Maybe it was all in the delivery, but Rudd’s Australia Day reception speeches were inspiring stuff, weren’t they? Productivity improvements to fund retirement incomes? I mean, who can hear a line like “by implementing microeconomic reforms to cut red tape for business and build a seamless national economy.” and not immediately feel the chest swell in patriotic pride?
Productivity is really important. It’s the way we can afford to do the stuff we’d really like to do, whether it’s build McMansions, pay better pensions, protect the environment, better health care, even head towards European-style working hours. Even if, in principle, you could achieve those things by chopping up the existing pie differently, in practice it’s a heck of a lot easier when there’s more pie to distribute.
But, even so, I find it hard to believe that leaders of other nations – most obviously a US President – would take the chance to talk about productivity at a function in the leadup to their national day. We all know what it says about Kevin Rudd, but what does it say about Australia?
I only skimmed the speech but I kinda liked it, I guess talking about productivity and long term planning (yay) is an apt topic given we are entering a new decade. That said, the speech seemed to focus a lot on the year 2050, long after Kevin Rudd will have left office. It would be nice to see some aspirations for 2015 and 2020 in term of productivity growth.
If we actually have a mature debate on lifting productivity and getting higher workforce participation and the policies to achieve that in an election year then I would certainly be more satisfied with the quality of political discussion in Australia.
What does it say about us?
“Straya, y’r doin it rong.”
It says we elected a policy wonk dork as a PM.
While perhaps a tad bland, what is evident is a cautious man – in the ‘midst of GFC, turmoil; etc, he isn’t ‘flash’ but he is dependable. What would you rather – shoot from the lip Tony and friends or someone who says – now wait a mo, we need to give this some thought – long term thinking is an investment.
If he was actually going to implement ‘microeconomic reforms to cut red tape for business and build a seamless national economy’ then I might give some restrained applause. But of course it’s all complete bullshit, right down to the meaninglessness of the phrase ‘seamless national economy’.
Rudd’s idea of reform is to announce something: broadband revolution, education revolution, transformation of public health, anything like that will do. Not much actually happens but it’s a method that’s kept Labor in government in NSW since forever and they appear incapable of understanding that it’s past its use-by date. Or maybe they are smarter than me and it isn’t.
Have another beer, mate. Mind ya, if things don’t happen after this year’s election …
I agree with Ken, except I think the government is smarter than him (it will work). It’s revolution, transformation, revolution, with no actual change. Just create a diversion, lots of debate about something that won’t change much (like school league tables), and everyone will be happy. Perhaps it won’t work in NSW, which is entirely dysfunctional, but I can’t see why it won’t at the Federal level, since they don’t have so many in your face annoyances people can see, like hospitals and public transport.
I read Rudd’s speech last night and was incapable of responding in any way. The affective impact of text like that is to make me feel like all of the oxygen is being sucked out of the air. What Rudd, Gillard and Wong all have in common is an ability to make my eyes glaze over and drift off only to return and discover that they are still talking.
What does it say about our attitudes to Australia Day that such soulless wonkery is considered appropriate discourse?
And what was he doing at the cricket? And commentating! When he has a holiday it should mean we get a holiday from him!
It is interesting that the Americans seem to fallen out of love with Obama despite his magnificent oratory. Perhaps Australians haven’t fallen out of love with Rudd because there was nothing to love in the first place.
Australians elect leaders like we employ tax accountants…no excitement please, and we wouldn’t really want to have a beer with you, but keep the cheques coming and we’ll keep retaining your services thankyouverymuch.
The nature of capitalism is such that the constant drive to maximise profits in the short term generates the need, or at least desirability, for increased growth both of population [more consumers is a 'good' thing allowing more profits] and consumption per person.
Increasing productivity is shorthand for giving more people more money to spend hence a greater potential for profits.
Now if the result of these wants by capitalism is in the long or even the short term disasterous for the environment or other sectors of the community that is irrelevant to their wants.
We can always talk about bigger slices of bigger pies as long as the presumption that the pie must grow is not questioned.
If resources are dwindling due to excessive profit taking and exploitation that is not necessarily seen by the exploiters and profit makers as bad.
Its somebody else’s problem.
Excessive allocation of irrigation water is just one example of this in action.
Bugger the river and the urbanites and those downstream, growth and profit is the key and the vested interests will see no other way.
The nuke debate is premised on the belief that we must continue to grow and consume in the short term, the toxic waste produced can be somebody else’s problem somewhere else outa sight outa mind, sometime down the track when we don’t care.
I heard the line in a movie, a British comedy of the 50s or 60s, John Gregson was the star, that “Where there’s muck there’s brass’ and the setting for the movie had, as a voiceover said, “plenty of both”.
This was presumed to be ‘good’.
It ain’t necessarily so.
‘… by implementing microeconomic reforms to cut red tape for business and build a seamless national economy’
That’s sounds suspiciously like ‘work choices’ – only longer and with bigger words.
I don’t buy into all the jingoistic hype that characterises Australia Day, so not only do I not listen to the PM’s speech, I don’t actually care what it contains.
So who’s his speechwriter? It’s usually a highly symbiotic relationship, so clearly what’s needed is someone who can get something better out of Kevin. Remember the days when Don Watson was writing for Keating?
Most of you probably don’t remember the days when Graham Freudenberg was writing for Whitlam, but I do.
Sigh.
hannah’s dad: exactly.
