Sometimes, in politics, it might be better to remain silent.
Glenn Milne’s latest intervention, talking up a line from Liberal MP Scott Morrison, has to be one of the lamest ever political attack lines. [For those who don't want to wade through a farrago of fallacies expounded at excessive length, his core point is echoed by Sinclair Davidson at Catallaxy, though without attribution to Milne. Rendered in short form, the basic logical fallacy is starkly evident.]
So, there’s going to be an “emissions financial crisis” and the Reserve Bank wasn’t consulted by the Government before climate change legislation was prepared? A non sequitur built on speculative and incoherent fantasy does not make for an effective political attack. ‘OMG! Governor didn’t read legislation! Rudd FAIL!’…
The political syntax of this claim, of course, is that Rudd and co successfully berated the Liberals for ‘ignoring 20 (or whatever it was) successive Reserve Bank warnings’ in the lead up to the 2007 election. Now, we have the Liberals, and their echo chamber, arguing that the Reserve Bank should have been given a chance to warn. Somehow a hypothetical and unlikely warning was pre-empted by the Government deliberately choosing not to do what it doesn’t have to do. Try to make any sense of that.
What would be far more interesting to examine would be the politics of invoking the Reserve Bank (and for that matter, Treasury and its ubiquitous Secretary, Dr Ken Henry). There are significant questions about the independence of Treasury – or perhaps around the degree to which it is closely intermeshed with Rudd, Swan and Tanner’s agenda. And it’s clear that both Ken Henry and Glenn Stevens’ presumed authority is used by the Government regularly to legitimate its economic management credentials.
The Libs have occasionally made attacks in similar form as the essential structure of the Milne claim (leaving aside for the moment, that it rests on non-events) – that the Government has ignored advice. Of course, such attacks are irreconcilable with claims that the Government’s policies – when effectively ticked off by Henry and Stevens – are wildly irresponsible.
None of this makes a lot of sense. The Opposition, and its buddies in the right wing media and academic commentariat, might be better served by exploring the real issues around how economic policy is made, and defended through the aura of institutions which are perceived as independent. Don’t hold your breath, though.
Update: Sinclair Davidson responds.
From Milne:-
“the peak body’s stand on the ETS has been driven by considerations of greed rather than good policy or national interest considerations.”
…as if the anti-ETS members of the BCA were not motivated by greed and profit but are only interested in good policy and national interest.
Gold lamé!
If Turnbull adopts this line, then how about this happening: the government wheels out Dr Henry to give a speech on the ancient and venerable responsibilities of Her Gracious Majesty’s ministers and public servants—and how it would be improper for the RBA to get a look in when bills are drafted.
Then we enjoy the response of the Baron, Milne, and the Cata-ixnay mob as they start making the argument for government of the quangos, by the quangos, for the quangos.
Then the government starts raising the prospect of an untouchable climate change authority that future Liberal governments can never touch…
Then perhaps the Baron et al start going all Flint, and start employing bizarre crypto-Langite rhetoric (“The maintenance of a sound currency is far too important to hand this over to yet another
quangodepartment, the so-called independentReserve Banktreasury”)?Okay, so I’m treating the illogic with too much in kind…
It’s well and truly time that Milne was presented with a Wankley Award, and the honour of crash tackling him off the stage as he receives it can be auctioned on eBay with the proceeds going to a worthy charity.
Big Business wins again.
There are significant questions about the independence of Treasury
The Treasury is a govenment department whose role is to faithfully serve the elected government of the day, both publicly and privately (I myself have had to publicly defend policies I do not personally agree with). It was a puppet of Costello, now it’s a puppet of Swan. It would be quite improper for it to claim independence.
As a public servant, it shits me that people can’t distinguish between authorities that do not have to answer to a minister (the RBA, the ABS, the ANAO, the ABC, etc) and government departments (including Secretaries) that do. The difference matters.
In theory the public service implements the policies of the government OTD, but should give no regard to the political imperatives of the particular party that happens to be in office.
Emphasis on the theory.
All true DD, but don’t the government claim the independence of Treasury as a defense against attacks on them. I recall Rudd and Swan peeking out from behind Ken Henry’s broad shoulders on a number of occasions that govt policy was being criticised. How can anyone in Joe Public land be certain about these things?
I struggle to see how the complaint can be regarded as lame. The ETS will have significant effects on the economy and the RBA responds to changes in the economy. What happened in the lead up to the GST in wonder?
Pedro: “…Rudd and Swan peeking out from behind Ken Henry’s broad shoulders…”
A truely entertaining mental image!!!
Yes, Pedro, and Costello did the same schtick from time to time too. But that’s pollies for you – their devotion to accuracy often deserts them when such devotion proves inconvenient.
But it doesn’t change the facts – Treasury is not, and indeed ought not to be, independent.
DD, perhaps “independence” was a poor choice of words. I think what I was getting at was the degree to which advice is relatively disinterested or framed in advance to be acceptable to what’s know about a government’s objectives. It may be a nice theoretical distinction, though, which is inevitably obscured in practice.
Update: Sinclair Davidson responds.
Minister: I want to do this.
Department: Hmm…courageous policy. If you do it expect the following fuckups.
Minister: We’re gonna do it anyway. Political imperatives! Rewrite the brief.
Department: OK, but we’ll still keep the original brief in the CYA file.
Minister: Fair enough. We’ll see who’s right in the long run. Now about the media op…
DD – would you agree that governments of the day like to give the impression to the public that Treasury advice/opinions/speeches/etc are independent? KR and WS don’t exactly make it explicit that Treasury advice is heavily filtered before making it into the public domain….Indeed, often they attempt to give the opposite impression..
Of course, I am in complete agreement with you that the public service is an arm of the executive and thus cannot be independent of it…
But this also has consequences for debates about public policy in many areas, especially those where much of the expertise exists within the public service…The long-run fiscal implications of various public policies is one such area….It is for this reason that I’m attracted to the idea of a CBO type institution in Australia (adapted to our own institutions of course)…There would still be plenty of misinformation about of course, but alongside that we would also have analysis that was less subject to government influence…
The crucial question that Milne raises is “who is going to benefit from ETS while doing nothing to reduce emissions?” The harsh reality is “quite a few people.” There are all the people who skim off something from administering the system, emission audits etc. Then there are all the speculators who will play the permit market plus the odd business who will actually sell their free permits when their business declines, then there are the Poms who see international permit trading going through the London markets, then….
I can understand why the spives and speculators are so keen but it beats me why people who actually wan’t serious action to reduce emissions have been conned by these spivs into supporting ETS and the terrible inefficiencies of putting a price on carbon.
Yep, LO, that’s what I was trying to say @10. And I have previously argued (eg here) that we need a body answerable to parliament rather than ministers for a lot of these things.