No Newspoll this week, but the always dependable Essential Research weekly survey shows Labor’s lead stuck at 58-42. Also featured are prime ministerial approval ratings (56 per cent for, 31 per cent against) and questions on the Productivity Commission’s maternity leave recommendations (trending negative), party leaders’ responses to the financial crisis and government plans to tackle climate change (don’t go far enough).
The world is facing financial crisis and the Vic government passes a bill to allow lesbians to have a baby. Sheez, why don’t they pass a bill to give everyone a mansion at Point Piper!
Red Kerry sounded in a panic tonight also trying to promote the panic meme in his questioning – not a normal Kerry.
The last thing we want is the press talking up panic.
[Red Kerry sounded in a panic tonight also trying to promote the panic meme in his questioning – not a normal Kerry.]
He did didn’t he. I thought Rudd was going to reach through the camera and clock him a few times…
I notice Bishop is still trying to run the Govt sticking up for banks line. She has a bit of a point in that nothing that I know of has been passed through on credit card rates. Then again the banks probably figure in the long term they are going to get hit more on CC defaults as it is unsecured and higher risk lending – though you would expect for something to flow through eventually.
I am surprised by the size of some debts people run up on cards. And that banks let them.
Govt surrendering to big banks, says Bishop
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/09/2386970.htm
Ali Moore had a pearler of an interview with Paul Keating the other morning. The $700 billion is ratchet money, and his role in saving the Australian Banking industry. Worth a listen. Interview starts about 11:30mins in.
Ali Moore first half hour 7-10-08 29:51 ABC Local Radio 774 ABC Melbourne Morning Program Interview
I wonder if Bishop/Turnbull are trying to revive the banks are bastards line that used to run in the early nineties as they sold up closed down a lot of businesses (some unnecessarily in my view/experience) – when ‘bank’ was a dirty word. If they are they are a bit soon – have to wait for a property value crash for that to happen.
And I think we are being told their is a supply side shortage.
GG the Ali Moore link:
http://blogs.abc.net.au/victoria/2008/10/how-low-can-it.html?program=melbourne_mornings
Grog,
God bless you!
TP the banks are bastards line has currency in the good times when life is cruisy. I think most people at the moment are happy their bank isn’t holding press conferences announcing that they’re a bit short of cash at the moment, so if everyone could just stop using ATMs for`a couple days that’d be great.
GG it’s good – he rips into Moodys and Standard and Poors.
“They’re quite disgraceful in their behaviour”
Grog,
Yeah, but I didn’t want to give the whole plot away.
Love him or love him, Keating always has the ability to cut through with his use of language.
PJK: “Well that’s why we don’t need those donkeys in the United Stated rating agenices telling us what we should be doing”.
He pretty much thinks super funds should be buying Australian mortgages than investing in overseas bonds that are essentially junk. He argues that APRA’s regulations ensure our mortgages have a lot better “rating” than any bonds Standard and Poors would rank as safe.
He admits he’s somewhat thinking off the op of his head, but reasons that the way to come up with a solutions is that “You’ve got to imagine things can be better” and go from there.
I can’t really comment on the plausibility or not of his proposal, but it is certainly interesting listening.
152 TP – I missed 7:30 Report tonight, but yu’re right Kerry was very uch on the fear mongering side eg:
[KERRY O’BRIEN: What is your biggest fear for Australia, right now, what is your nightmare for Australia?
KEVIN RUDD: Kerry, my responsibility to Australia is to speak objectively about the problems we face, and equally objectively, about the strengths we have. ]
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2008/s2386971.htm
When I was watching Red Kerry tonight I said to my family, what in the blazes is KO playing at here.
I felt that he was playing a very dangerous game tonight and I hope I don’t see a repeat of that sort of thing by him or anyone else.
It only needed one rushed & not properly thought-out reply by Rudd and the whole financial system in this country could have crashed.
The same goes for his badgering & crazy questions on housing valuation and whether or not Rudd considered they were overvalued.
A poorly considered reply could have seen real estate values completely tank.