IDK Robert, I prefer it to Howard’s partisan crap that ‘The great struggle of Australia’s first century of nationhood was to reconcile a market economy with a fair and decent society’ and ‘Quite apart from a strong focus on Australian values, I believe the time has also come for root and branch renewal of the teaching of Australian history in our schools, both in terms of the numbers learning and the way it is taught.’ Better to have anodyne nonsense about microeconomic reform than culture wars.
Yeah, I’m with Jane. I hate patriotic bullshit, seeing it as simply another facet of racism. The fact we celebrate “Australia” day, on the anniversary of an English invasion of Australia with blithe cheer demonstrates how much premium we place on a truly inclusive vision of the country.
Speaking of vision, you’re right, Robert, in that Rudd’s love of ‘revoluition’, ‘innovation’ etc seems completely at odds with both his personality and his govt’s actions in policy. You can argue whether this is a good thing or not, but it’s interesting that such a glaring contradiction delivers only sporadic commentary. I predict he will want to back off the grandiose claims, or actually deliver something on a big platform as opposed to micro-reform. I suspect the NBN will be Rudd’s most lasting and easily understood legacy. That, and climate change, of course.
Me too. Those definitely were the days.
Patrickg: it’s a point that Abbott has picked up on, as well.
I think it’s major criticisms of Rudd by people who don’t like him. He talks a lot, but achieves little
I hope it says of Australia that we need not look to anything as tawdry as politicians to encapsulate national pride and identity and have no expectation that they should.
Otherwise we’d just have the endless cycle of disillusionment the Americans have.
I hope we have the strength to understand that politicians are politicians and we can only encapsulate the nation in ourselves.
Yep, Rudd is a bore. So what? We didn’t elect him for his entertainment value.
I’m much more worried about his assumptions about what drives long-run productivity growth. The honest truth is that economists and policy makers know far less about tis than they pretend, at least for developed countries.
In particular, there is remarkably little reason to assume that “microeconomic reform” gets you a higher rate of growth, as distinct from a one-time boost in the level of output that is very modest viewed in a 50 year time frame. A lot of the rhetoric on this is quite dishonest.
Better education is a more plausible candidate for achieving higher long-term growth, but even there it’s by no means as cut and dried as people make out. For a start, “better” does not necessarily equate to “more” at a national level.
It was disappointing but probably not surprising to hear about growth expanding to orgasmic levels by distant dates. It means that the dogma of economic rationalism and market economics is essentially all there is. Given the essential artificiality and fragility of this ideology this doesn’t bode well for coming generations.
Twice in a short while I feel impelled to respond to what appear to me to be Robert Merkel’s rancorous comments – this time on the content of the Prime Minister’s speech. What is it about a statement of clear goals and aims for our children and grandchildren that is not liked by some of the contributors here? To date, with the exception of Chumai and Fascinated, the comments reveal more about the nature of the contributor and the cynical outlook that nowadays seems to permeate this particular site. The speech takes a point in the nation’s history – the year 2010 – to look forward with some positivity to what could possibly be achieved at some future point rather than looking backward or wrapping ourselves in the Australian flag to boast about what the country achieves in areas such as sport. I can’t remember an Australia Day which celebrated the intellectual verve of Australians nor the many achievements not connected with sport, sea or sand. Yes, 2050 is not tomorrow for those who are short-sighted enough to demand immediate action (no matter how useful or “programmed specifically” the action might be) but Australia has work to do, and what better time to ponder what this country could be like for our descendents than Australia Day. Perhaps the Prime Minister ought to have thrown in a few ockerisms to please the baying crowds, but I at least understood the topic, the words, and the hope expressed. Why can’t you?
el oso
I think your criticism was answered, before you made it, by PatrickB @24 and Ken Lovell @ 17.
See the problem is we [if I can use that word] did understand it but found it wanting in precisely those terms [looking forward positively] you want.
But at least its not as bad as his predecessor.
I think K Rudd is entitled to set out in an Ausralia Day speech the direction he wants or thinks the country needs to go in. In this case we apparently need higher productivity. The interesting thing here though is he thinks hes going to get higher productivity by splashing out on infrastructure and freight alleviation and broadband and the like. All of which the productivty commission said in their submission to a HOR committee, the lack of spending on this sort of stuff was unlikely to have impacted either way on productivity levels over the past decade. Another interesting point to note is that when productivity was higher in the 90′s as Rudd wants again, unemployment was over double what it is now. This begs the question. Is it possible to have high productivity with low unemployment?
el oso @25: you’ve raised a good question. In answer, then, while Rudd has nailed his colours to the mast of putting neoliberalism behind us (the Monthly essays) what I recognise in this speech, as in so much of what he and especially also Gillard and Wong say and write, is the dead hand of technocratic managerialism. This is significant in so far as different material conditions create the social conditions in which different types of individual subjectivity flourish or flounder. The technocratic managerialist, first described by Weber, flourishes under neoliberalism. It is a subjectivity fit indeed for Marx’s post socialist society in which the state is entirely given over to the ‘administration of things’ except that we have arrived at that point via other pathways. Rudd promises the endless administration of things, as hannah’s dad points out above @12, without the merest conception that even the act of technocratic management by people like him and his party is deeply entrenched within the discourse of neoliberal values and ideals. His prose is as lifeless as it is deathless and it is clear that this is what he offers – neither life nor death but unremitting administration.
El Oso, I bet you loved those posters from the fifties with flying cars, too.
