What a great knock down of several of the Commission of Audit's key proposals by
Greg Jericho. His final paragraphs I would count as "tough but fair":
It would be nice to think this dopey regurgitation of libertarian masturbatory fantasy will be put to one side.
In
the past, sensible heads would have prevailed. Many of the
recommendations are similar to those in the 1996 commission of audit. A
report John Howard largely ignored,
and yet bizarrely Australia was able to continue to grow for another 18
years straight. But this government is too full of those who actually
believe in this idiotic ideological view of the world – where “reform”
is a synonym for “cut”, and ideology trumps evidence. And for them, the
budget is just a first step to achieving it.
There is nothing wrong with some of their recommendations to my mind. It is just if Nominal GDP is 3% then if you implement the recommendations you make the economy worse and so therefore the deficit as Wayne Swan found out after he actually delivered the toughest budget we will ever see.
ReplyDeleteTheir projections are done on some dubious assumptions on nominal GDP in my view