More fun and games in "Defend the Budget"

Lenore Taylor writes that Prime Minister Credlin Abbott has ordered the troops into "attack" mode.

She writes amusingly of the desperate and clueless Alan Jones defensive line:

Radio announcer Alan Jones was truly bewildered while interviewing Christopher Pyne on Wednesday, astounded that despite the education minister’s “brilliant” advocacy skills the “blockheads” running state governments could not understand that the allegation of an $80bn cut was totally wrong. In fact, Jones said, “there hasn't been a more monstrous lie perpetrated since Julia Gillard said there'd be no carbon tax”.

Pyne somehow neglected to refer Jones to page 7 of the government’s glossy budget overview which clearly states that the government is changing indexation of state grants and “removing funding guarantees for public hospitals. These measures will achieve cumulative savings of over $80bn by 20024-25.”

In other "Attack!" news,  Andrew Bolt (of course) is calling protesting students "totalitarians", following the Pyne line that they are out to "shut down democracy in Australia".  Actually, I think they would be quite happy to see democracy re-exercised within the next 6 months.

Look, student demonstrations are what they are - always chanting slogans and shouty and (usually) vulgar and self indulgent.   I have never liked or approved of demonstrations that unexpectedly block peak hour traffic, damage property, or push people around. 

But seriously, the scale and vigour of what has happened (so far) looks so mild compared to previous Lefty demonstrations.  The high water mark of violent and ugly (and spectacularly self defeating) protests was the union led attack on Parliament House in 1996.   Ten years later, and there were the intensely stupid G20 protests. What has happened with student protests since the budget just doesn't bear comparison, and going on about how "totalitarian" they are acting is just gilding the lily a bit too obviously, fellas.

And besides, what did Abbott and Pyne expect with the timing of these dramatic changes within 6 months of an election that was all about reassuring the people that no great shake up was on the cards?  Of course there were going to be protests.

Now I don't deny that there is a risk that there may yet be large protests that get out of hand and start eroding into any public sympathy, and although the students probably don't realise it, Abbott and Pyne pulling out of a university visit due to security concerns may well be helping their (the students') cause.   Abbott and Pyne have a fine line to walk here - going into the lion's den may well end up looking unnecessarily provocative, but not going to any university short of via roof top helicopter does make them look a bit weak.   I'm sorry, but given that I already have an intense dislike of this government on many grounds, it's the kind of dilemma that I take some pleasure in.

And as for Abbott's understanding of his own government's announcements:  ninemsn is reporting that he appears to not even know the date for changes set out in the budget:

Mr Abbott told ABC radio that only students who start studying in 2016 would face potentially higher fees when universities can charge what they like.

"If you start next year, your conditions of study won't change," he said.

But the budget papers clearly state that anyone who enrols after May 14 will face deregulated fees in 2016.

Peta, Peta, Peta.   All your effort into training him is not paying off, it seems.

UPDATE:  More errors, and quite large ones, by Joe Hockey and the PM in trying to sell the Medicare co-payment.

Is Peta crying into a martini somewhere tonight?  Her troops are letting her down something chronic.

First Dog recommended

First Dog on the Moon doesn't always get my approval, but with the target rich environment of a very unpopular budget made by a cigar smoking millionaire Treasurer (well, I assume he's worth millions - doesn't his wife make more than him, indicating a combined salary well over $600,000?), he's been pretty funny lately.

Anyway, here's today's cartoon that I find particularly amusing.

Also:   I suspect Hockey will not win his defamation case (in itself a rich man's game), and in fact risks losing politically for taking on the paper on one of the least egregious bits of commentary on a politician that has been seen in the Australian media the last couple of years.

Just keep the scheme

Ross Garnaut has made the point that just keeping the carbon pricing scheme (even with moving to a floating price, I think) pretty much achieves the same in terms of budget repair that the Coalition wants to achieve with its vast number of controversial changes.

Professor Garnaut, the architect of the Rudd and Gillard governments’ climate policies, argues that keeping carbon pricing and abandoning the $2.55 billion emissions reduction fund would reduce the budget deficit by between $12 billion and $19 billion over the next four years, depending on the European carbon price.

On Tuesday night, he told an audience at the University of Melbourne that is about the same as the $12 billion to $18 billion in budgetary savings that the Greens and Labor have pledged to oppose in Parliament.

“Retention of carbon pricing would more or less precisely fill the gap from Senate rejection of some budget measures,” Professor Garnaut said.

“To put it another way, Australia can stay within the boundaries of fiscal responsibility defined by the government in this year’s budget by retaining carbon pricing, rather than the array of changes that are at risk in the Senate.”

But of course, because the Coalition fed the public the line that the Labor carbon scheme would be an economic disaster (based on the support of the handful of economists associated with the IPA, pretty much) for so long, they cannot back down on that now, despite the lack of evidence that it is actually causing any great economic mayhem.

