(First published by Independent Australia)
There are a lot of headlines lately blaming Swanny for allowing Rio Tinto to rob and cheat him, and us, of hundreds of millions of dollars and getting the unemployment figures wrong. But I’ve never met anyone yet who actively hates him.
Costello was hated; Keating; Howard; Lynch; McMahon; Fadden; even Chifley, when they each in turn were Treasurer. But Swanny’s plain, true-hearted good intentions shine out of him, and the occasional detestation Gillard ignites, and Abbott, and Rudd, and Abetz, and Heffernan, and Wong, and Garrett, and Bowen, does not adhere to Swanny, ever. He seems a good man. He may err, and stumble, and fudge, and misread, and shuffle, and obfuscate, but his amiable intent, his decency, his honourable purpose is not in doubt.
The Liberals try to counter this by calling him chaotic but it does not stick. The world’s most successful financial manager in the world’s most perilous, ramshackle three years, one acclaimed by American, British, European and Asian pundits for his cool, steady hand, he lives in this nation’s memory as a good navigator, not a Gyro Gearloose in a storm-lashed wheelhouse improvising frantically. He is, and seems, a better sailor than that.
Things are changing, I believe, and the daily more obvious Labor victory in Western Australia shows they are changing; and Kennett’s attack on his old friend Baillieu; and Katter’s progressive demolition of the LNP in the North, and the hydrophobic Newman’s bizarre decision to slash the numbers of nurses in a State full of old people. It’s becoming plain the tories have bad intentions, just like Romney did, and Cameron, and Berlusconi, and they don’t attract love as Beattie, Bacon, Bracks, Gallop, Rann, Carr and Martin did, and do.
They are voted for if it seems they can do things well. But it doesn’t seem they can, any more. And, like Barnett, they are headed for the woodshed, and a bollocking. You wait and see.
It is not insignificant that economic confidence is up, and the stock market now at a five-year high.
Swanny has done the job well. And he should be applauded, by us and the people, and he will be.
You wait and see.
Name:
“He [Wayne Swan] seems a good man. He may err, and stumble, and fudge, and misread, and shuffle, and obfuscate, but his amiable intent, his decency, his honourable purpose is not in doubt.”
So the flaws Swan does show are in action and execution, and can be overshadowed by a proportionate sense of purpose and a good intent. Decency is a big thing.
And it was something to read the list of “hated” Treasurers in the last sixty-and-more years of Australian history.
“[...]he lives in this nation’s memory as a good navigator, not a Gyro Gearloose in a storm-lashed wheelhouse improvising frantically.[...]”
That’s not a way you would want to ‘drive’ the economy, macro or micro. When I think of navigators, I think of Walt Whitman’s Captain, O My Captain. Also, the more geographical navigator shows the compass and holds the map and negotiates the terrain?
“Things are changing, I believe, and the daily more obvious Labor victory in Western Australia shows they are changing; and Kennett’s attack on his old friend Baillieu; and Katter’s progressive demolition of the LNP in the north, and the hydrophobic Newman’s bizarre decision to slash the numbers of nurses in a State full of old people.”
And the WA election is in less than three weeks (9th March 2013). Have seen a few articles about the WA voting intentions.
Kennett’s attack on Baillieu … I don’t know if I see many nurses and paramedics going north to Queensland, especially the far north and the west. But on the other hand they can’t stay in Victoria the way things are going.
Can agree about the love for Beattie. Bacon was from Tasmania, and it was more of a tough love than the warm sunny love. Did you put the Premiers of the States in a special order?
“It is not insignificant that economic confidence is up, and the stock market now at a five-year high.”
Yes, and it does seem that one party is pushing the business and household confidence up towards zero. I can say less about the stockmarket being at a five-year (2008) high.
If someone cannot see a bad intention or will not see it, then I don’t know how they could see or handle chaos or complexity. And Swan is good with complexity.
I believe you are whistling in the dark, Bob.
