Peter Hartcher comments on how Rudd’s broadband proposal could play straight into Howard’s hands:
But the big political vulnerability is the financing. By funding the plan with assets from the Future Fund, Rudd has given the Government a political opening. As Peter Costello thundered yesterday, Rudd Labor is “stealing from the future”.
Rudd is now open to the charge that he will not observe the principle of setting aside today’s assets for tomorrow’s liabilities. And that makes his whole approach to fiscal policy open to attack. Already last night the Liberal Party was mailing out attack ads headed “Labor already raiding the Future Fund”.
It’s another cautious article from Hartcher but I’m just not convinced we’re looking at a mistep on Labor’s part – ALP strategy has been played more intelligently than that.
The battlelines being drawn in this upcoming election are looking more and more to be youth and vision vs steadfastness and stability (the strengths of Labor and Liberal respectively). Rudd’s speech yesterday was a deliberate attempt to contrast Labor ‘vision’ with Liberal ’stability’ vis a vis Howard’s Iraq speech, which asserted steadfastness but for a failed war that began four years ago. Against the disaster that is Iraq, Liberal stability becomes more stubborn conservatism than wisdom and responsibility. It becomes a strength stigmatised by lack of vision.
This is why Costello’s response that Labor was raiding the Future Fund can only sound shrill and hysterical. Asked by AM this morning why $2.7bn of $50bn of Future Funds shouldn’t be used for the national interest, especially considering that the government’s own broadband advisory board predicted benefits of $12-30 billion a year, the treasurer’s response soon became the reductive and obstinate “Because this is taking money out of the fund, it’s taking money out of the fund.” Costello appeared more willing to take cheap economic shots at Labor than to seriously discuss policy alternatives. Is this a case of economic tunnel vision on the part of Costello? Instead of problems arising out of a deeper look at Rudd’s policy implementation (as Hartcher claims), it could well be the other way around. If this story continues, it may bring into focus the viability of the Future Fund itself and its high opportunity cost of not investing in targeted and economically productive projects.
In regards to the broadband problem, Costello drew a similarly stunted conclusion. His only reported alternative was that it be handled by the private sector – an already failed option, as seen by the deadlock between Telstra and Optus’ broadband plans and the high cost of capital needed for the project.
Again, in the light of the context of Rudd’s speech, this stability Costello flaunts can only be seen as lacking vision and wisdom.
After ten years of a stable Liberal marriage, the question for the electorate is not going to be stability so much as it will be the question of where are we going? What kind of future are we creating with our prosperity? At the risk of sounding like a Labor spokesman, this is going to be an election based on vision. Vision for an exit strategy in Iraq, vision for economic reform and productivity, vision for action on climate change. Until Howard recognises this, it’s going to hover like an empty question mark over his head.
And I should mention that on top of all this, Rudd has not only small and big business behind him, including Optus and Telstra, but he also has the enthusiasm and support of big media owners Rupert Murdoch, James Packer and Fairfax’s David Kirk. On this issue, Rudd is going to have a media chorus in his corner. Just look at The Australian’s leading story:
March 22, 2007 at 11:39 am |
Excellent first article, Dave.
Yes, it does seem a strategic outflanking by Labor of the Government.
The only question-mark would be what else Labor might promise out of the Future Fund later on in the campaign. The broadband reform is a great bit of vision and political strategy by Rudd and is in itself difficult for the Government to criticise without sounding out of touch – especially with business. But I just wonder whether Costello and Howard set it up, and oversupplied it, with the express purpose of making it difficult for Labour to cost its election promises.
If Rudd goes to the Future Fund again and again it might allow Costello and Howard to paint Rudd’s Labor as typical profligate, inflationary Labour, while they can point to a decade of “good management” (i.e. high employment and low inflation, actually off the back of Keating-Hawke reforms in the late 80s and the sheer luck of a global resources boom) and paint themselves as the stayed old economic whitebeards of the nation.
I also think Howard’s policy on Iraq may not be as strategically dumb as it may seem, either. While the war is now apparently widely seen as a failure and Howard must be seen as responsible for our involvement in that failure, I’m not so sure that the Rudd’s “timetable plan” stands to reason so well.
Not being in Australia to hear him sell it, its hard to know for sure, but it seems to me Howard has two good arguments on Rudd with this timetable plan. First, if Rudd supports a military presence by Australian troops against “islamic radicals” in Afghanistan, why won’t he support the same in Iraq? Isn’t this inconsistency perhaps indicative of a populist foreign policy made on the run?