If these questions had evinced the type of reply that KO was angling for and the whole Australian financial & property markets crashed, then KO would have been well advised to get the hell out of the country as quick & as quietly as possible.
There would have been a lot of angry people after his blood. I have had a lot of time for KO, but I am inclined to agree with previous assessments by posters on PB that Kerry is well & truly passed his used by date.
A lot of blame can be sheeted back to the “Liberalising” of the ABC under Howard whereby journalists like KO were pressurised so much by leading LNP figures & supporters, that they unconsciously go much harder at Labor so as to try and appear balanced and unbiased.
Peter Costello’s version of “I coulda been a contender”.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/09/2387081.htm
and the original which tells the true story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0waNRaz6wU
Apparently there is a bunch of SWF out there, if the US govt wanted to go down that path.
The New Republic
In Search of SWF
But there is another source of funding able to take on the role of the strong hands needed to help bolster the financial system in this time of desperate need–sovereign wealth funds (SWFs).
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e3aea2a4-048b-4291-95fa-0589c488dea0
I also wonder what effect opening up their residential market to world for a few years would do – bring in cash and help house prices. How there would be stiff public opposition – Japan buying up the Gold Coast as it were.
I believe Kerry O’Brien did have a point about many Australian being in debt up to their eyeballs and that it wouldn’t take much to put them over the financial cliff.
Okay, much of that is their own fault, but there is also the argument that there is a widening gap between incomes and necessary expenditure which isn’t fully apparent in the data and that many families, especially young ones, have few choices than to over extend themselves, at least for a few years. In the past they could get away with it, but now…….!
The problem is: what happens if (when?) large numbers of them do start going under? Fear is a very dangerous thing to let loose on an economy!
Can’t understand why Kerry had lost his composure and gone the panic route. He ought to know better and have better judgment. The media has a onus of responsibility on it during these sorts of times.
I agree that Kerry O’Brien sounded as though his kids had just asked him to guarantor their home loan. Still I thought Rudd handled it well. Calm and measured is the right approach now both politicaly and in terms of what the markets need to hear.
I was also thinking about the whole worry over ageing baby-boomers losing their retirement savings. Well, get over it! They are the wealthiest generation ever, and those who can most afford to lose it. If all this means that first home buyers see cheaper prices then thats not such a bad outcome in terms of social equity.
Yep Paul Keating is a man of reason. Who in 1983 deregulated our finanical system which created our massive debt, before the mid 80’s little or no foriegn private debt.
Who gave us negative gearing which is creating a housing bubble and who gave us privatisation of our banks, airlines and the CSL yep Paul Keating, and who gave us superannuation which put money into the market and heaps of it creating a spectulative fervour which has created large amounts of debt. And who legalised casual work- Paul Keating. The second worst Treasurer since the depression. The worst Peter Costello because he did nothing.
Who are saying no probs with our economy next year market economists who believe it will go on forever, sorry we have so much debt and this will result in a deep and nasty recession. Time for some reality to all those economic rationalists.
The only way out is for governments to borrow money and to own things again. But will it. No bank will borrow money when it thinks that it will not make money on its borrowing. This is a crisis and if you are in debt and not in a job which is secure you are trouble, sorry to alarm you but few people are telling you the truth.
I don’t think many of us are under estimating the depth of the problem. A global slow down will mean unemployment and housing sales and greater call on social security. But what we don’t want is to precipitate a panic and a sudden freezing of the domestic economy with the self defeating path that leads to. We certainly don’t want to create that atmosphere when it is not certain that it is the path we will be on considering the IMF report and the continued (at this stage) 9-10% growth in the Chinese economy.
Keating and Hawke may have stuffed up a little, early – but they certainly gave us a good a permanent fix as you reasonable could.
Julie Bishop’s concerns about Australia’s inflation rate need to be seen in perspective. I think we have a little way to go yet.
[Official statistics in Zimbabwe show the country’s annual inflation rate hit a record 231 million per cent in July.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/09/2387100.htm
Rudd is also quite right to want the world to address regulations as he told Kerry for the simple reason if you wait for things to cool down to much then the impetus is lost. We saw it with 9/11 and gun control after Port Arthur.
