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Issue No. 136 | 17 May 2002 |
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Modern Labour
Interview: Licking the Wounds Industrial: The Accidental Tourist Unions: Stars And Stripes International: The Un-Promised Land History: Mate Against Mate Politics: Reith's Gong Poetry: You've Got a Friend Review: War on Terror: Now Showing Satire: Burmese Regime Makes Genuine Commitment To Pretence Of Change
The Soapbox The Locker Room Bosswatch Postcard Week in Review
 Gangsta RapMore May Day Hate MailWhat Women WantChucking a WobblyIs Caustic Costello the Despot of Despair?East Timor: Independent Or Mendicant?
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Week in Review The Spin Cycle
......... Peter Costello displays real leadership with a sustained spell of wrong-uns from the Government end. The Treasurer mixes half truths, obfuscation, and the odd one that slides straight through, without resorting to the blatant fibs that would allow the Opposition to put runs on the board. Costello is in his element on the health clawbacks, posing as a wise fiscal leader without admitting that much of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme blowout is down to his pre-election bribe to the better off. Nor does the would-be PM mention, let alone admit, the effect on Vote Health of the Coalition's multi-billion dollar private health bribe. Instead, he says, everyone, pensioners included, must pay to keep the system sustainable. ..... ..... ..... The whole budget comes wrapped in a khaki bow. Defence and security spending soar as Costello cuts loose on a strip marked September 11. Strangely, the aggressive bid to flog off Australia's merchant navy in the face of security and defence warnings from a host of experts, not to mention those contained in a report his Government commissioned then kept secret, is ushered through to the keeper. ..... ..... ...... How about the sale of Employment National? Fair dinkum, talk about being set up to fail, the lame dog that was once Commonwealth Employment Services is taken out the back and given a dose of lead between the eyes. Which brings us to another round of benefit cuts. Contrast them with the lack of any mention of full employment. Ideologically Howard, Costello, Abbbott and their team-mates have taken us so far from the concept it almost seems half-baked against their preference for booting victims up the arse. Then they get really cute. A vast dollop of cash for maritime surveillance of asylum seekers is shifted into the "environmental expenditure" column, allowing Government to claim record spending on the environment while it hacks into greenhouse funding. Ditto for overseas aid, inflated by including the costs of feeding and processing asylum seekers in Nauru and PNG as part of their Pacific Solution. ...... ...... ....... Still, the corporates can give pollies a run for their spin money any day of the week as the drug companies are quick to prove. They threaten one of the few good budget initiatives, encouraging doctors to prescribe cheaper generic drugs, with legal action. Altering surgery software to favour generic prescriptions should save about $35 million a year but the head of the Australian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association labels the proposal "market interference". A bit rich coming from an outfit that provides all sorts of inducements including, quite likely, the original software to ensure doctors prescribed dearer brands in the first place. ...... ..... ..... Labor don't exactly cover themselves in reflected glory, restricting themselves to tentative prodding about the crease. While Government's performance on health, education and employment would have been feasted on by a traditional Labor line-up, this mob content themselves with pussyfooting around, seemingly determined to offer no thorough-going alternative. A bit like their response to last year's election result, really, when they blamed defeat on perceptions of trade unions rather than their own unwillingness to come up policy that would differentiate themselves from the Coalition. ..... ...... ....... But for underarm, with spin, you'd struggle to go past the ideologues at the HR Nicholls Society who strike a medal honouring, wait for it ... Dubai Pete. True, we're not making it up - forget balaclavas, dogs, training industrial mercenaries in the Gulf, phone card rorts and the bare-faced lies of the Children Overboard scandal, the HRs reckon their Pete is the bees knees. A HR luminary, name of Stone, announces that "all Australians" owe his man a debt of gratitude. This belief that wharfies and their families, not to mention tens of thousands who took to the docks and streets in their support; aren't covered by the concept "all Australians" raises worries John Howard's embrace of the new Stone Age. Or, maybe, he just thinks he knows what is better for those people than they do themselves. It would sit rather nicely with the born-to-rule ethos at the heart of HR philosophy. ............ ....................... Overseas, George Bush and Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia get in on the act. The two men put contrasting spins on their five-hour Texas meeting, far longer than originally scheduled. The White House says it shows how well the leaders get on together while, for his part, the Crown Prince suggests the US President is so ignorant of Middle East facts that he needed hours of personal tuition. "He listens and debates politely but is not fully informed about the real conditions in the region, especially the conditions suffered by the Palestinian people," the Crown Prince tells a Saudi newspaper. "I felt it was my duty to spend as long a time as possible to brief him on the facts directly." At least one of them is practising the dark art.
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