What right does Rudd (or anyone) have to speak about 2050? He will be almost certainly be dead by then, certainly not governing and completely impotent in regards to policy. Given his reluctance to introduce significant reform in any area, it’s hard to see any effect his government could have in forty years time. This is no Whitlam here, with medicare, eductation, etc. No Hawke or Keating with The Accord or dollar floating, etc.
The only thing he could influence is in regards to climate change, by far the most urgent and widespread threat to ‘Australian’ life and values – and in this arena he has done nothing but equivocate and dither, thereby rescinding in my eyes the right to comment on the future of Australia or Australians with any authority or respect.
Frankly, I could care less what he – or anyone – thinks about Australia in 2050; their opinions are just as weighty (or more likely irrelevant) as mine. What I do care, passionately, about is governing Australia now, what we can set in place – or are doing – for equality, environment, justice now. Talking about 2050 in the face of such conservative governance smacks to me of:
2010: “revolution” = launching a website
2030: ??????
2050: PROFIT!!!
I’m not deriding conservative governance out of hand, mind, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Much as Howard’s hypocritic, myopic nationalism rankled, so too does this for the (some of the) same reasons. If Australia ends up as some kind of Shangri-La in 2050, it won’t be because of anything Rudd’s done thus far, that’s for certain.
Hannah’s Dad @12, I’d like to agree with Anthony Nolan @16!!
Patrickg @18, totally agree also: “Rudd’s love of ‘revoluition’, ‘innovation’ etc seems completely at odds with both his personality and his govt’s actions in policy.”
I have been getting this creeping feeling that Rudd is like a former chief, who worked every waking hour and exhorted/compelled his employees to do likewise. He had great plans (erm… actually mainly for his future success, not anyone else’s). However our division achieved nine-tenths of bugger-all. Especially compared with the previous chief, who was less of a tyrant and kept regular hours.
The problem was that this workaholic chief micromanaged everything. Nothing went out without about 5 circuits through him for approval (and recorrection of his own previous corrections). His desk was piled high, he worked rediculous hours, but nothing happened. Except massive amounts of churn, with endless studies and proposals of what we all might do, IFF he ever got to making a decision.
And that’s the thing. I kind of wonder whether that chief actually had a problem with decision-making, due to fear of ruining his reputation (or perhaps his reputation in his own eyes), as one of the brightest people in the company. Hence the endless studies and rework. Hence the workaholic tendancies. Best to look busy and understand every detail, than to decide and execute something which might not work out as well as hoped.
Which brings me to derrida derida @23: “For a start, “better” does not necessarily equate to “more” at a national level.”
Rudd wants everyone to work “more”, like him, and that automatically lead to success. Perhaps Rudd is confusing Activity with Results? He seems to have forgotten about efficiency and strategic direction.
If GM employees had only worked longer hours and pumped out more Hummers, then they would not have been facing bankruptcy? If Aussies would only work harder in those coal mines…???
Also: Right on Richard and Anthony.
Nothing. I’m not against productivity being a focus (and would cordially disagree with hannah’s dad’s characterization of it). Productivity can mean a lot of things other than more stuff. It can mean working less. It can mean more people can devote their time to the arts, science, child protection, and so on and so forth, because we need fewer people to do the boring stuff like grow food and manufacture cooking pots. Heck, productivity is the reason why we’re not all subsistence farmers any more.
It’s just that he’s managed to clothe it prose that is indeed as “lifeless as it is deathless”.
Actually I would agree with your definition of productivity Robert, wholeheartedly in fact.
The trouble is that is not how the term is used elsewhere.
This from wiki ['productivity']:
“Productivity is a measure of output from a production process, per unit of input. For example, labor productivity is typically measured as a ratio of output per labor-hour, an input. Productivity may be conceived of as a metric of the technical or engineering efficiency of production”
And, again from wiki ["workforce productivity"]:
“Workforce productivity is the amount of goods and services that a labourer produces in a given amount of time.”
I’m guessing from what you wrote above that your definition is much broader, different and IMO far superior to these two and I reckon that the sense it is used in Australia [as per wiki] is not the sense you use.
Am I wrong?
Do we actually disagree?
I raise my lime juice and soda water to patrickg and elise. Donald Horne’s criticisms of Australia in “The Lucky Country” could have been written yesterday instead of 40 years ago and would still be just as relevant.
I don’t disagree with the definition.
The point I think is lost sometimes is the consequences of that definition.
There’s an assumption being made that the inevitable consequences of productivity are more profits accruing to the owners and top managers of business. That, unfortunately, has largely happened in the United States. To some extent, it has happened here.
My point is that the dividends of productivity can, in principle, be used for all manner of good things beyond building James Packer a bigger superyacht. All the good things we want – working less, environmental protection, better pensions, you name it, they can all be paid for through productivity.
I suppose I’d also argue that economic growth and increased use of scarce natural resources don’t necessarily go hand in hand, but that’s a very lengthy discussion!
Richard #22 – There’sa lot in what you say.
I admit that it seems that the PM (and his team) have had a charisma by-pass but they do come across as a ‘safe pair of hands’ especially compared to the others opposite.
The lack of discernable action in some areas is naturally disappointing – after all we all wanted immediate change after the election on so many things. Shades of Its Time. The promises on the list are slowly being ticked – the GFC might mean some might not happen for a long time.