Better to strike now when there will be less resistance to greater and coordinated and compatible regulations – especially from the right who will be a little on the nose and will want to not draw too much negative attention to themselves.
[“There’s a second part to the equation which hasn’t been done yet and that is to summon the global political will to agree on the changes to the regulation in the system and the reason why that is necessary, it’s the other half of the confidence equation,” he said.]
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2008/s2386971.htm
Dennis Shanahan just can’t help himself. Mr. “We Own Newspoll” himself says today:
[But right now, despite his frequent assertions that he will have to make tough and unpopular decisions, which his deputy Julia Gillard says will mean they take a hit in the polls, Rudd should not be thinking of popularity or polls.]
And we should keep politics out of the current crisis, thus:
[Indeed, the descriptions of the economy Rudd and John Howard gave this week were almost identical: sound fundamentals, no government debt, low unemployment, a budget surplus, strong financial regulation, continuing demand for resources from China and huge funds available for pump-priming building projects. All conditions the former government shaped, down to the establishment of the Future Fund and the Higher Education Enhancement Fund.]
Despite the fact that Howard is a nobody now, we should keep politics out of the economy, as long as we discuss Howard’s opinion in the same sentence as (and of equal weight to) the Prime Minister’s and point out that Howard’s “reforms” saved Australia.
Yet again we have a “test” for Rudd:
[AS the world faces the greatest financial crisis since the Depression, it is no exaggeration to say Kevin Rudd faces his greatest test as a leader and, perhaps, the greatest he ever will face.]
Forget the election, forget the economy. And forget politics. Just remember that Howard is still as important as Rudd, and that Rudd has to pass test after test to come anywhere near Howard’s genius.
Oh, and if Rudd sinks in the polls – which Dennis is suggesting he does (in the national interest of course, by taking tough decisions) – that would suit Dennis just fine. Then, I suppose, we can start worrying about polls again. He even manages to sit “Keviin 24/7” and “Kevin 747” next to each other in the same phrase. Good work, Dennis.
What a tosser.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24472444-17301,00.html
BB, the Australian is read by less than 4% of the population.
Of that lot, the vast majority read it for the comfort such bigoted, paranoid, reinforcement of their prejudices it affords them.
Shanahan is merely pandering to the philosophical prejudices of his newspaper’s minuscule readership.
Let them wallow in his and their bile and vomit.
His guileless blatherings are so transparent nobody but a fool or an acolyte will take them seriously.
You have a devastatingly effective use of words, and an amazing ability to cut to and expose hypocrisy, contradictions and obfuscation.
But you are really wasting your talents railing against chicken shit like Dennis Shanahan.
OK, Shanahanahanahnan’s article is seriously weird.
He begins by listing a whole lot of things the PM shouldn’t do – worry about the polls, pose for photos at kindergartens, etc etc, thus implanting the idea in his readers’ minds that he thinks Rudd is going to go off and do all these things.
He then finishes the article by pointing out that Rudd isn’t doing any of this but instead is doing all the things Dennis thinks he should be doing.
Basically, the first part of the article (the bit that most people will read) is a fantasy about what a populist poll driven PM might do to f*** up the present situation and the latter part is a peon of praise for the PM as a steady hand on the wheel.
Will the real Dennis please stand up?
All Prime Minister’s are populist to an extent. Unless we expect them to not worry about being re-elected. Rudd is no different to any other PM. Self interest will come above the national interest.
Sky Nooz pushing the bad Rudd poor pensioners line again. Had some pensioner assossiation head on saying Wayne Swan promised a $30 increase 2 weeks ago and now at the first sign of financial trouble Rudd hits the pensioners first and is taking it back.
I’ve just about had it with all this poor pensioner stuff, my mum was a single pensioner ( died 2 yrs ago), she paid about $60 pw for Housing Commision home, always had an few thousand in the bank and was able to manage quite OK.
Vera that’s nice for your mum. Unfortunately for many they are not so well off. I know pensioners who purchase and eat cat food.
