Economic debate could get Abbott over the line
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Yesterday opened with the bang of a campaign launch and ended with the whimpered promise of an election debate. It was a low-key Labor launch, held yesterday morning in a bare, austere hall in Brisbane, with no grand music, posters or extra-frills. But it contained Labor’s elite, from a quiet Kevin Rudd to a strutting Bob Hawke, and a new, big message from PM Gillard: e-health, using the NBN to provide better medical access to regional areas. Despite the attack ads being aired nightly on the telly, Gillard was going for a thoroughly positive tone. “She went through his [Tony Abbott’s] slogans, from ‘End the debt’, to ‘Stop the boats’ and matched them with positive alternatives, or debated the basis for them,” notes Malcolm Farr in the Daily Telegraph, “The core challenge from Gillard was for the Liberals to limit the negativity for the final campaign week and offer what is grandly called ‘vision’.” Positivity was the ALP theme of the day. “The contrast is, of course, no accident: Gillard wants voters to make an affirmation on Saturday, Abbott wants a protest vote. The campaign launches have been about setting those respective scenes,” writes Katharine Murphy in The Age. Gillard’s “Yes, We Will” seemed reminiscent of another positive campaign: “Julia Gillard has borrowed from Barack Obama to plead with wavering voters…” reports Andrew Probyn in The West Australian. Matthew Franklin also noted the Obama connection in The Australian: “… she borrowed from the election playbooks of US President Barack Obama and his then rival Hillary Clinton, urging Australians to embrace optimism and tell themselves “Yes, we will” as they cast their ballots on Saturday.” Channeling Obama isn’t enough. “She will need all the confidence and optimism at her disposal,” declares Annabel Crabb at The Drum. “With only days to go, the public mood still seems stuck at ‘Yes, We Might,’ and Julia Gillard needs to do a lot better than that.” The “Yes, We Will” chant was an odd one for Gillard, “It was a peculiar juxtaposition to what otherwise was a pretty drab affair as campaign launches go,” writes Tony Wright in The Age. Was the launch all a bit too understated and cautious? “Julia Gillard may have missed a golden opportunity,” opines Dennis Shanahan in The Oz. “Caution — the by-word of the election campaign — has kept Labor and the Prime Minister constrained, just when they had a chance to grab momentum in the final days before the poll.” Gillard is desperate, but she’s a fighter, says Paul Kelly in The Oz: “On display under Gillard was a formidable yet diminished Labor Party. Its great battles have been won, the true believers have decamped, the reformist banners have disappeared. It is now about saving the furniture and keeping power.” The Oz editorial was vaguely supportive of the launch and Gillard’s work-and-the-economy message, declaring “It is a limited agenda, one more appropriate to a state than a national government. But it is a start.” Do you believe in life after Rudd? Gillard is asking voters for their faith, since she doesn’t have much else to ask them for, argues Peter Hartcher in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Gillard wasn’t just talking to the Labor faithful at the launch, notes Dennis Atkins in the Courier-Mail: “Gillard’s big speech might have looked low-key in the small room the ALP found in the Convention Centre, but it worked on television — the colour scheme, the shots of the Prime Minister and the power of the speech in broadcast all worked together.” David Marr, over at The Sydney Morning Herald, was unimpressed by the shenanigans:
Meanwhile, don’t be a donkey, pleads former Senator Natasha Stott Despoja in the National Times, after Mark Latham encouraged voters to leave ballot papers blank during his 60 Minutes report.
But the tit-for-tat over the economy debate is nearly over. Tony Abbott has finally agreed to debate Gillard on the economy tonight, but only on the condition that she then heads up for a town-hall style meeting in Queensland. The debate would be 30 minutes long, to be aired on the ABC and moderated by Chris Uhlmann. Tony’s town-hall would be a Rooty Hill RSL take two, this time a combined Sky News/Courier-Mail event. Gillard has given the prime ministerial thumbs up but the details aren’t set in stone yet. She wants a longer debate than Abbott’s proposed 30 minutes, and suggests that it makes logistical sense to combine it with the town-hall style meeting on Wednesday. “Abbott lent credibility to the [Labor] attacks by running scared on economic management — an issue the Coalition usually dominates, and one that decides most elections. He now has an eleventh-hour opportunity to undo some of the damage,” writes Peter van Onselen at The Oz. An economic debate could just get Abbott over the line. But who knows? Five days, after all, is a long time in politics. |
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33 Comments
…and Jesus wept.
An economic debate will show Abbott and the Liberal Party for the frauds they are. On the same day when the last Liberal PM decreed there was no such things as the GFC - after receiving countless warnings about impending decreases in tax revenues, he simply sat on his hands and threw more pork barrellings out into the electorate - we hear that Abbott is now ready to debate Gillard on the economy. Time is right for Abbott and the Liberal Party to be shown as the economic minnows they are…even though it has been obviously proved before.
The thing that concerns me is that the Liberal spin doctors will be concocting some sort of Rooty Hill-style Liberal sycophant-stacked public meeting. Undoubtedly it will happen, as they are as desperate to portray their guy in a favourable light, ensuring he says as little as possible.