We shall indeed wait and see if you are correct this time.
Farting into the wind mate would seem more appropriate.
Hush now, Reader 1.
That’s why I read this blog.
To get a genuine sense of balance from my self-medicated diet of high-fat, high-salt cholesterol-rich Murdoch anti-Labor propaganda.
A bit like going to Jenny Craig for one hour each day. A sort of Catholic penance for enjoying life too much.
Just a question about the great treasurer’s next trick.
He says there will be no new taxes under the government he leads. Then, what about our Super? Is it safe?
Because of his great inspired stewardship, rumour has it that an unprovoked mishap has occurred, the great treasurer has run out of other people’s money, or so it seems, a large chunk of it, mysteriously and inexplicably has slipped through his careful miserly fingers.
Where it went is a mystery to us mere mortals - or was it just the evil Rupert Murdoch lying to us again like a cackling Mr Burns?
Is it true that the amiable and likeable Treasurer is now eyeing off $1.5 Trillion in Australian Super Funds? Or just the ones owned by the filthy capitalist (let ‘em eat cake) rich ones?
Should we be nervous and afraid or relaxed and comfortable?
Is it safe to trust the true-hearted good intentions of that loveable Queensland rogue, Swanny?
Accountancy isn’t so hard, we just have to fleece Gina. I’m off to see Django Unchained this afternoon so hopefully I’ll pick up some tips.
I apologize. Maths was never my strong point. Enjoy the movie.
Not sure enjoyment is quite the right word for what I’ve just witnessed. Jesus Christ. You wouldn’t want to be a slave in the south. Jesus Christ.
Shake the guy’s hand, you kraut!
I recommend for Gina the hot box followed by the dogs followed by the dynamite. Clive Palmer and Twiggy can be kept on for five fights as mandingo’s. We, the people, need to be kept entertained.
“Is it safe to trust the true-hearted good intentions of that lovable Queensland rogue, Swanny?”
You poor thing Frank, how do you cope with your lovable Queensland rogue, Campbell Newman. Seeing what he’s doing there in Bjelke land, gives me shivers, that’s what Australia would have with Abbott.
Hi Helvi, Yes its true Campbell Newman has sacked nurses and civil servants and teachers and fired off a few drone attacks on Labor electorates and annoyed a lot of people. (The last bit is not true.) His popularity has taken a bit of a battering but his polling is still high.
He is doing what all smart leaders including Abbott will do when elected.
Get Peter Costello the great Treasurer in to tell all Queenslanders or Australians that the state finances are in a dreadful appalling state after the Labor mad excesses.
The Murdoch newspapers will agree that the Ledger its worse than they ever thought. Labor has spent $250 - $300 Billion on rubbish and has created much suffering. Much worse than anyone thought and in order for it to get better, the country must tighten its belt and the poor must suffer. Its tough love for the poor and the mad and the feeble and the sick and the elderly, but someone must be taught a lesson. And that person is you dear voter who elected the previous mob in.
Then Abbott/Newman/(Insert Name here)leader is free now to Sack people left right and center. Willy-nilly. He can now balance the books and build up a bit of a war chest to spend lots of cash on favored electorates in the next election cycle.
Its what all LNP people do.
Contrast this with loveable Swanny.
Rudd, Gillard and loveable Swanny spent all the cash upfront and now have nothing left in the kitty to splurge on voters in an election year!
The cupboard is bare. Taxing people is out of the question now as its an election year so where do you go when you need to raise some cash? You either borrow it or steal it? The second option looks good to Swanny.
Tell me that’s smart politics and I’ll eat my hat.
Education, the sick , the poor, not even the the Arts should never be sacrificed to get some silly surplus back,do what Hollande is doing in France, tax the rich more.
Do what they do in Norway and make sure the nation’s natural resourses enrich everybody’s life, not just few Ginas and Forresters…
Go and see how they do it Scandinavia, start taxing everybody more, so you can fix the education system once and for all , get rid of private schools, start being the egalitarian country you think we are, but are not.