I suppose you’re arguing pensions are adequate are you? Then why the need for a review of pensions?
Also, you criticise ‘some pensioner association head’ for using the media to lobby the Government to increase pensioners… which surely is what they’re meant to do!
Itep, I also have a mother and mother in law, both on pensions.
My mother’s best friend is a multi millionairess. Until recently, my mother would say that there was no difference in their lives – that, as a single pensioner, she lives in a house just as nice as her friend’s, wears the same clothes (the multi millionairess shops at Target), drives the same kind of car etc.
She’s gone a little bolshie recently, which is because she listens to talkback radio and believes it, but when pressed on why she needs an increase in the pension said she’d like to put some money away for the kids (so in other words, she doesn’t need it).
My mother in law is just about to embark on her third trip away (I think it’s Central Australia this time, I’ve lost track) for the year.
As for pensioners eating dog food – Itep, we’ve gone over this. If they’re eating dogfood, they need serious advice on managing their household budget. A couple of packets of spaghetti, some mince and cheese will feed them quite well for a week at a fraction of the cost of dogfood. Or they can buy sausages. Or rice. In fact, they can eat what I eat, which costs less than $50 per week.
So I take it you’re also arguing there’s nothing wrong with the pensions system and that the review is worthless then.
Saves the Government a lot of effort. Just tell those pensioners to get a financial advisors. In fact, why not make a financial advisors tax deductible for pensioners! What bastions of compassion we all are!
I never heard Swan promising pensioners a $30 per week increase and if he didn’t, the assertion that Rudd reneged on such non existent promise is fraudulent and malign. It is for this that the lobbyist stands to be to be criticised, as should be self evident.
The review is necessary to objectively assess pensioners’ needs and setting pensions according to those needs and the economy’s ability to meet them. It is not, as some will no doubt seek to portray, a promise that all such needs will be addressed in isolation from the competing needs of other groups in society or at the expense of the fiscal well being of the Nation. It is an attempt to assess the required balance.
To seek to rebutt Vera’s anecdotal account of her parent’s situation with an even more generic and unprovable reference to pensioners eating cat food is facile and unworthy.
itep
What a load of s##t, as it’s been said here many times baked beans and spagetti are cheaper than pet food. Sad Fibs like you who are still weeping over Howards end use phrases like pensioners eating dog food purely for political motives.
I’ve got no gripe with pensioners having a bitch, so long as they tell the truth! Swanny never promised a $30 increase THAT WAS YOUR MOB!
[I never heard Swan promising pensioners a $30 per week increase]
That would be because he didn’t
Itep, that “pensioners eating cat food” schtik leaves eyes pretty dry around here. Dawson nailed it, and just in case it’s actually true (which we know it isn’t) why don’t you give them a helping hand? At least to buy “Fancy Feast” rather than “No Frills”. “Fancy Feast” does a nice Seafood Mornay With Calimari Rings that my cat cat crawls up walls for.
I take from Dawson’s post 181 that some pensioners are doing very nicely thank you. Yes, some will be doing it tough. A portion of pensioners have always done it tough, under governments of whatever stripe, and that won’t change, no matter who is in power or what they do.
But as for eating dog food, come on! There are cheaper human foods around than expensive canned pet food. Bet they taste more agreeable too.
If they really are eating pet food, they are foolish – and there is no fool like an old fool.
I believe a lot of this “pensions” hysteria has been whipped up by a) the Liberals, on a mission to dent the government, and b) the media, particularly that segment that is popular with the elderly – talkback radio, who always need some “controversy” from which to make their ratings.
A lot of older people (I am not saying all of them of course) are habitually anti-Labor. That probably explains why they came out swinging against the new government almost immediately it was sworn in. I expect them, driven by partisanship, to keep “expressing their displeasure” with Labor all the time they are in government.
A review of the pension, social security and tax systems is to acknowledger there are wrinkles which need careful and considered ironing out. Good on the government, more power to them in these difficult times.
