We must by now have reached the point where the hapless exploits of the Gillard government have descended into farce.
We know Julia Gillard has broken promises. We know she has failed on all of the three priority challenges she set out for herself when she became Prime Minister: border protection, climate policy and mining tax. We know that she also has failed to meet the crucial economic goal she set herself; the return to surplus.
Then there have been the leadership challenges, both with and without a contender. There have been ministerial resignations and a sacking. We had the ignominy of the misogyny rant, and the sordid details of union corruption scandals involving one of her MPs and even touching on her own professional life before politics.
And the treacherous affair of Peter Slipper and the Speaker’s chair.
But as I have mentioned before there has been a terrible patronising tone about much of Ms Gillard’s communication. From stunts lik...
“Imagine a wage earner, John, employed in the same job throughout the last 20 years,” she began. “For a period in 2003 to 2007 every year his employer gave him a sizeable bonus. He was grateful but in his bones knew it wouldn’t last. The bonuses did stop and John was told that his income would rise by around five per cent each year over the years to come. That’s the basis for his financial plans.
“Now, very late, John has been told he won’t get those promised increases for the next few years – but his income will get back up after that to where he was promised it would be. What is John’s rational reaction? To respond to this temporary loss of income by selling his home and car, dropping his private health insurance, replacing every second evening meal with two-minute noodles. Of course not.
“A rational response would be to make some responsible savings, to engage in some moderate borrowing, to get through to the time of higher income with his family and lifestyle intact and then to use the higher income to pay off the extra borrowing undertaken in the lean years. Running a nation is always more complex than running a family budget and analogies only work so far.”
This is not a joke. The Prime Minister of our country actually said this. We could not rule out a possible class action for defamation from all of the nation’s Johns.
The analogy is logically absurd of course; perish the thought that John, like the rest of us, should actually live within his means and budget on what he earns rather than what he thinks he’ll earn. To check this point I forwarded the speech to a professional financial adviser.
Here’s his advice to John: “Use the bonus wisely and stick to your pre bonus budget. Direct some of the bonus to debt reduction and some into long term savings. It is like receiving an inheritance you don’t go out and spend it on lifestyle, you respect it and look after it as the person who gave it to you worked hard to provide it and you only receive it once. Successful long term viable businesses set their income budget first and then match their expenditure budget to the income, they do not set their expenditure budget and then try to find the income.
Borrowing for lifestyle will in the majority of cases lead to financial ruin as you get used to a certain lifestyle and it is extremely hard to cut back. Many of the countries overseas have fallen into this trap. The repayment of lifestyle debt takes longer than repayment of investment debt.”
Perhaps Ms Gillard should hire this financial adviser.
But aside from all this, it was the sheer inanity of the attempted John analogy that surprised even Ms Gillard’s most strident critics. Next I suppose we will hear from Dora the Explorer on climate change and Bob the Builder on the NBN. Maybe even Gonski the Dinosaur. The Prime Minister could not be more patronising. She could not dumb down her message any further. She could not possibly provide better proof of Simon Crean’s criticism that she has a political “tin ear”.
And all this before we even consider the way she has set the hares running on a possible Medicare levy increase and other tax options two weeks out from the budget, leaving her backbenchers to wear the voters’ angst without having any facts with which to assuage them. It is little wonder that Labor MPs are quietly saying that even this late in the game, with so much trauma behind them, leadership rumblings have not been put to bed.
By Chris Kenney
