I wish Crikey didn't have so much locked behind its paywall, but in any event,
Bernard Keane's latest column is free to view, and has many witty lines. First, talking about Labor:
...a party one step short of seriously considering consulting John
Curtin via Ouija Board about how to resolve the Rudd-Gillard tension.
It’s a party frozen in fear, terrified that any move it makes will be a
mistake but painfully aware that doing nothing means a wipeout. The
Liberals went through it in 2007, but Labor, as if to demonstrate that
anything Tories can do, they can do better, are taking it to new levels.
Still, at least the Prime Minister has the the crucial Russell Crowe
endorsement to add to Hugh Jackman’s support; with a visiting Arnie, the
PMO could boast she had Gladiator, Wolverine and the Terminator. Then
again, Tony Abbott doubtless has Dad and Dave and the cast of Division 4.
The next part, summarising the Coalition's policies, is pretty much spot on:
So far, there are two kinds of Abbott policies: those that mimic Labor,
and those that look terrible. His Direct Action climate change policy is
an open, albeit expensive, joke; his paid parental leave scheme is
loathed by many within his own party and in the Nationals. His
industrial relations policy is essentially a commitment to keep Labor’s Fair Work Act
until the Productivity Commission gives him political permissions to go
to voters with reforms; his broadband policy is, courtesy of Malcolm
Turnbull, NBN lite, although at least 30% and probably more of
Australian households will get the full-cream version.
And then the summary of the Coalition's "let's keep Gina happy and her cheques flowing in" Northern Australia project is really terrific:
The Abbott vision is that northern Australia becomes a cornucopia of
tourism, agriculture and mining, apparently unaware it’s tricky to have
even two of those together let alone all three, and climate change is
hardly conducive to any. Just ask tourism operators on the Great Barrier
Reef.
In fact, this deep north stuff is downright weird. It’s not just Tony
Abbott’s own big government DLP mindset emerging — it’s shared by
Coalition MPs with functioning brains like Andrew Robb, the small
government types at the IPA and far-Right miners like Gina Rinehart.
It’s straightforward, Whitlamesque regional development, complete with
Whitlam government policies like moving public servants around. It’s
social and economic engineering on a huge scale; there’s not a market
mechanism in sight. Indeed, there’s a utopian tone to the whole thing,
not dissimilar to the early, funny socialist visions that were untainted
by the nasty experience of the real world. It’s as if the Right wants
to create a new Australia, one free of all the bad things about the
current one like pesky unions, well-paid workers and restrictive
environmental regulation, a place where entrepreneurs, with just a
little help from taxpayer handouts, some government spending on
infrastructure where no one currently lives and a few indentured public
servants, can breathe the (admittedly, rather humid) air of freedom and
create a more efficient economy.
Funny how Sinclair Davidson (and everyone else who blogs at Catallaxy) simply refuses to talk about the IPA's broad endorsement of this policy.