Shanahan writes for the types that like to read him as does The Australian generally. Most of those types wouldn’t vote anything else except Liberal even if lead by a dead cane toad and they take comfort in the rubbish that Shanahan writes. When they are not pleasuring themselves at the delusional Ackerman blog they get their rocks off at the OO.
Kinda reminds me of those little creatures that go a scurrying when you life up a rock, well maybe not that bad, but you get the point. The OO does have some decent writers but I wouldn’t spend the time or money buying a murdoch paper just to seek out the few ‘clean’ pages they produce. Happy to let others here don their boots and gloves and delve into that world.
[THE Federal Government will finalise planned changes to the aged pension by the May Budget, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.
The Government is under pressure to help struggling seniors combat cost-of-living pressures after blocking an Opposition move to increase the single aged pension by $30 a week.
Instead, the Government says it will wait for a review of the tax system and pensions due for completion in February.
Every $10-a-week increase in the pension cost the government $8 billion over the four-year forward estimates period.
“It is a huge, huge expenditure,” Mr Rudd said on ABC radio today.
“We intend to get the numbers right rather than just pluck a number out of the air as others have done in the political debate on this.
“We are in the process of working through our conclusions on this and … it will be done by the next Budget.”
Mr Rudd also refused to rule out spending cuts in next year’s Budget.
“There has never been a Budget without any pain,” he said on the Fairfax Radio Network. “At the end of the day, the country has got to balance its books.” ]
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24474540-29277,00.html
At least cockroaches or rodents or whatever scurries out from a rock that is lifted, at least they serve some purpose – ecological. The vitriolic venom that oozes out of the Akerman blog – it is just pure toxin, hard to see what possible benefit it has. It keeps the perps off the streets, I suppose.
“Seafood Mornay With Calimari Rings”
I saw that on a menu in Newtown the other night!
Wasn’t it the Libs who tried to increase the pension by $30.
[Wasn’t it the Libs who tried to increase the pension by $30]
Yes. Forget the Young Liberals, now we have the ‘Old Liberals’ aka the Pensioners Association.
Not during the election, they didn’t. When they had at least the theoretical possibility of another term in office, the base pension rate was just fine, thanks very much. It’s only now that they can afford the irresponsibility of the long-term opposition party and make demagogic promises to all and sundry.
Am I the only one who’s sick and tired of seeing:
[$50BILLION SHARE WIPEOUT
In early trading…]
stories, every morning as the lead item in most on-line newspapers? I mean, “D’er”… we already knew that, didn’t we?
Elsewhere, there was a story in the OO this morning headlined:
[The Recession we have to have]
(Boom! Boom!)
It seems they’re competing with each other to deliver the gloomiest, most apocalyptic news possible. Call me a cynic, but in an economy that at the moment is suffering a crisis of confidence, I’d like to see them write a few more up-beat stories. Even when we’re told our banks are solid, there’s always a caveat, something like, “But analysts thought the British banks were safe too, and look what happened…and… and… Iceland went broke!”. Considering that the average mug can’t do anything about this meltdown one way or the other, why the constant barrage of doom-saying? It can only have negative results, causing the self-fancying small-time “share traders” who haunt Commsec’s (and others’) web sites, or who think a good day out is to watch a meltdown from the gallery of the ASX to throw in the towel early.
Part of the answer is that everyone wants to be on the bandwagon, whatever it is. Stephen Long (the ABC’s economics commentator) is often introduced when interviewed as, “The man who predicted all this 18 months ago…”, and I just can’t help getting the feeling that misery is the new black as far as our economic reportage is concerned. Economics journalists lately seem to be vying with their colleagues in war zones, the testosterone-charged ones in crumpled safari suits who make a living by photographing car-bombed body parts in Baghdad or Kabul, for the “Biggest Misery Guts Of 2008” Walkley.
The other thing I’m wondering is whether the very wealthy bizoids who run the media nowadays aren’t egging their journalists on, so that when perfectly solid companies that have good balance sheets and are trading solidly with long term excellent contracts and prospects are on their knees, they might just be targets for cheap takeovers by said bizoids. With short selling banned, what better way to generate bargains than to shout “We’re all doomed!” and then hang around, vulture-like to pick up the pieces at bargain prices when the amateurs have left the field?