But here we are in our 24 hour loop – watching and waiting for the promises to be checked off – creating instant policy and wanting instant outcomes. Is it fair on your public servants to expect this (be they pollies, clerks etc)? The wheels grinding relentlessly towards change cant keep up with our 24 hour aspirations.
Soaring rhetoric a la Gough, Hawkie and Keating is wonderfull, inspiring; star power is the stuff of the Women’s Weekly and yes things did happen. Along the way someone consistently doing the hard yards is actually what we pay for.
Look to Europe and see the alternatives now rising up as a result of progressive rhetoric that fails to instantly deliver for the long term. If you want social democracy, you have to nurture it like a good red wine or it goes off very quickly.
I just read Rudd’s Australia Day speech, and combed through it carefully for some sort of strategic direction. The proposal is awfully bland.
Most of the speech seems to be on what the problems of the future (2050) are:
- too many old, retired people (putting a strain on health and pension requirements)
- too many people (putting a strain on infrastructure)
- not enough workers (putting a strain on tax revenue for the government)
- declining growth in productivity (thus declining growth of GDP)
- umm, climate change (just barely got a mention)
Well, yes, most of us know this by now. To state the bleeding obvious, this isn’t strategy. This is just stating the problems.
Thus far, the solution seems to be:
- more roads, rail and port facilities
- more Julia Gillard memorial halls
- NBN
- some nebulous concept of “business innovation”
Am I missing something here?” This looks like Business As Usual. Is is so bland it is numbing. Agreed that productivity is a key issue, but the proposed solutions appear to be texbook economics 101, and equally useful for China.
Not that Abbott has come up with anything better, mind you. Just that I had hoped for something more interesting from Rudd.
Where are the game changers, which would shift our economy onto a different footing? Something more than China’s quarry?
“Look to Europe and see the alternatives now rising up as a result of progressive rhetoric that fails to instantly deliver for the long term.”
But Elise, what we’re really seeing here in Oz is neither rhetoric nor action. Even the rhetoric is bland and uninspiring, which as I understand it was the point of the post.
Too right, obtuse, and indeed, Ian Lowe takes up the challenge in his 1998 essay The Clever Country?” and in doing so, highlights something about Rudd that does concern me:
In the subsequent 12 years, “Clever Country” has become a widely distributing term and notion, and yet looking at Rudd – “Education Revolution” in particular – I see more echoes of “steady-as-she=sinks”.
Note that Lowe’s alternative is far from revolutionary in aim or execution, though the result arguably could be.
FDB @38, excuse me, but that quote was from Fascinated @36. Don’t put words in my scribblings.
However, I totally agree with your comment. Bland and uninspiring rhetoric. Bland vision. Good understanding but not really insightful.
Referring to the earlier “safe pair of hands” comments, I guess that is what we all want in a crisis? However, “steady as she goes” may be a better arrangement for a stable external environment?
History seems to show that sometimes “more of the same” doesn’t yield a necessary change of direction to meet a strategic challenge.
The changing balance of power between the US and China on global trade looks like a sizable future strategic challenge. The golden rule was, “He who has the gold makes the rules”. What is our role in this?
I guess the “China’s best friend” concept didn’t pan out too well. Almost as creepy as Howard playing deputy sheriff to Dubya. So plan B was? America’s best friend and China’s best quarry, regional office and supplementary workforce?
So what “more interesting” do you want from Rudd, Elise? Something like “no child needing to live in poverty by 1990″? Or perhaps more about Rudd’s own heart-felt hope to have halved the number of homeless by 2020? Even with a decade to go he’s being attacked on that so far unfulfilled promise. Should he have foreseen that the GFC would happen with some impact at least on homelessness here?
Two of the “grander” promises made as part of Rudd and Labor’s election campaign, once applauded as significant national aspirations, have been fulfilled by signing Kyoto and making the Apology. How often now do we see them dismissed as shallow showmanship by a commentariat and even people here on this thread hungry for more “statesmanship” and “vision” from their political leaders.
Fascinated @ 36 is spot on -”If you want social democracy, you have to nurture it..” Not romantic work, but necessary.
Anyway, let’s be realistic. This is an election year. Surely he’s saving his grand ideas for his election platform. Wait for his launch speech. Then you’ll get nation building big ideas by the bucketful. And the critics and the MSM can go gangbusters about “over reach” instead of “dearth of imagination” in Rudd’s
vision for Australia.
Yes, Rudd’s a complete bore.
That’s why he’ll anhiliate whatever hip pocket shootin’ Lathamesque screwball the coalition put up against him this year, and 2013, and quite possibly 2016.
Here’s a line for the ALP when Abbott claims “What you see is what you get”:
“Yes. Its what you *don’t* see that should concern you.”
Patricia WA @41, I certainly wasn’t looking for speeches on poverty and homelessness. Kyoto and Sorry Day were perfectly sensible actions for the times. Howard was a neanderthal on these issues. However, neither have generated any subsequent meaningful results. Please correct me if I am wrong.
My beef about “more interesting” was that 2050 is almost 2 generations down the track. What is visionary or interesting about extra road, rail, ports, school halls and a better broadband network?
We are polishing the existing silver, like the landed gentry of the UK. It doesn’t make you rich, into the future. Soon you have to charge a fee to show people round the former family abode.
Such a pity he didn’t make climate change central to his vision of the future and talk about linking productivity to the necessary changes we’ll be forced to make.