As everyone says, the problem with the budget is with its priorities as to how to go about the "repair" it wants to achieve.  And the problem comes back to the Coalition running policies on ideologically justified lines, regardless of evidence.

A premature declaration if ever I saw one

I see via Jason's twitter feed* that libertarian types are giving themselves high fives about legalisation of marijuana in some US States because it is said to be "hurting Mexican drug cartels".

The Lions of Liberty (wanky name: typical) cite this article in Vice (?) which quotes a Washington Post article that says Mexican marijuana prices have dropped far enough to make it not worthwhile for some farmers to grow it.

Amusingly, though, Vice does not repeat the other element in the WP report:  that the concern is that the recent increase in heroin in the US (about which I have posted before) is coming via Mexico, and in fact it seems Mexican marijuana growers are now switching to poppies.

It's pretty remarkable that the Vice article should not mention that, given that the headline to the WP article is: 
Tracing the U.S. heroin surge back south of the border as Mexican cannabis output falls

A more detailed look at how legalising marijuana would affect the Mexican cartels can be read in this WP article from 2012.  It shows that (although no one knows for sure) marijuana was perhaps only accounting for 17% of their revenue anyway.

Libertarians, who are supposed to be big on free markets, didn't think that there would be a substitution to the cartel's operations to make up for loss of marijuana profitability by beefing up their heroin, cocaine and meth production/trafficking?    While too early to tell the extent to which this unintended consequence may affect America, it is not really a surprise that it would happen, and taking into account the extra number of people with really serious drug addictions in the big decision matrix of legalising marijuana is probably something libertarians don't want to talk about much.  Of course, some of them will probably argue that this is a reason for legalising all drugs. 

And PS:  I condemn Mel Gibson and every movie he has ever appeared in or made.  He is not worthy to touch the sandals of the Spielberg.   [ ;) ] 

*Source disclosed as I don't want people thinking I regularly read American libertarian sites 

A must watch Foreign Correspondent

What a fantastic Foreign Correspondent show tonight, about the disputed Spratly Islands which have been causing grief between Vietnam, the Philippines and China for 25 years or so. 

I felt very sorry for some Filipino Marines, that's for sure.  And it makes one think how difficult it will be to maintain long term cordial relationships with China given their rapacious acts of self interest.

An irresistible topic for a post here

Here's why Steven Spielberg is such a great director.

No, honestly, it's informative and interesting.  (And yes, I agree, Always is easily the worst Spielberg movie.)  Here's the video:


The Spielberg Oner - One Scene, One Shot
from Tony Zhou on Vimeo.

Harry does not like Henry

I'd back Harry Clarke over Groucho any day.  

By the way, if Ergas has spent much of his career on infrastructure economics, how come I hardly ever notice him writing about it in the Oz?   Does he have any concerns about how Abbott is just going hard on roads with (as I understand it) little in the way of assessment of their economic value?

And can Ergas allay my concerns that economic analysis of all but certain "obvious" infrastructure might not be that credible an exercise anyway?   As I have said before, I presume it's easy to work out some benefits of a port or railway that allows a new mining area to export efficiently.    But cutting down the time to travel across town by car by 10 minutes?  I have my doubts about the rigorousness of how you economically model that.

This is a topic Ergas could perhaps usefully enlighten me.  Instead, he just craps on with his political biases. 

Send Tony Abbott there instead

Of course, you can blame Kevin Rudd for the idea of shoving off genuine refugees to New Guinea.

But go back a step earlier, and even worse for its appalling hypocrisy is the Coalition for opposing sending boat arrivals to Malaysia (even when the deal proposed involved them having the right to work and would have UNHRC supervision to ensure they were not abused) but now happily sending them to Cambodia. 

Virak Ou, chairman of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, accused Australia of irresponsibly exporting its own problem.

“We mistreated our own people and have failed to protect the human rights of our own people … we don’t have the capacity or the will,” he said.

“There’s no reason for Australia to believe that Cambodia will protect the rights of refugees, which to me is very irresponsible of Australia.”

Cambodia’s opposition leader Sam Rainsy described the deal as a “disgrace,” saying Australian money will be diverted into the pockets of Cambodia’s corrupt leaders.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has condemned the agreement, saying Cambodia is a vulnerable nation still recovering for years of civil war and is still unable to provide for its own people.

However, the UN’s Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri said the UN would be willing to provide “support to ensure that standards are met.”

The UNHCR has only a two-person office in Phnom Penh.

Of 68 asylum seekers or refugees already living in Cambodia most are desperate to be relocated to another country, welfare groups say.