Second, Howard says that having gone in there in the first place, mistaken or not, it’s simply “the right thing to do” to stay and do our best to make it better, albeit in trying cricumstances, rather than pull out and watch on as the region decends into chaos. I can imagine that little carpet fish of a man might say something like: “its the Australian thing to do, even if it isn’t in the direct national interest anymore” and “what Iraq needs now is a situation-specific response…our troops have a role in that…what have no role are abstract high-flung populist notions of timetables, etc”
If Howard were to argue successfully in this manner, he might be able to step up into the role of wise and straight-shooting statesman, rather than point-scoring politician, which is how Rudd might look in contrast.
I think that from our present standpoint there are three key factors Howard will be betting on to close the gap on Rudd to prevent a “comeuppance”. Firstly, waiting as long as possible before going to the election, in the hope that Rudd will slip up, there’ll be a national crisis he can exploit, or the honeymoon with Rudd and the polls wears off. Second, that Iemma wins on Saturday and that voters then feel uncomfortable about having Labour in power in all states, territories and federally. And third, that he can counter Rudd’s vision against his “stability” image, by casting himself into the role not of politician, but of a steady, experienced and even wise statesman. This third option is hard for him to pull off (a.) in an election year when he’s kissing babies and porkbarelling, (b.) when he fucked up Iraq, fucked over Hicks, and did fuck all on climate change, (c.) because the man is fundamentally bankrupt of ideas. But he’s a cunning rodent if nothing else…
March 22, 2007 at 11:45 am |
Oh, yeah, and he will also try some major electoral bribes, such as his $10 Billion baby-boomer tax free super policy and his $10 Billion clean-up for the Murray River.
March 22, 2007 at 10:31 pm |
Perhaps this is stating the obvious, but the difference in ALP and Lib policy on our troops in Iraq is minor, but how they portray it significant. It plays up to each of their images. For the most part we have two dozen engineers and a kelpie sitting around some base outside Basra, in a capacity building role rather than front line combat. And they’ll stay on, whether as part of the invading force, or under the guise of some other rebuilding efforts. When Howard says “we should finish what we started” and Rudd “we cannot achieve anything more in Iraq”, they are largely talking about symbolic support of the US forces- our troops aren’t affected. I agree with Oli that this seems more beneficial to Howard in the long run, and Rudd’s boost in the polls now on the issue won’t last.
As for funding broadband, it seems like an obvious policy for Labour, but the timing could have been better. With the media bored of the “Rudd Slide in the polls” headlines, his impunity from Liberal attacks is diminishing. And it is this climate, when the media is keen for a bit of tall poppy action, he sticks his neck out on funding issues- standard fodder for the Libs and business community (the Future Fund board is crying foul already) to use against Labour. I have no doubt the media will tow the government’s angle on this one, as opposed to the ‘hysterical Costello’ angle that No Comeuppance feels could work in Labours favour. Wait and see, I guess.
March 23, 2007 at 10:51 pm |
I’ll reply to you guys in just a sec but can I just make a spot after watching Lateline tonight: Santoro’s replacement Christopher Pyne is a WANKER!
March 23, 2007 at 11:50 pm |
In regards to Iraq:
I agree with Ryan when he says this is more about symbolic support for the US than any practical utility for our troops. But that’s also why, when it really comes down to it, any argument about Australian duty and ‘the need to make the best thing out of a bad situation’ just doesn’t apply. Australia rarely makes its own decisions about foreign policy. It has always followed what Britain or the US thinks and does. Once the US steps out (and it will once the Dems get in next year), Howard’s empty rhetoric will backfire on him. In the meantime, the leaving Iraq policy is only going to gather more momentum, especially now Britain has left, polls are overwhelmingly in favour of leaving and the Democratic primaries have started where the issue is a hot topic of debate. No doubt there’s more complexity to the issue itself but any Australian argument in favour of staying can only be empty rhetoric, a superficial pretense masking the true, determinate political reality – essentially that we’re only there because the US is there.
In regards to Future Fund:
I concede that on a purely superficial basis this might hold some traction for the Liberal party spin, especially if Labor dips into it again. But I disagree the media’s going to tow the government angle. The Australian is clear where it stands with its latest article titled Broadband attack to backfire, revealing a government report to be released noting that the age crisis isn’t as bad as previously thought. It also throws some mud at the future fund, quoting the treasury head Ken Henry in 2004, who disagreed with the idea of a future fund, arguing the best way to deal with ageing was to raise productivity or reform the tax system. Like I said, talking up this issue seems to keep turning around on the Liberals. What it keeps coming back to is their complacency in enacting any major economic reforms in the past ten years. And they don’t have an answer.
In the meantime, it clearly doesn’t seem as big a deal as the Liberals are making out of it. As Lindsay Tanner said on Lateline tonight, what they’re effectively doing is converting telcom shares into other telcom shares, with the profits going straight back to the Future Fund. Now, if Labor decides to dip in again – then you’ve got something to crow about. Until then, I maintain Liberal hysteria and ‘hyperventilating’ (just see the Pyne interview on Lateline!) will be the primary impression.