Robert Merkel is right on the money with:
“Productivity can mean a lot of things other than more stuff. It can mean working less. It can mean more people can devote their time to the arts, science, child protection, and so on and so forth, because we need fewer people to do the boring stuff like grow food and manufacture cooking pots.”
With apologies to food growers of course because food growing is actually an exciting productive activity. The productivity of the unemployed, for example, could be increased by a general reduction in working hours within the already employed workforce thus creating jobs. Top level jobs in both the private and public sector could be made immensely more productive by job sharing. And so on. And then there is earth repair which is not a vote for Abbott’s ‘green army’ (an unattractive image that is) which would improve ecological conditions as well as qualitative aspects of human existence.
What Rudd has so far offered is more of the same in a system in which the professional bourgeoisie and the corporate sector cream off the benefits of increased productivity for their own benefit. More yachts, more racehorses for them. Boring and undemocratic.
Sometimes I think the whole of Australia is scared to do anything differently, or even to question the path we’re on, as though we’ve grown fat and complacent as a nation, and this is reflected in our leaders who seem so petrified of doing anything to threaten the privilege of the few. Private school funding is an obvious example.
Rudd talks about the problem of providing for a growing aging population. Why then doesn’t he lift the stupid restrictions on the amount that can be contributed to superannuation?
Razor there are no restrictions on how much you can save for your retirement. There are [ridiculously generous] limits on the extent to which they can be used as a tax avoidance scheme. Still it’s nice to see you arguing so blatantly for even more welfare for the wealthy – makes it plain what your principles are.
Rudd mentioned that workforce participation would decline from 65% to 60% in the paragraph prior to discussing the need to increase productivity.
The speech sounds like it was written by the Business Council to exhort the drones to work harder.
The speech overlooks the people disenfranchised by their inability to find work(unemployed) or find enough work (underemployed) and doesn’t being to address the plight of the financially insecure (casual employees – third of the workforce)
Ken – superannuation is a tax-efficient vehicle available to anyone. A good tradesman could easily find more than the $25,000 per year concessional contribution limit to put away if they so desired, let alone those members of the CFMEU and AWU engaged in any of the NW mining and oil and gas projects here in WA. Your class warfare crap is just ridiculous.
There is a clear hypocrisy in Rudds push to increase the abiltiy of the economy to pay for an aging population in the future and the restrictions placed on superannuation contributions.
If you want to encourage something then you subsidise it – that is why superannuation exists – it is a tax efficient savings vehicle for the future.
You can call it welfare for the wealthy if you wish. I believe in treating everyone equally.
billie – low-income casual workers don’t generally remain in that category for their whole life. Yes, when I was a student, I had a number of casual jobs but now I don’t. Most move on as their skills and circumstances change.
“low-income casual workers don’t generally remain in that category for their whole life.”
So, Razor, you don’t believe there’s an underclass of low-paid workers? Your example is a well paid tradesperson?
I wonder if you notice who cleans your office when your not at work?
Fine – euro-backpackers, from the pretty ones I have chatted too – Czechs and Poles.
I’m so glad they employ pretty ones for you, Razor. That’s so important.
Your poll is wrong. Try middle aged women from immigrant families.
Look at other low income jobs. Who do you think works in nursing homes? Who do you think works in child care? Do you not realise these people aren’t paid much and they’re not pretty young backpackers?
Ignorance is bliss.
The rich get richer …
http://www.theage.com.au/business/rich-got-richer-in-howard-years-20090820-es2v.html
“AUSTRALIA became markedly more unequal over the Howard years, with the top 20 per cent of income earners receiving almost half the increase in income, the Bureau of Statistics reports…….
In a marked revision of its earlier figures…….
The top 20 per cent of income earners, after adjustment for family size, increased their share of the nation’s income from 37.3 per cent to 40.5 per cent – more than the total earnings of the bottom 60 per cent. All other income groups saw their share of the nation’s pie shrink.
Most of that shift happened in the Howard government’s last five years, when it gave big tax cuts to those on high incomes, who were also getting the biggest increases in incomes. Even on 1990s data, the Luxembourg Income Study, funded by Western governments, ranked Australia as one of the most unequal countries in the West.”
And the poor get poorer….
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2008-09/09rp27.pdf
Australian Parliamentary Library:
“…11.7% of all Australians [or more than one in nine Australians] were living in Poverty in 2006.”
The Brotherhoof of St.Laurence in its submission to the Senate Enquiry on Poverty said “…it is estimated 1 in 5 poor Australians are in paid work -they may be called the working poor [Harding and Szukalska 2000]”
Ain’t it a bloody shame.
Razor everyone is treated equally. We are all free to enjoy the same very generous superannuation tax concessions. However they are not totally open-ended and after you reach a certain level, you no longer get special tax treatment. How anyone can characterise that as ‘restrictions placed on superannuation contributions’ is beyond me.
Anyone who can put away $25,000 a year is not going to be a burden on the taxpayer in their retirement, but your concern for their plight reveals a soft side of you that I hadn’t seen before.
“What right does Rudd (or anyone) have to speak about 2050?”
I simply can’t agree with this PatrickG. Rudd is using 2050 as a representation of where we want to be as a nation in the future. It is irrelevent that he will not be governing or probably even alive then. Decisions made today have long lasting impacts. Institutional frameworks, once put in place, change over slowly over time. Think for example about when most countries’ systems of social insurance were designed and how much they have changed since their inception. As I said in another thread, a number of European countries have enormous fiscal gaps that will be very costly to close over the coming decades because they designed social insurance schemes that were simply unaffordable with high old-age dependency rates.
