This week has greatly illuminated Tony Abbot’s unique relationship with public policy.
As the first hint of a proposed massive cut to Australia’s immigration intake surfaced in last weekend’s media we were told that Tony Abbotts’s impending announcement would be a game changer – the ultimate trump card to the population debate.
Barely had he mentioned the figure of 170,000 than his policy was fatally wounded having been hit by shrapnel. Turns out that all Mr Abbott had done was add up the current projected cuts in net overseas migration arising from existing Government policy, and call it his policy.
Tony Abbott’s game changer had proved to be nothing more than promising what Labor was already delivering.
The inside word from Liberal HQ is that next week Tony will be announcing a bridge over Sydney Harbour with a fancy opera house nearby.
Having bamboozled us with his numeracy Tony then marched straight into the Leaders Debate on Sunday night.
His first substantive line was: “This election is about a fair go for families struggling with cost of living pressures.”
It was a good start. It expressed a sentiment with which we all agree. For Labor’s part, three income tax cuts in a row and the largest ever increase in the pension, after a decade of neglect, is just a taste of our approach to tackling the problem.
Having placed cost of living as the very first issue of this election, Tony was then asked the predictable question from Malcolm Farr and David Speers about how his policies would help the household grocery bill. Tony responded: “… government can’t with the stroke of a pen reduce grocery prices …”
It might be the great issue of the day but don’t ask Tony to do anything about it.
The problem is that Tony happens to be doing a lot about it. He mightn’t be able to reduce prices, but with a stroke of his pen he sure as hell is going to have a go at increasing them. The fact is that the 1.7% tax hike on Coles and Woolworths to pay for Tony’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme will blow a hole in family budgets across the country.
And it was the very same Paid Parental Leave Scheme which provided the next belly laugh of the week.
Despite having previously declared that Paid Parental Leave would happen in Australia over his dead body, in March Tony decided that maybe it was worth a try after all. Of course such policy on the run had the big end of town choking on their cigars and wishing to make good on Tony’s earlier declaration.
Not surprisingly it turns out that in all the haste the policy had not been properly costed and needed some remedial work in order to survive the glare of election scrutiny.
So rather than make the leave based on the salary of the person taking the leave, Tony’s scheme will now pay in accordance with the mother’s salary even if it is the father taking the leave. Aside from a cynical reliance on pay inequity to solve his budgetary woes, how on earth can Tony possibly justify this? The inevitable effect will be to discourage paternity leave. Rather than Government empowering couples to make their own choice about how to manage parental time spent with a newborn, Tony’s government will do its best to make the choice for them.
Only Tony Abbott can take an innately progressive policy such as paid parental leave and make it an agent for his reactionary views.
The climax of the week has come with Tony’s company tax cut of 1.5%. In March Tony announced he would increase company tax on large companies to pay for his PPL scheme. In June Tony said that no-one would notice a 2% cut in the company tax rate. I suppose that’s true in respect of the economically bored but companies themselves might beg to differ.
Yet now Tony lauds an even smaller tax cut.
And in proposing such a cut Tony is the first leader to take to an election simultaneous polices which both increase and reduce company tax rates at the same time. He proposes two polices which are fighting each other. Coles and Woolies must be scratching their heads at getting a 1.5 per cent cut, coupled with a 1.7 per cent increase.
Tony is a one man Punch and Judy show.
After a week of promising what has already been delivered; nominating the big issues and declaring he can do nothing about them; taking the progressive and making it discriminatory; and proposing the first ever company tax cut-hike; we are left to conclude that Steven Hawking’s work on chaos theory must have come from researching Tony Abbott’s brain.
Tony Abbott makes policy with the precision of John Howard’s bowling. He is the scud missile of public policy formulation: erratic and dangerous.
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