Tony Abbott simply played politics on refugees at their expense, escalating matters to a much worse position for them.  What's more, he is playing politics by not disclosing what is happening on the high seas so that the public is left in the dark as to whether his government is acting like a pirate or not.  

It is truly remarkable how, so early in a Prime Ministership, he has painted himself into a position where he has no chance of redeeming himself as a moral or popular Prime Minister.

Cynical political exercises resulting in nothing

Royal Commission fails to deliver Coalition the expected political advantage

Exactly.  As it says in the article:

''This was supposed to distract from what they were doing in budget
week,'' a senior Labor source said. ''There was a clear political ploy
to drag this stuff out to remind people how much they disliked the last
government but people seem to have moved on. People are more interested
in what this government is doing.''

Coverage of Mr Rudd's and Mr Combet's appearances, as well as
former Labor ministers Peter Garrett and Mark Arbib, was swamped by
reaction to the first Coalition budget and its lead up.

Watchers at the inquiry, headed by Ian Hanger, QC, said it
had unearthed no ''smoking gun'' despite speculation before the
hearings that a trail of warnings over the lethal scheme could lead
right to the top of the Rudd government.

This enquiry, together with the union royal commission giving creep Blewitt a venue to mutter about Gillard, have been examples of very nasty political fixes attempted by a petty and pretty much morally bankrupt government.   (See next post.)

Tony talks to Insiders this year...

Tony talks to Insiders last year

I was Googling to find a photo of Abbott on Insiders yesterday, and turned up the transcript from his pre election interview with Barrie Cassidy last year.  Some notable extracts (my bold):

BARRIE CASSIDY: Let's talk about some of the policies. We will start with the cuts to come. How severe will they be?

TONY ABBOTT: There will be no surprises and no excuses from a Coalition government Barrie. We've already put out a lot of the savings that we think are necessary. Joe Hockey outlined $31 billion worth of savings this week. There will be some additional savings to be announced later this week…

BARRIE CASSIDY: That is what I as asking about. How severe will they be?

TONY ABBOTT: Nothing like Labor's scare campaign. All eminently defensible because, let's face it Barrie, our first priority here is to build a stronger economy. And that means reinvesting taxpayers' dollars in things that will actually strengthen our economy rather than just build bureaucracies.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But you now know the size of these cuts, how significant, how big?

TONY ABBOTT: Look, there will be some further, relatively modest savings announced later in the week. But I don't think anyone is going to think at the end of this week 'my God there is this massive fiscal squeeze coming.' If anything, what they will think is that there has been a massive scare campaign, a massive campaign of exaggerations and even lies from the Labor Party.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Well put it this way, will the cuts impact on ordinary Australians?

TONY ABBOTT: Inevitably there will be some changes that people won't like, for instance the …

BARRIE CASSIDY: Ordinary Australians will feel it?

TONY ABBOTT: Ending the so-called School Kids Bonus.

BARRIE CASSIDY: We know about that one.

TONY ABBOTT: I don't believe the additional savings to be announced later in this week, will impact on ordinary Australians. And I want to give people this absolute assurance, no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, and no changes to the GST (Goods and Services Tax).

OK, so no surprises, other than an abrupt plan to deregulate university fees and make many of them much more expensive, require repayments of HECS faster, introduce co-payment for Medicare, increase the cost of medicines, lengthen age pension eligibility by 3 years, treat anyone under 30 punitively if they can't get a job, cut funding to the States on health both immediately and in the future, etcetera, etcetera...

Tony Abbott doesn't even remember his own political history correctly

I must admit, I didn't mentally question this when I heard Abbott claim it in trying to explain off the post budget polling drop.  Lucky someone did:

John Howard 'took a big hit in the polls too' after first budget? Er, no Mr Abbott: The first post-budget Newspoll in 1996 showed a three percentage point increase in the Coalition's primary vote, to 50; a lift in Howard's approval rating, from 47 to 51; and an increase in his lead over Kim Beazley as preferred prime minister to a score of 53 per cent against Beazley's 24.

How embarrassing for our PM.

What a dilema for anti-Labor

I can't be the only person who's enjoying the obvious schizophrenia (in the common, useful, albeit mistaken sense of the word) that is happening to Andrew Bolt and the other anti-Labor columnists re the Abbott government.

One minute, he is taking the small government, anti tax, IPA line that the budget is a problem because it doesn't really cut spending at all;  next he's going with the line that "the Liberal's cure hurts" but is warranted.

Can someone give him a nudge and tell him that these aren't exactly consistent positions?  Or does he take the line that cutting down on welfare benefits is always warranted, regardless of it not having an effect on the budget bottom line? 

The funniest thing of all, though, was in Annabel Crabb's column on the obvious casting about for something positive to say that about a budget that's gone over about as well as the plague.   She noted this about Alan Jones:

Increased petrol taxes? And no tub-thumpers angry? Surely Alan Jones would stay strong. If Julia Gillard had hiked fuel excise, Alan Jones would instantly have recommended firing her into space, and hang the expense.