I just find the positions of people on here to be really quite bizarre. If Labor really think pensions are adequate why bother with the review? Someone suggested it is to ‘iron out the wrinkles’. What exactly are those wrinkles?
The issue is really quite simple. You take the position that the pension rates are adequate, in which case no action is required; or you take the position that they are inadequate, in which case action is required. The Government has acknowledged, at least apparently, that the rates of pensions are inadequate. This is evidenced by their pensions review and the fact that several ministers claimed that they could not live on the pension. This means the Government ought to do something about it, although at what stage they should do something is arguable.
If the Government were, on the other hand, to take the position that many posters on this site seem to have; that is, pensions are adequate and anyone who claims they are not should seek the help of a financial advisor or is plainly silly and can’t manage their own money, then they’re quite justified in taking no action. They just need to put that proposition to the people and see how they live with it if they are being upfront and honest with the public.
People on here just seem to be saying pensioners should stay quiet and be happy with what they’ve got… yet congratulations to the Government for an review that ‘irons out the wrinkles’ in the system! Complete garbage.
[If Labor really think pensions are adequate why bother with the review?]
They don’t think they are adequate. Rudd, Gillard and Swan all said so.
Itep, you’re flogging a dead horse, mate.
The posters here do not think pensions are adequate or perfect. The worst (from your point of view) you could say was that some of them commented on the resilience of pensioners in hard times. That is why they support a proper review, not a knee-jerk one-off cash splash that doesn’t even cover all pensioners (the addition of veterans to single pensioners in the Libs’ polic, while leaving out just about everyone else, was the ultimate in wave-the-flag, beat-the-drum hypocrisy). Now is the time for economic caution and prudence, not outright populist fingering around that only plugs holes in dyke walls. We don’t know what’s happening next week, or even tomorrow, much less next year.
Trying to bring up this (now) old furphy that Labor doesn’t care about the pensioners is so “yesterday”. You really lost the argument with that “cat food” reference. Why don’t you try it on over at Pies’ blog, or Bolt’s? You might get someone to agree with you over there.
Why does it have to be black-and-white, as in: the pension is either adequate or it is not adequate?
The pension demonstrably is adequate for some, as Dawson’s post at 181 shows. Those who own their own homes, for example, with no debt. Considering their accommodation & and commitment costs are less, the pension should theoretically be adequate.
Others, say, those who are renting, facing high and rising accommodation costs. For some of them, the pension may or may not be adequate.
And those in state housing: if their pension were raised the housing department would raise rents proportionately, thus nullifying much of the benefit of a pension rise.
They are some examples of what I mean by “wrinkles that need ironing out” . There are bound to be heaps of others, which the enquiry will unearth.
Mock the metaphor all you like, LTEP, but the situation is clearly a lot more complex than your “adequate or not adequate” assumption.
This is no time for blunderbuss approach. Take the time to carefully, then shoot with a steady hand.
There. There’s another metaphor for you to ridicule.
I think it is quite plain that the government does plan to do something with pensions and it seems it will be as part of a change to the entire welfare system. I think they also hinted in pegging it somehow so that it always remains adequate.
The amount of a pension adequate will differ depending on where you live so a dollar amount in the hand is not the whole story on funding the elderly in need.
My mother-in-law is able to save money on the pension which is enabled in part by subsidised rental, power, phones, medicine etc and having been part of a already poor family in the depression – every single item has value and no food, no matter how bad gets tossed. Thus on top of the pension, subsidies and ultra-frugal habits she is able to save money.
The difficulty is in making the pension and other assistance adequate to suit all circumstances and you would think requires some coordination with the States.
Then you have the question of what is the pension meant to be funding – what quality of life are we talking about. And the ultimate concern and care for government is how to guarantee continued funding for something that will continue to expand in an aging population – which raises the question could we even afford it if the the resources boom ground to a halt? So it is no easy question and not just as simple as lets give them $30 a week when what you should try to be doing is giving ‘enough’ to all pensioners but, many will need more and many less.