As for the critiques about his emphasis on productivity growth few of you seem to get that long run increases in living standards can only be delivered by higher levels of productivity. Now, if you belong to the school of thought, a la Clive Hamilton, that higher levels of GDP per capita are not actually welfare enhancing, then fair enough. But understand that view puts you well outside the mainstream and renders you more or less politically irrelevent.
I have to say that is kind of funny to hear that the definition of neoliberalism has been broadened to capture not only an excessive influence of market solutions to social and economic problems, but now means any emphasis by government on raising long-term living standards – which is all that the emphasis on productivity is.
As for the speech, it says something both about the man and the country. About the country, it reveals that we do not go in for high blown rhetoric. This has long been the case and is almost certainly a good thing. About the man, it says he is a technocrat – which we already knew. Don’t blame his speechwriters. Rudd doesn’t allow them to write freely – he micromanages that like he micromanages everything else. And it is quite deliberate. He is creating an image of himself as an able administrator that can get things done. A safe pair of hands to manage the country. He is deliberately unexciting. Politically it has been a successful approach so far. He won’t deliver the speeches of a Whitlam or a Keating, and he won’t be loved by some people in the same way. But he will also antagonise far fewer people and ensure that the ALP is governing for the next decade.
His true test will be, after having cultivated the image of a competent, likable and trustworthy manager, whether he uses his political capital to make good, long-lasting changes that help make the country both more equitable and more efficient. His next term will reveal all.
If you want productivity to work long term – people (and businesses) need to feel relatively secure about their prospects – if you know that the hoardes are not going to attack your cave, you can get on with being productive eg grow your own veges (and sell/share them as required). Likewise you can buy a cave (save the cash or get a mortgage or rent). At present, it’s a very tough prospect for regretably, many of us.
Similarily, a meaningfull life as an Australian Elder (through superannuation/pensions, good housing and health services) is linked to the secure cave.
I dont believe that the government is “petrified of doing anything to threaten the privilege of the few”. Rather I suspect that they realise, and surely most reasonable Australians do as well, that racing to change things eg like private school funding, is going to p**s people off mightedly unless they can see the sense of any alternatives on offer (with a long lead time). Private school funding has become part of the security jigsaw, part of the cave. Similarily, tax breaks or other concessions.
If we agree everyone is entitled to a secure cave – offer something better, ie, a real safety net rather than a poverty trap – make the path to the cave available equally to all – a national, sustainable income, food & housing scheme, not just superannuation – it may well have community and personal components. The only choice should be to simply opt out if you can afford to (a ‘virtuous’ form of philanthropy but I’m not suggesting name and shame).
LO: I’m still waiting for the social wage to be delivered in return for wage restraint under the Accords marks 1 to whatever. Rudd is ‘third way’ labor on track record so far. Tax reform will convince me that he’s actually a social democrat instead of a labour demorat.
Anthony
I think the GFC stuffed Tax reform for the time being but ever the optimist, lets see. I have similar hopes.
BTW:I dont seek to be an apologist for inaction – au contraire – we just live in interesting times.
Fascinated: indeed. The most interesting conceivable. You are probably correct about the GFC. I’d like to think they had some real plans but am wary.
Sure, it has its upside. But there is time for poetry in our public life too; on Anzac Day, the Apology, and so on. It just strikes me as odd that the leadup to Australia Day isn’t, in Kevin Rudd’s expert judgment, a time for it.
I suppose what I was getting at is that Australia Day seems an example of the symbolic void Australia currently finds itself in; the old symbols are an anachronism, but we haven’t got serious about finding new ones.
LO I broadly agree with your points, however I would stand by my guns. Thinking about 2050 is fine. Tying it with specific policy formulation or reform, even better. But mentioning some kind of future utopia with no reference to actual policy development or plans except in the most ethereal, vague terms serves no one. As you rightly point out, “productivity” is saying no more than “I want standards of living to increase”. And who could oppose such a goal?
I agree with you wholeheartedly that decisions govt makes today have long-term ramifications, indeed, that’s why I’m frustrated: Rudd’s reforms have been timid, watery things. Yes, GFC and all that, but Rudd can’t talk this vision stuff whilst straining every fibre of his being to create the impression of governance via grey care-taker.
This is much like his apology – a quite beautiful, important, necessary and well done thing, but its import is easily forgotten as indigenous issues once more fade to black with nothing changed.
Visionaries have to have vision, otherwise it’s just wretched cant. I agree with you on Rudd’s second term – my jury is still out on him and his government, hampered as they are by a hostile senate, GFC, and an enabling, insensate opposition. But I fear, LO, I fear. Perhaps if you lived in NSW with the lich-king of Labor state govt in charge, you would share my qualms.
patrickg: your point about residing in NSW is probably correct. Outside of here no-one really grasps the degree of decreptitude, corruption and complacency that characterisis NSW ALP. No-one I know intends voting ALP in the upcoming election. No-one. Not a single bloody person. One octagenarian life time ALP voter, one of the ‘rusted on’ is voting Lib. Everyone I know is trying to figure out how they can vote anti-ALP with the intention of sending the strongest conceivable message to Federal ALP that NSW is rotten all the way through and that, if we have to, we’ll tolerate a Lib govt rather than the sort of crap that has been dished up here for working people and citizens.