But on budget morning, when the Prime Minister reported for his Jonesian rub-down, he received nothing but approval for pricier fuel.

''There are legitimate reasons around the world for this,'' avowed Jones sternly. ''One is to stop the guzzling of a scarce resource.''

Hilarious.

More science - consider the Muon

My favourite particle: the muon | Mark Lancaster | Science | theguardian.com

 Most cloud chamber trails are caused by muons, a particle about which I had stored next to nothing in the cranial memory banks.

The article linked above is a really good summary of the history of their discovery, along with some background as to what they are.  Well worth reading.  A sample:

There are several hundred muons going through your head every second
minute. Fortunately, their low energies (and high mass) mean they are
harmless. These muons originate from the collisions of cosmic-rays
(primarily protons spewed out by stars) with the atoms in our upper
atmosphere. After their discovery it was observed that the number of
these muons decreased as you got closer to the earth and the natural
(and correct) conclusion was that they were not stable particles like
the electron but a bit fly-by-night (and day), and they decayed to other
more familiar particles (electrons and neutrinos) in about 2 millionths
of a second. At this point it was known what the mass of the electron
was and neutrinos were assumed massless, so by looking at the trajectory
and energy of the electron from the muon decay (or measuring the time
it took for the muon to decay) it became clear the the muon was a bit of
a porker. It weighed in at about 200 times the mass of the electron.

If you want maths with that, you can have a look at this article, which works through the question of why we see so many on Earth's surface if they decay so fast.  The answer is relativity:

The measurement of the flux of muons at the Earth's surface produced an early dilemma because many more are detected than would be expected, based on their short half-life of 1.56 microseconds. This is a good example of the application of relativistic time dilation to explain the increased particle range for high-speed particles.

Fascinating, hey?

Budget chickens home to roost

Some of the more interesting points from recent budget stories:

*  Lenore Taylor makes it clear that Tony Abbott does not understand his own budget.  Peta Credlin's crib sheet must have been a bit too simplified for its own good.

*  Pollbludger does a good summary of the dire polling for Abbott today in Newspoll and Nielsen.  I was particularly interested to note this (from Nielsen):

The deficit levy finds support, with 50% in favour and 37% against, but there’s a surprisingly narrow majority of 49% to 46% in favour of abolishing the carbon tax. The poll finds predictably strong opposition to the notion of increasing the GST, with 30% for and 66% against.

I think this indicates that it's plausible for Labor to argue that it is better to keep its carbon pricing scheme than to kick lower income people in the shins.  They should push this line hard.

As for the "deficit levy":   I think it would be more popular if it kicked in at a lower level.

*  Andrew Bolt has been frequently criticising the media for its "spiteful" attacks on Joe Hockey (he smokes cigars; his wife wears expenses dresses) but I do believe he was unable to bring himself to criticise Sinclair Davidson for running a "smoking Joe" banner at Catallaxy for a few days.   The handholding power of the IPA has created a strong bond, obviously.

*  Tony Windsor tweeted yesterday:

If you watched #insiders today you would have received a sense of why it would have been difficult to choose him as PM in Hung Parliament

Yes, hard to argue that Windsor's sense of not being able to trust Abbott is vindicated.

* There has been little attention given to this appalling example of twisted priorities - a Human Rights Commissioner is to be dropped, following the appointment of a new one (the "photograph me, please!" boy, Tim Wilson) as some sort of sop to the Andrew Bolt Right wing fanclub.  The problem is, the next Commissioner due to expire is the one for Disability, meaning that this role will be shared by someone else there.

Adam Creighton, the small government, anti tax favoured journalist of the Australian, got hit about the head something severe when trying to argue this was "no big deal" on The Drum last week.  Here it is, from the 15 minute mark. 

*  Speaking of Creighton, he's an utter lightweight, ideologically driven twit, as far as I'm concerned.  Here's how he ended his first column on the budget last week:

The Coalition’s budgets will only prove profound to the extent they kindle a conversation about the dysfunctional federation that leads to serious reform. It is, as Tony Abbott has written, the biggest problem facing Australia, not only because of the duplication in costs but the damage it does to political incentives.

The political benefit from spending more taxpayers’ money must be offset by the political pain of lifting taxes.

The states could, for instance, levy a uniform tax on land to raise whatever amount they wanted to spend on hospitals or schools. Of course, the more palatable option might be to run their own creaking, Soviet-style health and education systems more efficiently.

Yeah, Adam: it's like no one has been talking about maximising efficiencies in the State systems for the last 30 years, hey?  What evidence you got, mate, that the States are running "Soviet style"  health and education systems?  Idiot.