Ok, I said that I’d be taking time off to write a screenplay but I started having trouble. I asked a friend what was wrong and she told me that the main problem was that it was too far-fetched.
“The thing is,” she explained, “that – unlike real life – fiction has to be believable!”
Right, I thought, I’ll go back to writing about politics where I can just make things up and people will believe it or write exactly what’s happening and people will think that it’s very good satire…
So, we start this week with speculation about an interest rate rise… This is a terrible thing and an example of poor economic management by the Labor government. Among the bits of data that led to economists concluding that a rate rise was almost 73% certain was the fact that the unemployment rate fell. Honestly, I can’t see how Jim Chalmers can stay on as Treasurer when he’s presiding over such terrible things as falling unemployment…
Some of you will be scratching your heads and saying, “But surely low unemployment is a good thing!”, so let me explain that we have a Labor government and all economic news under Labor is bad in some way.
In fact, there’s a simple rule when writing about politics in this country: If anything bad happens under Labor, whether it’s a rise in antisemitism, a GFC, drought or flooding rains, then it’s Labor’s fault. Of course there’s a consistency here because if anything bad happens when we have a Coalition government, this too will be Labor’s fault…
A drop in unemployment is therefore a bad thing because it’ll lead to pressure on wages and increased wages will put pressure on inflation and so the RBA needs to kick mortgage holders in the teeth because that will reduce demand… Although higher interest rates will lead to people who have savings getting more for their money and won’t that potentially increase demand? I don’t know because I’m not an economist. Or rather, I can say I don’t know because I’m not an economist because if I was an economist, I’d just make something up and tell everyone with the sort of certainty of a racing tipster.
“There’ll be a number of rate cuts in 2026… oh wait, no there should be at least four rate hikes in order to get stubborn inflation under control… what caused the inflation? Energy price rises and overseas travel they were the two big ticket items and this has led to an expectation that our interest rates will go up leading to an increase in the Aussie dollar which means that imports will be cheaper and it’ll be harder to export which might reduce inflation and tip the economy into recession and the RBA will need to change direction and I’ll need to make a completely different prediction, but when the time comes I’ll let you know the future because I’ve been right at least once in the past year and a half…”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not letting Labor completely off the hook here. Government spending is playing some part on the inflation number so I definitely think they should cut back in some area that doesn’t affect me at all. Say childcare, because I don’t need it. Or politicians’ travel allowances… Hey, did you notice how that one went quiet when people started pointing out that Anika Wells wasn’t the biggest spender when it came to travel.
But, of course, interest rates may not be the big news this week for two reasons:
- The RBA may not raise them, preferring to take a cautious approach and check that the latest figures weren’t just a one-off. There is a good case for this, so it’s quite unlikely to happen, but possible nonetheless.
- I have been given confidential information that there could be a move against a Coalition leader this week… No not David Littleproud. The guy challenging announced that he was going to do it which is pretty strange because usually these things are where the ones moving the spill try to catch everyone by surprise. The one against Littleproud probably won’t happen because Boyce needs to get a seconder and he’ll only get one if someone else is going to knock Littleproud off. So the likely scenario is Boyce fails to get a seconder and joins One Nation in disgust.
Anyway, it’s much more interesting in the Liberals where Sussan Ley is doing her best impression of the Black Knight with her, “It’s not even a wound, I’m still here and I expect to be Leader of the Opposition for the rest of my political life…”
In the tradition of all good political spills, the number of votes each potential leader has is greater than the total number of MPs voting so it’s reasonable to presume that some people are pledging support to everyone so that when the vote happens they can say that they voted for the winner. On the other hand, it could be a tactic by the potential leader to puff themselves up and look more threatening in the hope that any threat runs away. This is a common tactic in the animal kingdom but it doesn’t work as well in politics because everyone is puffing all the time and it’s hard to tell the difference.
Hastie has pulled out, telling us that the numbers that he assured people that he had, were Peter Dutton-type numbers where they were definitely numbers but not the sort of numbers that gets one elected. (This could be referring to either the failed coup that gave us Scotty Morrison, or the very successful election campaign that gave Labor a thumping majority!)
This means that the only challenge for Sussan Ley – apart from dealing with the National Party who’ve decided that a female telling them what to do is a bridge too far – is Well Done Angus who – at the time of writing – has not made up his mind to challenge this week.
