Tag Archive for 'shadow treasurer'

Julie Bishop: economy just fine, thanks

Published
by
Kim
1 year, 1 month ago
in Economics and Politics
. 45 Comments

There’s surprisingly good news on the employment front for January, with unemployment only increasing by .3%, full time employment holding steady and female full time employment rising substantially:

ANZ economist Katie Dean said the stimulus package had worked to retain jobs in January in tandem with aggressive interest rate cuts. “The stimulus measures are having an impact,” she said.

Interesting news for the Liberals, you’d think. The Shadow Treasurer’s reaction?

The Coalition’s Julie Bishop said it showed the jobs market was strong enough not to need the “$42 billion spending spree” rejected by the Senate.

Right then.

Live by the sword…

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 3 months ago
in Media and Politics
. 29 Comments

Julie Bishop’s been copping it from unnamed “senior Liberals” for her poor performance as shadow Treasurer, who’ve helpfully implied Malcolm Turnbull shares their worries, and suggested a few names to replace her (Dutton, Robb, Hockey) for good measure.

While Bishop has been massively unconvincing in the Treasury portfolio, it’s not only the Deputy Leader who should be concerned over this latest outburst of leaks to The Australian. Malcolm Turnbull and the rest of the Libs should also recall that Brendan Nelson was brought down as much by the constant dripfeed of negative stories to their mates in the press gallery, as by his own hapless efforts as Leader. What is now being done to Bishop (and the articles have been cleverly framed to keep the “narrative” alive for quite a while – by forcing her putative replacements to deny an interest, and thus further fuel the story) could be done to Turnbull tomorrow. As if to lay down a few markers, Peter Van Onselen published an otherwise bizarre op/ed on Saturday praising Peter Costello as the best available leader.

I’ve observed before that the opposition’s coziness with the press gallery does them no favours. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a way of resolving problems internally rather than in newspaper columns.

Does Julie Bishop’s plagiarism matter?

Published
by
Kim
1 year, 5 months ago
in Disasters, Media and Politics
. 63 Comments

Andrew Norton argues that the controversy over Julie Bishop’s lifting of a form of words from the Wall Street Journal is irrelevant, and tries to excuse it by arguing that politicians recite speeches written by departmental or political staff all the time. Hmmm… I don’t think it’s quite the same thing, for two reasons:

(a) Bishop is being heavily touted by the Opposition and their cheer squad in the media as being part of the magic restoration of the Liberals’ putatively natural advantage on economic management. This despite the fact that Malcolm Turnbull has given zero evidence of departing from either Nelson’s populist nonsense or his own wildly incoherent “inflation doesn’t exist, and if it does, it’s Wayne Swan’s fault” puerilities from earlier in the year. Bishop is a lawyer, and I suppose lawyers prosecute a case for their clients. Perhaps therefore lawyers can be excused from not understanding what they’re saying? Her alleged forensic skills as an advocate are supposed to be one of her pluses – according to the aforesaid press gallery boosters. But isn’t there a problem – as with Peter Costello – when lawyers holding financial portfolios basically know stuff all about the actual economy and are only touted as having “credibility” because they’re able to argue a case?

(b) This stuff sticks. Just ask Joe Biden. He’s still living down having plagiarised Neil Kinnock (of all people) in his unsuccessful run in the presidential primaries in 1988. So in the terms of realpolitik, it doesn’t matter if it should be a problem when politicians plagiarise. When they do, particularly – as with Bishop – right at the start of their tenure in an important new job – it won’t be forgotten by the public.