Here's what the CEC say about Joe Hockey:
Goose-stepping, fist-pumping Joe Hockey proclaims: austerity over democracy!
Treasurer Joe Hockey in an April 2012 speech in Londondemanded democracy must not obstruct deep cuts to government spending on health, education, and other essential services, revealing himself to be in lock-step with those who are orchestrating a revival of 1930s-style fascism to manage the present global financial crisis.
Hockey’s address to London’s Institute of Economic Affairs pre-empted Wall Street giant JPMorgan-Chase’s May 2013 complaintthat the explicitly anti-fascist measures in the post-WWII constitutions of many of the nations of Southern Europe, intended to ensure there would be no return to fascist dictatorships, are now the major obstacle to closer European monetary integration.
In his speech titled The End of the Age of Entitlement, Australia’s future Treasurer defined entitlements as government spending on “education, health, housing, subsidised transport, social safety nets and retirement benefits".
He then made it clear he shares JPMorgan’s resentment of “democracy”, for getting in the way of their definition of sound economic management: “As we have already witnessed, it is not popular to take entitlements away from millions of voters in countries with frequent elections.”
Ah, but, Hockey continued, it is absolutely necessary, because: “Entitlement is a concept that corrodes the very heart of the free enterprise that drives our economies.”
(Somehow, Joe failed to mention the corrosive effects of the $1.4 quadrillion global derivatives bubble, from which his wife Melissa Babbage made millions trading for Deutsche Bank, and which imploded the global financial system in 2008.)
Hockey’s solution is a strong government that can resist democratic pressures: “A weak government tends to give its citizens everything they wish for,” he said. “A strong government has the will to say NO!”
Except it’s not the government that’s strong, it’s the multinational bankers whose lending to governments Hockey believes entitles them to dictate government policy:
“In today’s global financial system it is the financial markets, both domestic and international, which impose fiscal discipline on countries,” Hockey said. “Lenders have a more active role to play in policing public policy and ensuring that countries do not exceed their capacity to service and repay debt.
This is playing out most dramatically in Europe where the European Commission and the European Central Bank are either directly or indirectly heavily influencing public policy in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal to name a few.” [Emphasis added.]
