zone with a health record only an Iraqui field hospital could be excused for. Never has it been more evident that the era when only the talented, smart and insightful landed in parliaments has long gone. Any wonder Ken Henry takes off to cuddle wombats and go native. After months of playing with the kindy groups he’s getting in touch with his inner adult.
As I said Bernard - Ken Henry is a highly credible package to carry the fiscal ‘phoniker’ (??). We can only thank the preacher and his divine master for their lack of insight. Henry is the first public servant in decades to voice his personal views on government decision-making. We don’t hear such free speech these days because political parties have made it clear they fund the public service, universities and affiliate research institutions. Every time Ken Henry puts his job on the line by contributing alternate public debate he’s a hero. If only there were more survivors of the Oppression.
Venise, it is so obvious that there is a subconscious “acting out” process pervasive in your relationships with men in frocks and Prince Peter.
Offer your services as one of his Malvern foot soldiers and provide the spine that he so obviously lacks!
Be unto Pete what Tanya plainly is not: Be his Lady Macbeth!
He is infected with the wimpish religiosity of his brother!
Speaketh plainly to Pussy Pete:
“MP thou art, and ex-Deputy Leader; and shalt be
What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou’ldst have, great Pete,
That which cries ‘Thus thou must do, if thou have it;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do
Than wishest should be undone.’ Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crown’d withal until
Weasel John and the recreant Rudd doth f-cked it up”
I ponder (absentmindedly you understand) the significance of Bernard Keane’s choice of sartorial colour?
Of course purple is associated with “royalty” presumably due to its rarity and expense. It thus became a symbol of wealth and royal power!As to it’s religious significance? It supposedly signifies sorrow and suffering, however, although the Church of England and Catholic clergy are known to support such shirts, I doubt they’re made of hair!
What I want to know Venise is: was Bernard sporting a cardinalitial hat and red plush slippers? I know you’re strangely attracted to Catholic men of cloth…….
I just watched a repeat of “QANDA.” this morning on the ABC.
Peter Costello was one of the guests and he was asked about a bank guarantee.
The original program was obviously before that fateful weekend of October 11 and 12 when Henry and Rudd with her sleeves rolled up made their big announcement of an unlimited and universal guarantee of bank deposits.
Costello answered that he understood the arguments for a limited bank guarantee and explained beautifully why they must be limited. Costello clearly had a grasp of what almost certainly Stevens also understood but unfortunately what so very clearly Rudd, Swan, Henry and indeed, an at least initially, Turnbull did not.
The loss of a ‘Costello’ in cabinet has been a real loss to the quality of governance in this country.
Tanner, Gillard and Emerson are quality ministers but apparently none of them could rein in Rudd’s need to be seen to be “decisive”.
Henry has been little more than a sycophantic “facilitator” and has at least in my view, demonstrated incompetence and a willingness to be inconvenient with the truth.