article by Michelle Grattan
Some barnacles can’t be removed in time for Christmas
Treasurer Joe Hockey has sought to make a virtue of what will be a substantial worsening of the projected deficits.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Some barnacles are not, it seems, able to be removed –
certainly not in time for Christmas. As the political year grinds to its
end, the Prime Minister’s Office is under almost as much attack as that
of Kevin Rudd in 2010, and the Treasurer has a budget update heading in
the wrong direction.
The last Newspoll for 2014,
published in Monday’s Australian, shows the government trails 46-54% in
two-party terms, unchanged from a fortnight ago, despite Tony Abbott
backtracking on the Medicare co-payment and paid parental leave.
On Sunday, two senior ministers left Abbott swinging in the
controversy over the apparently excessive power held by his chief of
staff Peta Credlin.
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull refused to be drawn, saying
he intended to remain “very taciturn” on the matter because it was not
productive to have the business of the PMO on the front pages.
Sensible, at one level. But Turnbull also said, in an interview on
Sky: “Any views I have on matters of that kind I’ll share with Tony
Abbott”. As the astute Turnbull would know, this left wide open the
possibility there could be views to share.
Earlier, deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop rejected out of hand Abbott’s Friday suggestion that sexism was behind attacks on Credlin.
In the Sunday Telegraph,
Liberal backbencher and one-time whip Warren Entsch had fuelled the
Credlin row, not only attacking Abbott’s sexism claim but also drawing
attention to the problem – complained about for years by some Liberals –
that having Credlin as the leader’s chief of staff while her husband
Brian Loughnane is Liberal federal director is too incestuous to make
for good politics.
Fresh from her Lima trip, Bishop gave Abbott a lesson in astute
presentation in a long television interview, coming across as polished,
reasonable and able to talk her way out of awkward spots, like the issue
of the PMO’s initial knockback of her travel to the climate conference.
“I just thought it was the wrong call, that’s all, and so I raised it
in cabinet, said ‘What does everybody think? Should I go?’” They had a
“good discussion” about it “and the PM said ‘yeah, I understand where
you are coming from’”.
Very cool. Gloved iron fist stuff. The PMO won’t be saying no to
Bishop again without an internal focus group on the likely consequences.
Although her actions have ventilated the discontent with Credlin,
Bishop vigorously defended the embattled chief of staff (“an essential
part of our team”, “a great support to the Prime Minister”) but bluntly
disagreed with her leader invoking the gender defence.
Abbott on Friday said Credlin’s treatment would be different if she
was P-E-T-E-R not P-E-T-A. Many Liberals winced, remembering Abbott’s
assault on Julia Gillard for, he said, playing the gender card.
Bishop said: “Well that’s not the way I would put it. I have been on
the record many times saying that I don’t view the world through a prism
of gender – I never have, I never will”. No-one could miss the
distancing, even though it came well-wrapped in general support and
advice that if people had a problem with the PMO they should talk to the
Prime Minister.
Bishop said she thought Abbott’s comment “is reflecting the Prime
Minister’s frustration that anonymous sources have been making
complaints about his chief of staff”.
If Abbott is frustrated, so are people in his government. Not only
are many of them critical of how the PMO is run, and fed up with seeing
Credlin get so much publicity, but now Abbott invites charges of
hypocrisy by suggesting sexism.
It’s not the only front where there is the whiff of hypocrisy. On the
eve of announcing worse-than-forecast budget numbers, Hockey on Sunday
insisted his revisions were not to be compared in any way with those
constantly made by Labor.
Hockey sought to make a virtue of what will be a substantial worsening of the projected deficits. A report in Monday’s Australian
says the update will show a A$40 billion blowout in the deficits which
were forecast at budget time to be worth $60 billion from this year
until 2018.
Hockey told reporters: “The government has decided to use the budget,
which is stronger than it was 12 months ago, as a shock absorber for
the biggest fall in our export prices in many years. If we don’t use the
budget as a shock absorber for this extraordinary fall in our terms of
trade, then Australians will lose jobs and we will lose our prosperity.”
Hockey said the government had “put in place the structural reforms
that have helped strengthen” the budget. Well, not exactly. Some of
these structural reforms have so far not been able to navigate
parliament.
The government tipped out to News Corp a list of some 175 bodies that
will be scrapped, absorbed into departments or merged for an estimated
saving of more than $500 million over the budget period.
They cover almost every field of public activity, from health and
education to animal welfare and biosecurity. Apart from savings and
efficiency, it’s also about ideology – smaller government and paring
back the public service.
You can also bet this exercise will produce a fair amount of of grief
for the government from many quarters – nasty little pin pricks for
ministers to deal with. The Vietnam veterans are already speaking out
over being caught up in the hits.
One thing though – the horrors of the budget update should take attention away from the Credlin story.
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