Ok, I could have written that her hair is also a challenge but, not only is that a cheap shot, but it sounds incredibly sexist and I prefer to leave that sort of thing to the Nationals.
Anyway, I interpret Angus Taylor’s lack of announcement to mean that he’s trying to work out if the numbers he has will be enough to force the spill or whether Hastie’s supporters will try to avoid a challenge for now so that they can win over some of Ley’s supporters by reminding them that he wasn’t the one who tried to force a spill so that when the challenge comes in March, it’ll be Taylor who should beware the Ides…
The whole situation is rather like the farce that happens when a President announces that the coach has their full support. The only difference is that any sensible coach knows that they should resign after their next loss, while the Liberals seem to have nobody saying that Ley has their full support. Instead, it’s like all the powerbrokers are saying, “Well the coach is gone but we haven’t worked out which of the assistant coaches should take over or whether we should wait and try and find someone else… perhaps we could offer the job to that One Nation coach or at least steal their game plan… no, we don’t want to steal Labor’s game plan because that was very successful and, in some ways, it’s no different from the one we used in the last game, they just had a bit of luck by having more competent players who didn’t drop the ball every time anyone put pressure on them… and the officials gave them lots of free kicks and…anyway, we should know who’s in charge sometime soon but till then direct your questions to the coach who won’t be there at some future date!”
So which is the greater certainty: An interest rate hike or Sussan Ley being leader by the end of the week?
Rossleigh, I’m not an economist either but I tip no rate rise due to the fact the cpi increase was minuscule and Ley will remain leader because most Liberals, at least the sensible ones, recognise that Angus even though he’s a bloke, is a dud
Seriously, (what?) look at the opposition.., look at the opposition.., where Ley was and is unfit, but filled a gap like putty, where Taylor is a farce, and Hastie is not vaguely staff material, leaving the army as a captain. Littleproud is tiny shameful, Boyce is offal, Joyce is a maggoty fornicating horizontal drunk and the redtopped broom jockey fails it all. The others exist only to suck the teat. So hopeless…(yet they remember the garbage times of Howard to Morrison, vomitous.)
But that doesn’t solve the problems with the coalition. The National Party will have a leadership spill led by Colin Boyce who nobody has ever heard of and who doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in seizing the banner of leadership from David Littleproud.
So it would seem that Littleproud will be safe but, he has said that he cannot and will not work with Sussan Ley [he actually stamped his little foot for emphasis] but he is anxious to rebuild the coalition [perhaps with Pauline Hanson].’
Barnaby Joyce has taken his lead from John Howard who said that politics is “remorselessly governed by the laws of arithmetic”. Barnaby noted this when speaking of his aspirations for a senate seat at the next election, ” I looked at various other job opportunities but where else can you get paid a couple of hundred grand plus perks for doing bugger all….it had to be the senate for me.”
RC:
There shouldn’t be an interest rate hike, but the RBA is as neoliberal as it gets, so logic doesn’t get a look in.
Rossleigh, The LABOR government is responsible for every disaster that occurs in Australia, from the breakdown of the giant boring machine in the Snowy 2.0 project initiated by COALITION Prim Monster Muddles Turdball for no good reason, or the failure of the light bulb in the toilet of the Big Swinging Dicks Prayer Room so that ”visitors” cannot see if there is anybody else in the bathroom.
The RBA has to have more rate rises because the neo-liberal foreign bankers ”lending” enormous amounts of money want a better financial return that they receive in TACO Trumpery territory.
You know the story ….. we have to pay vassalage to the USA (United States of Apartheid) for Scummo’s sovereignty sell-off USUKA sub debacle, so Australia ”borrows” from the friendly American banks to pay vassalage, otherwise the US Treasury Bonds will not be able to fund the assault on American citizens by TACO Trumpery government instrumentalities attacking MAGA supporters ….. and anybody else without a face-covering in the snow.
Next the obvious problem for the LIARBRAL$ ”leader” is that she is a woman in male misogynist’s world where being twice as good is such a low bar that earthworms slither over it on the way to the COALition BIG Swinging Dick’s weekly service.
I feel desperately insecure because there is a real fear that three or four election cycles of competent LABOR government may return the nation to a proper standard of living for Australian voters that we have not seen since the last Hawke Keating LABOR government.