I think the Coalition could have done so much better had they not taken such an extreme position on everything – all that sky falling in stuff, budget emergency, economy a total mess, all Labor’s fault, direct action is infinitely better than carbon pricing, let’s give wealthy families $75,000 to have a baby, let’s continue to get Indonesia offside and spend $12 billion on fighter jets in case they invade us, and let’s keep being negative about the economy and the budget and Labor and everything else. Kind of like a six year old in the playground who has lost his toys and is all forlorn and negative and needs someone to blame.
You wouldn’t think we have one of the best budget positions and economic situations in the OECD and a standard of living second to Norway. Had the Coalition recognised this and recognised the fact that we have had the global financial crisis and world’s worst economic downturn in 80 years, as well as recognising the fact that global warming is real, and that they themselves are far from perfect, I think they could have done a considerably better job and the polls would probably reflect this and still perhaps be around 52:48 in their favour. But to keep up a relentless campaign of negativity and nonsense for eight months, and still no end to it, is only damaging themselves. For every negative comment about Labor or the economy or the budget or anything else, commentators can easily find a counter argument against the Coalition, both the current government and the one under Howard.
I had a look at this Coalition report, “Labor’s 2007-2013 Mess” (http://www.laborsmess.com.au/LaborsMess.pdf). It is perhaps the most lopsided and selective report since its “Our Plan: Real Solutions for all Australians”, a document that contains various incorrect and misleading data on productivity (especially), saving, economic growth, real wages, living standards and industrial disputes. About two-thirds of it revolved around alleged low productivity during the Labor government and how the Coalition would fix it. The problem was that the Coalition used ABS experimental estimates of productivity plus a strange report by the Economist Intelligence Unit that had numbers flying about all over the place, no dates, and no sources, rather than ABS national accounts figures on productivity that show it to be higher under Labor than the last six years of the previous Coalition government.
The “Labor’s 2007-2013 Mess” forgets the global financial crisis and world’s worst economic downturn since the 1930s in most of its data and analysis. It fails to mention and understand that government revenue fell though the floor. It fails to mention that government expenditure increased 3.8% a year between 2008-09 and 2012-13 (or 6.2% a year between 2007-08 and 2012-13 to take into account the stimulus packages to keep us out of recession, as imperfect as they were), compared with 7.5% a year between 1999-00 and 2006-07 under the previous Coalition government. An IMF study released in 2013 found the Australian government was “profligate” in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007 (and 1942 and 1960). Not a mention in this report. Had it been Labor, the report would have perhaps contained a two page spread on this IMF study. Using revenue and expenditure figures, had the previous Coalition government not gone on a spending spree and saved more for a rainy day and had we not had the world downturn, there would be no deficits and no debt. Not a word of this in the report. And of course, there’s no word of how the public service grew by 40,000 people between 2000 and 2007 and by 5000 between 2008 and 2013.
The document fails to acknowledge that we have one of the lowest debt to GDP ratios of all OECD countries, steady if unspectacular growth, relatively low unemployment, and a standard of living second to Norway.
There are many ways of looking at statistics and the Coalition’s document uses whatever way it can to try and show that Labor messed up, looking at raw numbers when convenient or percentage increases when these were convenient or a comparison with the Coalition when this was convenient and of course forgetting about the fact that Labor was in office during a world and therefore Australian downturn and the Coalition operated in a boom period.
The document seems to be plucking incorrect data from its Our Plan document. For example, it says: “The number of working days lost to strikes more than doubled.” The annual average number of hours lost due to industrial disputes was 403,000 under the Howard government from 1996-97 to 2006-07, compared with 183,000 under Labor from 2008-09 to 2012-13. I’ve left out 2007-08 (165,000) as this was shared between both parties.
The report also says: “Labor introduced more than 20,000 new or amended regulations”. This was a figure Abbott and Hockey used last year. But it was quickly discredited. There were over 22,000 legislative instruments introduced by Labor, but 9000 were repealed, and this included some that went back before 2008. The new instruments included such things as ordinances, proclamations, declarations, and airworthiness directives (3400 of these), which aren't regulations. Also, over 4000 were tariff concession orders, requested by business for their benefit. Based on numbered regulations, the Howard government introduced 4460 regulations between 1996 and 2007, averaging 372 a year. Labor introduced 1811, or 302 a year.
At one point, the report says: “The Labor Government did not have a revenue problem, it had a spending problem”. But MYEFO 2013-14 shows that revenue fell from 25.6% of GDP in 2005-06 to 23.2% in 2008-09, 22.0% in 2009-10, 21.5% in 2010-11, 22.2% in 2011-12 and 23.1% in both 2012-13 and 2013-14. Expenditure rose due to the downturn but had returned to 24.1% of GDP in 2012-13, the same as 2005-06 (and of course the growth in expenditure was considerably higher under the previous Coalition government; see above). The Coalition has pushed it back up to an estimated 25.9% of GDP in 2013-14 because it has decided to run with many of Labor’s programs but introduce many of its own. At one point, the report tries to attribute the 25.9% figure in 2013-14 to Labor!
The document rattles on about the carbon tax of course but fails to acknowledge that it was to become an ETS. The report also fails to refer to the government’s recently released “Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory” for December quarter 2013 in which the findings seem to go against just about everything the Coalition has been saying about the carbon tax, carbon pricing, emissions, the economy, clean energy, etc. By the time of the report, the carbon tax had been in for 18 months. In that time, quarter by quarter GDP growth has been 0.8%, 0.7%, 0.5%, 0.7%, 0.6% and 0.8%. And of course the report fails to mention that Reputex found that direct action would be three times more expensive and less effective that carbon pricing or that a survey of 35 economists found that 30 preferred carbon pricing and 2 supported direct action.
There are two pages on Labor’s alleged failures in infrastructure, but it does not mention the failure of the Howard government to provide infrastructure in boom times when there was plenty of spare money.
The “Labor’s 2007-2013 Mess” report is 60 pages. I could probably write 60 pages refuting and clarifying its contents. And I could probably write 60 pages on what the Coalition has messed up in just eight months.
All this report does is show that the Coalition doesn’t have much idea and continues to waste its time and taxpayers’ money trying to blame Labor for everything. Very childish.
