It was an extraordinary complaint from Tony Abbott. “It’s very difficult to have a sensible debate,” he said, “when you are confronted with a feral government”.
Politicians don’t come any more ferocious and brutal than Abbott. He reverted to the wild the moment he got his paws on the Liberal leadership. His style is pure attack dog, as feral as you’d get. Everything, irrespective of merit, has to be opposed and torn to pieces.
The mining tax is a case in point. It is now glaringly obvious that the benefits of the mining boom should be shared around so that the overall economy benefits rather than just a small and privileged section. Opposition to the tax is shrinking.
As long as the government can deal with some last-minute peripheral concerns of Independents, particularly Tony Windsor, it will get through the Parliament. But Abbott is sticking to his decision that he will abolish the tax - and all the benefits it will pay for - as soon as he becomes prime minister.
That means he will repeal tax cuts for business, big and small. He will slash proposed infrastructure spending. And he will take back superannuation increases for workers.
And why? Because he claims the mining companies exploiting Australia’s mineral wealth cannot afford to pay more tax.
The risk for the opposition leader is that those he would deprive of benefits might eventually see that for the nonsense it is. Someone showed me some fascinating statistics the other day. They compare increases in mining company profits in recent years with what has happened with wages and salaries.
Between 2004 and 2010, gross operating profits for Australian mining companies increased by 246%, from $25.4 billion a year to $87.7 billion.
If salaries had risen by the same rate as mining profits, doctors would now be getting on average $352,419 a year instead of $151,418, school teachers $186,825 instead of $72,979, plumbers $146,995 instead of $60,215, construction and mining labourers $178,390 instead of $79,643, hospitality workers $110,246 instead of $44,170, receptionists $117,815 instead of $42,184, and so on.
The three mining companies that would pay the bulk of the tax - BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata - accept it. Abbott should accept it too, in the national interest, as a means of dealing with our patch-work economy.
Feral might be fine in opposition, but the advantages are short-term. Abbott is making a rod for his own back in government.
Abbot’s feral irresponsibility was also on view in Parliament over the government’s decision to support improved resourcing of the International Monetary Fund as it deals with the fall-out from Europe’s financial crisis.
Pointing to Australia’s Budget deficit, the opposition leader thundered: “Why is the government planning to provide money it does not have to prop up the Eurozone, which is the world’s largest economy?”
Abbott knew - or should have known - that Australia’s contribution to the IMF would be in the form of a loan, with no impact on the Budget bottom line. In fact, it will earn interest.
He also knew - or should have known - that money provided to help the IMF handle new contingencies will not go towards any European rescue package.
Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey, who sometimes shows a disturbing tendency to match his leader’s cheap populism, asserted that “the suggestion that we should be putting money into the IMF to bail out the Eurozone when not even the British are prepared to do so is extraordinary”.
But Hockey knew - or should have known - that British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne had also said: “There may well be a case for further increasing the resources to the IMF to keep pace with the global economy.”
Within hours of Abbott and Hockey advocating their feral version of economic isolationism, British PM David Cameron left them egg-faced by calling for a boost in IMF funding at the G-20 summit in France. Australia has a vital interest in global financial security. That is why support for Australia’s IMF contributions has always been bipartisan - until now.
The Business Council, normally sympathetic to the coalition, did not hide its disapproval. Australia, it said, should act as a good global citizen and be prepared to support the IMF as it did in the 1990s during the Asian financial crisis. John Howard and Peter Costello would have recoiled in horror at the sight of Abbott and Hockey going feral over the IMF.
The issue that prompted Abbott to squeal about the government being feral was industrial relations. In the debate over Qantas grounding its fleet and stranding tens of thousands of passengers, Julia Gillard gave the opposition leader a dose of his own medicine.
The incident demonstrated yet again Abbott’s inconsistency and lack of policy on industrial relations, something that is opening up divisions inside the coalition.
The prime minister laid into him for supporting the actions of Qantas management against its passengers and workers, and used that to argue that the Liberals were still the party of WorkChoices. Abbott, who displayed his timidity over industrial relations by going into last year’s federal election without a policy, did not enjoy getting belted.
The result, almost certainly, will be to make him even more feral.
Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network.
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