“An economic debate could just get Abbott over the line.”
This conclusion is not based on any of the articles referred to - including Onselen’s. There is something very tabloidese in the attempt to be breezy here. These roundups attempt to be light-hearted but only succeed in being mildly annoying.
As usual misses the vital point. Who gives a damn about the media’s self-obsession and preoccupation with irrelevant details. Who cares what the candidates had for breakfast. Whatever anyone thinks about the current government the alternative is unimaginable. Australia will become the laughing stock of the world with someone like T.A. and his motley crew in charge. I am not superstitious but I’ll knock on wood and keep my fingers crossed so that the unthinkable doesn’t happen. Best of luck Australia!
I’d welcome more detail on the coalition’s paid parental leave. The LNP website gives away nothing.
Tony Abbott makes a distinction between ‘welfare’ and ‘entitlement’, but if the father takes leave on the mother’s salary, is this still an entitlement of his employment?
If a mother earns more than a father and he takes paid parental leave, does he receive the mother’s salary?
How does it work for the self employed?
At what point is the salary of the mother determined for the payment level of the ‘entitlement’
What mechanisms would there be in place to prevent rorting?
Anyone?
“An economic debate could just get Abbott over the line.”…your words I presume Amber?
LOZZAA999 - The question of exactly how the leave payments will be determined is probably something that would take a while to nut out, to avoid bogus-salary scams and so on.
More importantly, the whole concept is not “middle class welfare”, nor is it a “tax break for higher tax paying families”. It is a gift to someone else entirely.
Barnaby Joyce on Q&A 2nd Aug:
Now think about it: banks lend according to what they’re confident you can keep repaying. If they’re not worried about a child coming along and interfering with the mortgage payments, they’ll lend more. If they lend more, people will borrow more. If people borrow more, home vendors can sell for more. If home vendors sell for more, the recipients of that paid parental leave will never get to spend that extra money, they will receive it in one hand and pass it on to banks and home vendors with the other hand.
This is just another, more subtle subsidy of home prices, disguised as social welfare.
Not that Labor is any better. Wayne Swan on the first home buyers boost a year ago, after economists complained it was just making houses more unaffordable:
[“… an important thing because it is supporting asset values in a critical area.”
Yeah right. Exactly what “asset values” have to do with maintaining employment (the supposed purpose of the stimulus) is anybody’s guess.
Both sides will do anything, anything at all, to keep driving up the home price bubble. Abbott’s parental leave scheme is bigger and more cleverly disguised as welfare, that’s all.
At least Gillard was speaking off-the-cuff. Without notes. On hang on. That was a lie. Someone slipped the notes there for her.
‘An economic debate could get Abbott over the line’.
Really? What line is that? The one that divides those who have some sort of economic understanding from those who haven’t got a clue maybe? How on earth did you come to that conclusion from the snippets given?
Boatman is an economic idiot, let’s hope that this ‘debate’ finally gets that point across.
Hi David Sanderson and David,
Thank you for noting the “An economic debate could just get Abbott over the line.” sentence. The article was not supposed to finish on this line, an error was made in subbing and the article has now been corrected.
Thanks,
just had a look at CentreBet (Mon/am) odds ALP @ $1.28 :
LNP @ $3.60. for the win. Is that an Opion Poll ?
I doubt if there’ll be much talking about economics. The “debate” will probably be about whose promises are costed by Treasury, whose spending is bigger for less “bang”, who’s got a “budget black hole”, meaningless crap like that. What they need is an economist in between the contestants, asking questions like:
Q1: Can you explain the likely effect of any of Henry’s tax recommendations on productivity?
Q2: Why was GST excluded from the Henry review?
Q3: What is the long term effect on the economy of families draining half their income over the next thirty years into mortgage payments on homes that are 50% overvalued?
Q4: What do you think can increase productivity in Australia?
Q5: What do you think are the capacity bottlenecks?
Q6: What do you think are the biggest deadweight costs?
Q7: What do you think is strongest in the Australian economy today?
Q8: What do you think is the relationship between productivity and quality of life?
I’d really like to hear their answers to questions like that - very simple non-technical questions, but their willingness or ability to answer them would reveal a great deal.
Yeah maybe.
But it will go down as the most epic fail in Australian political history.
“Economic debate could get Abbott over the line”?
The headline sums up for me all the problems of the media coverage of this election beautifully.
There is exactly zero evidence to back up this statement, its just another throw away line froma journalist looking to build up some hype. It could help, or it might not, or nobody might care or nobody might watch it. Or the flag wavers could watch it and come to vastly different conclusions.
What we seem to have is plenty of journalists keen to pass on their electoral advice “they need to this” “This week they must” all gathered from exactly zero minutes of running campaigns themselves.
We’ve had plenty of attempted jokes about a lack of policy but any policy that is presented is largely ignored for some more talk about personal relationships behind the scenes.
Then Amber just follows the stereotype of thinking the Libs must be great at economics because they are crap at social policy and rip the guts out of public services. If Abbott thought it would get him over the line, why the hell was he so against it?
