The Shocking Economic Record Of The Labor Party…

No doubt some of you missed the terrible news in the latter part of the week: There was strong jobs growth and the unemployment rate is around 4%…

This is – apparently – bad news because it means that the RBA is less likely to reduce interest rates. Although, in slightly better economic news, wages growth has slowed. Wages are still growing faster than inflation so there’s a problem there and…

Yeah, once upon a time low unemployment, inflation within target and real wages growth would have been considered good news but that was when we had the good economic management of the Liberal Party; when Labor’s in charge, all economic news is bad.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at this headline from the Murdoch press:

I’m surprised that there wasn’t an accompanying article telling us that the interest rate cuts do nothing for people who’ve paid off their mortgage…

Although I did hear something on the ABC about how the interest rate cuts did nothing for renters…

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not asking you to lead a cheer squad for the Albanese government. I’m not suggesting that you can’t say that you’re disappointed with them. Feel free to list all the areas where you wish they’d done more. Please tell me that just being better than the previous Coalition government is a pretty low bar.

I’m just pointing out that there’s something a little bit strange that the media is asking us to be critical in the areas where any objective analysis would suggest that Labor had done a reasonable job with their economic management: inflation is lower than when they took office, unemployment hasn’t risen, the Budget was in surplus and some of the debt has been paid down…

And yes, you can say that these things don’t help the unemployed and the homeless, and that we’d have been better off with a budget that gave relief to those struggling. You know, all those things that Peter Dutton criticised as sugar hits and all those things that they couldn’t get through the Parliament…

Sure, there were times when they refused to take a leaf out of Trump’s book and didn’t do illegal  things and ignore the fact that they couldn’t get the legislation through… Sort of like when the Coalition ignored the law with Robodebt.

Whatever, I find the criticism of the Labor Party from the left understandable; it’s those conservative cheerleaders that are finding fault with the very things that they’d be celebrating if it were a Liberal Treasurer’s budget.

It’s sort of like the fossil fool lobby and the nuclear pushers suddenly becoming born-again environmentalists:

• Offshore windfarms? What about the whales? They’ll crash into them because they can’t navigate around them like than can with offshore gas and oil rigs…We’ve always loved whales and been prepared to put them ahead of any profits…
• Wind turbines and solar panels could end up in landfill. We’re very concerned about the fact that they can’t be recycled because we’ve always been big on recycling. In fact when certain politicians reach the end of their useful parliamentary life, we often recycle them into a job with us.
• Solar panels get dirty and need water to clean them. The wasted water would be enough to turn the Sahara Desert into an oasis where we could grow enough food to feed the hungry which has always been a concern of ours and it’s why we often set up shop in countries where people are hungry enough to work for $2 a day.
• Renewable energy needs poles and wires and the government is trying to put these through our most productive farmland. Traditional energy doesn’t do this because the poles and wires they use doesn’t prevent the farmland from being used. Don’t ask me to explain this, it’s just a fact, ok, in much the same way that immigrants are lazy dole bludgers who can simultaneously steal your job even though they haven’t bothered to learn English… Or the fact that Albanese can be both “weak” and still dominating his party and the country and forcing his will on everyone.

Whatever you think about what Labor should do/should have done, just reflect for a moment and ask yourself, if a government that has ticked so many of the boxes that conservative media loves gets this much criticism, what hope does one that’s even vaguely radical have?

It’s almost like the government should say screw it, we’re just going to do what we think needs doing and then accept that they’ll demonstrate the truth of the old joke about Whitlam:

Whitlam announces that he intends to prove his divinity by walking across Lake Burley Griffin. After some rude comments from the assembled press pack, he does just what he said. Next day the headline in “The Australian” reads: WHITLAM CAN’T SWIM

Yes, it’s an old joke and you’ve probably heard it before, but I can’t help but think of it when the media start telling us how potentially bad it is for inflation with the surge in jobs growth.

On a completely different matter, has anyone seen anything in the media reminding us all that Zelensky refused to help when President Trump asked him for dirt on Hunter Biden in return for military aid way back when Donald was just a joke and nobody was calling Elon “Monica”. I mean I’m not suggesting that Mr Trump would hold it against the Ukraine President but I can’t help but wonder if everyone in the media has some sort of amnesia…

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