This reads more like a US President’s State of the Union Address to Congress, than an Aussie PM’s address to the nation. This is not surprising given Rudd’s Presidential presumptions. I would say Rudd has very deliberately delivered such a bland, inspiration-free sermon precisely to knock the wind out of any nationalistic sails Australia Day may have gathered.
Of course, there would be another agenda at play as well. Remember, Keating’s cynical Kokoda handwaving presumption that he could dictate, and unilaterally rewrite at will Australian foundation mythology and national days.
We might well be seeing Rudd the Dudd attempting something similar. Or maybe I am flattering him far more than he deserves, and he really is both the Naked Civil Servant and Emperor.
Heh. The naked civil servant. That’s good.
Heading into the long(er) weekend I do no more than refer people to the Jon Stewart Show excerpt featured on Crikey a few days ago wherein Jon Stewart sets out a statistical formula which “explains” Obamas’s declining popularity and chats with Larry Gilmore who unkindly “debunks the Obama is a magic black man myth” and speaks of the “bigotry of high expectations”. Kevin Rudd is also not “a magic…..man” but the mythic connotations underlying the disappointments expressed by many here are probably pretty much the same. Enjoy your weekend.
Returning to the speech, what is interesting is what the speech DOESN’T mention.
For example, we will be clean out of oil by 2050, for all intents and purposes. That has quite a few implications, and not just transport. What about petrochemicals, which make plastics, rubber (for car tyres etc), etc?
Will we find a substitute for aviation fuel, or will air travel become something for the super-rich, as it was 60 years ago or so? What happens to the mining industry, if Fly-In Fly-Out becomes too much of an operating expense?
I thought about the 40 years hence that 2050 represents, and then cast backwards to 40 years ago, 1970. What did we NOT know then, which occurred subsequently? No-one had mobile phones, no-one had home PC’s, no internet, no CD’s, DVD’s, not even video recorders. No hybrid cars, or even fuel injected, or turbo-diesel cars or even car airconditioning (God, how did we survive?), never mind refrigerative airconditioning for the home. How primitive can you be???
More particularly, how long did it take from the first sign of a new technology, to widespread use?
I got my first clunky calculator (to replace the slide rule and log tables) in 1975, and they were widespread by the 1980′s.
My first PC (an Apple II) in 1983, and PC’s were widely available within a decade; in most homes after another decade.
My first video recorder in 1990, and they were widespread within a decade.
My first CD player in mid-1990′s (to replace the cassette tape recorder), and market saturation occurred within a decade.
My first DVD player (to replace the video recorder) about 2000 I think, and saturation within a decade.
Now we are replacing it with Blu-Ray, probably also dominant in a similar time frame.
The black and white TV’s of the 1970′s were replaced by colour CRT (cathode ray tube) TV’s, which came and went, replaced by plasma, then LCD, and now LED televisions.
I got my first clunky mobile phone in about 2000, again saturation within a decade.
And so it goes,…truely amazing when you think back on it!
From when the technology is on the horizon, to widespread adoption, seems to take about a decade these days. Never mind FOUR decades. A lot of things have changed in 40 years.
So what is on the horizon now, and likely to be widespread before we know it? Electric cars, Plug-In Hybrids, solar PV, Blue-Gen fuel cells, Zero emission homes, geothermal energy, wave power? What else?
And that is just what I can see on the horizon. Then, there are those things that are beyond the horizon, and not invented yet.
What about the political certainties of 1970, compared with how things evolved over the last 40 years? We had not even got to the nuclear disarmament talks, and were still talking about building nuke bomb shelters. Gorbachev had not happened yet, and we weren’t talking to China or East Germany. The Asian Tigers had not happened. Chile and Argentina got rid of their dictators and turned democratic and increasingly prosperous. Etc, etc.
Good grief!!! I’m no historian, but it seems like geopolitics has changed a lot in the last 40 years.
What could happen in the next decade? What about the next 4 decades? Internal revolution in Iran and the removal of Ahmeddinnerjacket? Upheaval in the Islamic church due to the extremist problem, and rewriting/updating of the Koran? Internal revolution in China, removal of the Communist Party and the start of democratic rule?
Why not? Stranger things have happened.
Maybe on Australia Day he’ll start off his speech with “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi,oi,oi.”
Sure, the speech is bland, boring and Ruddite. But, at least unlike Howard, he can see the dangers in the future. Now he just has to come up with a way to deal with it, and, most importantly put it into action.
At least its not divisive, nasty, and a re-run of the pointless history/culture wars. And that’s something.
Hear, Hear, Paul.
I’m sure, Elise, that we can all think of things he hasn’t mentioned, or at least things we wish he would mention. I’m happy for him not to try to please me. What better than that he should speak of what’s reallty on his mind. And do we doubt it? After almost three years of him are any of us really surprised? No double speak anyway.
Imagine if he’d done an Abbott and come up with a few revised priorities or re-thinks on major issues like climate.
Morgan Poll suggests that a significant majority of us are very happy to trust his
judgement on priorities for the nation.
@70, very defensive position Patricia WA. “Don’t you dare criticise Rudd, imagine if he were Abbott, and we all think he’s great, etc, etc”
I was simply discussing what we might surmise about the future. It seems to me a more positive approach than harping on about too many retirees and getting everyone to work harder &/or longer.
Other changes in the next decade:
Fidel and Raul Castro fall off their perches, and Cuba turns into a democracy?
Kim Jong-il falls off his perch, is replaced by his son Kim Jong-Un, who does not manage the same tight grip as Papa? Internal revolution and change?