I just hope he kicks off with his mentor John Howard’s zinger that there really wasn’t a GFC.
An economic debate? With Joe Hockey as the gunman? It might just get Labor over the line….
Maybe I didn’t make it clear enough, but I think it is implicit in what I said, that the headline is just as unjustifiable as the conclusion. As the headline is much more prominent than the conclusion it is this egregious mis-statement that should have been first to go.
But I suppose that would have been too much of a climb-down.
@ SICKOFITALL I didn’t imagine Hockey uttering the words ‘grow the pie’, did I?
BLAME THE SUBBING!! Not the bloody subbing again.
Abbott is barely literate on the economy.
Sounds like no one here will even need to watch the debate, you’re all so certain of what you’re going to hear. Most of you sound like children pep-talking themselves before a schoolyard fight. And what’s your problem with the writer’s closing line anyway? Whether it turns out to be true or not, what is it about that line that’s got all your knickers in a knot?
@Power: I do think that Abbott might win it, but Venus, Mars, Saturn and Neptune will have to align. He apparently did all right in the Town Hall meeting, in which he got off the stage: it proved to me that journos don’t think, or feel, they just look to their elders to know what to say. It seemed to me (watching it later), forced, false and ultimately wrong. I would have felt the same if Julia had done it, too.
@Holden: I so hope to Cthulu you didn’t. But I can’t help feeling you might have….
@Power: I won’t watch the debate, but not because I think i’ll know who’ll win. It’s because I, a graduate in History and Political Science, am disengaged and uninterested….
The most overused word in Australian journalism today is “will”, as in future tense. Perhaps arising from centuries of always trying to get the “scoop”, which reaches its apotheosis in foretelling the future.
Be that as it may, now all the bloggers are turning into little Nostradamises. At least Amber Jamieson said “could” which is a perfectly reasonable statement.
Of course Abbott could trounce Gillard on economics. He’s got a bachelor of economics degree, Gillard has only studied law (like most left wing activists). He’s interested in more than just two items in the executive summary of the Henry review. He appreciates the importance of not turning everything upside down all at once and spooking investors. And he knows the difference between foreign investment in Australia (where the investor carries the risk) and the government borrowing huge quantities overseas (where the taxpayer carries the risk). Especially when we could be in the eye of the storm of a global double-dip recession.
What does Gillard know about economics? She doesn’t listen to Crean or Ferguson, both of whom are actually very smart. She passes them over to make Swan the treasurer (presumably for some Byzantine factional reasons). She thinks the government has shown great economic prowess by spending when Treasury said spend - even though they departed significantly from Treasury advice in the manner of spending. And even though Labor being advised to spend is like a stopped clock being accurate twice a day.
So yeah, why not? The economic debat could get Abbott over the line. Then again, maybe audiences will just hear whatever they want to hear and it will make no difference.
“both of who” I meant to say, not “whom”. I hate it when people do that.
Why would a debate on the economy get Abbott over the line? His claims do not stand up to even the slightest scrutiny.
For example, his latest claim about the effectiveness of the stimulus is that the UK and US had similar size stimulus packages and it didn’t help them avoid recession. In actuality, the Australian stimulus in 2009 (as % of GDP) was around 45% larger than the US and a whopping 80% larger than the UK. To say they were of similar size, is like saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a similar size to Danny DeVito. Abbott must have been very confused by the movie Twins. He probably though it was a documentary.
Back in May, Possum had a very good post on the stimulus impact on GDP growth.
Saw that. There are a few more relevant variables than size. Australia started from a much stronger base, a net international creditor with a world-beating 17 consecutive years of growth leading up to 2008. The big question about the stimulus was not just how many dollars, but how well targetted to employment. Anyway, many economists have commented on this at great length and nobody seems to be all that interested apart from filtering whatever they want to hear. So lets see what they say tonight.
@SICKOFITALL I fear he did say it and has done so on many occasions. Even more disturbingly the phrase seems to have currency in business schools.
As someone who gardens and cooks, that mixed metaphor says so much about what is wrong with the world. It’s a joke about planting hotdogs, taken seriously.
Jimmyf - I recall him talking about the role of lowering interest rates. In the US they’ve lowered rates to ***near zero*** and the place is still stuffed.
@Malcolm, I was referring to his claims concerning stimulus spending. For example, at 18:20 here:
Tony Abbott joins Q & A
Powerisnotstrength: “both of whom” is correct. “Both of who” sounds like they’re really Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend.
Nah, thanks but I was wrong the first time. “Crean or Ferguson, both of whom are actually very smart” is like saying “Crean, whom is very smart”. As the subject, it has to be “who”. It’s a bit like saying “He had dinner with my wife and I,” which always makes me wince.
No, further thoughts, actually you’re right. This is getting more embarrassing by the minute. “Both” can do for the subject, as in “both are smart,” and “of whom” is adjectival, otherwise we could say “both of they”. So it’s “both of whom are smart,” but not I — I need to go back to school.
@Holden: for a man who is the Opposition’s finance spokesperson….