Last week, one of my colleagues on the federal government backbench was asked at 7.30am at the doors of Parliament to cite the federal deficit forecast for 2009/2010. I know her to be one of the smarter new MPs in the Parliament with a very sharp eye for technical detail.
She was, however, unable to nominate that figure first thing in the morning. And for that sin, she appeared as a headline in that day’s political newsreels and the next day’s papers. The “Gotcha!” moment for politicians and economic data now has a rich history. Less clear is its contribution to the Australian political tapestry.
During the 1990 election, Opposition Leader Andrew Peacock was asked by the legendary Paul Lyneham as ”…a man who wants to be Prime Minister of this country” to cite the dollar figure of the nation’s GDP at that time (it was $368 billion for 1989/1990). Peacock was utterly flummoxed. The next evening, Lyneham reported that the ABC switchboard had melted down with complaints against the temerity of his question; including a bomb threat in the event the question was ever asked again.
Something more of a self-inflicted example lies in John Kerin’s inability to explain what GOS or Gross Operating Surplus was (essentially, it’s company profits without a deduction for depreciation). While no-one else much knew what it was either, after years of Keating’s mastery of economics Australians had become used to a Treasurer who was across his brief. That excruciating press conference went a long way towards terminating Kerin’s stewardship of the national economy.
Even the usually sure-footed John Howard came unstuck when the customarily obliging Tracey Grimshaw asked the Prime Minister in 2007 to nominate the Reserve Bank’s cash rate. Although it was increasing at the time with alarming regularity, Howard’s failure to get the answer right for many symbolised his being out of touch with the key economic benchmark for millions of struggling mortgagees. And from his sign-off from the interview with Grimshaw, it was clear that the Prime Minister was painfully aware of that symbolism.
But really, how much of this is a meaningful examination of a politician’s fitness for office and how much is merely a recreational pursuit for our friends in the media; slightly less tacky than sticking pins in baby hamsters, but only just! The public rightly expects us to understand how the broader economy works and the major elements of the Budget. But, surely there’s a line between that expectation and a requisite number of economic statistics and concept definitions we should reasonably carry around in our head.
John Hewson (PhD in economics) could no doubt have given a 30 minute lecture on gross operating surplus, rattled off the cash rates of all OECD economies and converted the Budget deficit into any number of currencies at purchasing power parity, but I still haven’t met a new Member of Parliament who has chosen him as a role model.
In large part, the fear we all have of being asked obscure statistical questions can be laid at the feet of Paul Keating. As he wrenched the Australian economy out of the 1950s, he rightly took the Australian people into his confidence and talked them through what made the economy tick; and how he could make it tick better. While he usually dispensed with the sugar coating, there are still few people in Australian public life who can explain incredibly complex economic dynamics with his mixture of confidence and clarity.
Before Keating came along, the powers that were generally took the view that only they were capable of understanding such challenging matters, and that the rest of us were better off continuing to wallow in blissful ignorance. Now, the idea that the alternative Prime Minister wouldn’t know the nation’s GDP is laughable because the average Australian understands infinitely more about economics than they did 20 years ago.
Still, I don’t think Australian voters care much if their local MP gets a “Gotcha!” question wrong, though I’m sure they have a good chuckle! They care more about whether we know how the schools in our electorate are faring or how local businesses are coping with the Global Recession. But does that mean journalists will stop asking them? Not until the authorities start letting them at the baby hamsters instead.
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