Chavez turns senile and is forcibly removed? Venezuela runs out of oil, and thus out of money for the autocracy to pay the army and the poor? The educated classes flee the country in ever increasing numbers?
The middle east runs out of oil, thus out of money to support their autocracies, mullahs, imams and Ayatollahs? Aw shit…Then what happens?
Any guesses?
I’m preparing the doomstead as we speak, Elise …
I’m joking, of course, but the consequences of some of those things will be unpleasant.
Not quite that, Elise. I do think he’s a bit pedestrian, and at heart I would want him to be a bit more charismatic and not to have eaten his ear wax. Yes, he is doing a good job, but I don’t think he’s “great” in the one-eyed sense you imagine. I’m one eyed about Labor and am relieved now that we’ve settled for a sound leader. So I go in to bat for him when I feel he’s being unfairly criticised. I would much have preferred someone like Lindsay Tanner, but he obviously hasn’t the ambition or ruthlessness it takes to get that top job.
I must admit I have to keep telling myself there must be more to Rudd close up and personal for him to keep Therese Rein such a clearly happy woman. It makes up for the ear wax!
I’m no great Rudd fan. If I thought about it for a few minutes I could probably come up with 10 things (at least) that he’s either disappointed me in or really pissed me off. But, compared to Abbott or Howard (or even Turnbull), give me Rudd anyday. His Government still hasn’t lost the refreshing habit of not lying to us. Mind you, he does need a better speechwriter. And, at the risk of being an intellectual snob, I like a PM who thinks about things, a fellow whose mind extends beyond his childhood prejudices and/or brainwashing and once in the blue moon actually has an idea beyond cricket or the non-existent international leftwing/green/communist/socialist conspiracy.
Paul Burns @75, Yep, I was barracking for Rudd at the last election too. And his team is significantly better than the rabble on the opposition benches.
However, I will be voting Greens at the next election, if he doesn’t quit with the jawboning and deliver some REAL action on climate change.
Real action does NOT mean more money to the Coal Lobby for BS smoke and mirrors on “Clean Coal”, or that useless CPRS scheme.
Real action means things like:
- beefed-up targets for renewable energy,
- incentivising feed-in tariffs for clean energy,
- smart power, smart grids,
- sustainable home standards for the building industry,
- reduced stamp duty and lower registration fees on low emission cars (e.g. 10L/100km),
- ramped increasing percentage of low emission cars mandatory for all car sales outlets,
- etc.
This household will be doing their bit to get more Greens into both houses, if Rudd doesn’t quit the political grandstanding and do something that makes a real difference.
Oops, slipped a cog there!
Should read:
- reduced stamp duty and lower registration fees on low emission cars (e.g. 10L/100km)
Somehow I must have deleted a line.
There’s a gremlin in the system. It has happened twice. Someone is altering my text.
One more try. Maybe the gremlin was the “less than” and “more than” symbols?
Should read:
- reduced stamp duty and lower registration fees on low emission cars (e.g. less than 6L/100km)
- increased stamp duty and higher registration fees on high emission cars (e.g. more than 10L/100km)
Hopefully the gremlin has knocked off for the day?
anthony nolan @64, certainly not all of us have had the NSW experience, however, everyone has had 11.5 years experience of a federal Liberal government. The result of that experience is that I will never trust the Libs under any circumstances at any level of government.
Elise,
Agree with you absolutely.
Jane @80: well of course. I’ve never voted for people who tried to send me to die in Vietnam and never would. Muthaphuckers. It is just a case of how to spend the vote well when the choices are odious.
anthony nolan, your reasons for not ever voting Liberal seem to be exactly the same as mine.
No one rushing to comment on the Weekend Australian award of Australian of the Year to Kevin Rudd? Compared to John Curtin and credited with saving Australia from the world wide recession? I see from Wikepedia that General MacArthur credited Curtin with “the preservation of Australia from invasion”. The Australian commends Rudd in no less glowing terms.
These are different and more cynical times, of course, but I was struck by how much like Curtin in appearance is our current PM. And they do share that major character trait so much derided by the MSM these days, workaholism. In Curtin this was praised as almost saint-like self sacrifice in toil on behalf of the nation. I even saw a reference to Curtin delivering the very first national speech from Canberra in 1943 looking forward to the post-war economic reconstruction of the country. No one seemed to be complaining then that it was uninspiring and dull verbosity from a policy wonk.
Jumping out of Wikepedia too came a picture of Curtin with his comfortably curved and smiling wife, Elsie. Dead ringers for today’s Rudd and Therese.
And yes, I do know how different that marriage was from the latest one, but the photograph was so strikingly similar to many of Rudd and Therese together that it made me laugh.
Well, Patricia WA, I didn’t know Rudd got the award. Apart from links on LP, I barely read the rag. Tony will be pleased. I wouldn’t rush to congratulate him on whaling, some aspects of refugee policy, being in Afghanistan, or climate change. Still, the Libs couldn’t have done it.
Oh,and Curtin did NOT save Australia from invasion by the Japanese. The Japanese were never going to invade us. Their military policy towards Oz was a raids only policy.
David Irving @83:
“your reasons for not ever voting Liberal seem to be exactly the same as mine.”
That’s good. Nice to meet you. It’s no good living with short memories.
Patricia: you may be on to something about the character of Australia with the Curtin/Rudd thing. That’s very interesting.