Helvi, you mention Hollande and his tax regime. Even Gerard Dapardieu arguably France’s greatest actor has quit his home country to go live abroad, of all places, in Russia as Putin’s pet.
Imagine Francois Hollande’s Socialist government taxing anyone who earns more than one million euros ($AU 1.5 million) at 75 per cent? Is that fair?
I don’t think so. Is this what you wish for Australia?
“I am leaving because you consider that success, creation, talent, anything different, must be punished,” said Dapardieu.
He had paid 85 per cent tax on his revenues in 2012 and that over 45 years of working and running businesses in France he had paid 145 million euros to state coffers.
How much tax should Dapardieu pay?
I respect talent and I think Dapardieu is entitled to keep his wealth and to keep making French films. Why drive the best and brightest out of your country to fulfill a socialist ideal? What does Hollande do when there are no more rich left to tax? Start on the less rich? How far down the rich scale do you fleece?
It doesn’t make sense to me.
If our wealthy paid taxes like the French have to do, they might have grounds to whinge. But they don’t, and the wealthier they are the less they pay seems to be the case.
What is needed is a worldwide tax agreement, such that arseholes cannot escape paying their fair share.
In the meantime, if you want to live in France, pay French taxes; if you want to live in or do business in Australia (or USA) then you must pay your taxes.
And there is plenty of room to increase taxes in both Australia and USA.
You think a fat drunk two-fisted Flemish glutton is an argument, do you.
Falstaff for Lord Chancellor, then.
And W.C. Fields for President.
Putin likes him because he’s so much like his drunk fat mentor Yeltsin.
Obelix’s greatest role is as Gerard Dapardieu
I wonder if they have tax dodgers there like they do here Helvi. Non-residents for tax purposes? Income paid to offshore companies? Discretionary trusts, that sort of thing? They are rife here of course and in Europe generally. Britain especially.
Only the little people pay their fair share of taxes here.
M Ryutin, as far as I know taxes were paid as you went along, taxes were taken off your pay packet, so no tax dodges.
Here the little people pay, and big people have all kinds of schemes for not paying.
People pay higher taxes but then you get so much for it, good schools, hospitals etc.
In Denmark free dental care for all until the age of eighteen or twenty. No need for expensive private schools to get an education, every village has good schools.
The Liberal Party and their National Party sidekicks sometimes get elected, usually when the electorate get fed up with a long term Labor government.
Now I would never have written that before this last decade, for the accepted wisdom was that long term Liberal etc governments were the norm - Menzies in Canberra, Bolte in Vic, Court in WA, Bjelke in Qld, Playford in SA.
That appears to no longer be the case, possibly with the dismantling of the one-sheep one-vote rural gerrymanders.
Long term governments now means three or four terms, or about 8 to 11 years. And most of them have been Labor in the last few decades : Wran, and then Carr etc in NSW; Cain and then Bracks etc in Vic; Bannon and then Rann in SA; Goss then Beatty etc in Qld (and whoever in Tasmania). And of course Hawke-Keating federally.
The exception now seems to be the Liberals : Howard, federally.
These things run in cycles, but as the intelligent reader with a reasonable memory will observe, we had all States and federal with Labor governments for a while recently; I doubt that or the obverse has ever happened before. The Liberals were in deep crisis over it, for no very good reason, I thought.
The Australian electorate like to see a balance in these things, State Labor, Federal Liberal and vice versa.
And long term governments get tired, run out of ideas, the odd corrupt ones or the many incompetent ones in such governments eventually inciting a change, provided the alternative is electable.
Where is this going you ask?
That Labor is now the Party of government, and don’t the conservatives hate them for it. Conservative regimes have generally been short term ones in recent decades, in all jurisdictions, a sort of sorbet between main courses.
But draw your own conclusions.