The Monthly has been keeping us abreast of what is happening in the
world of politics in the lead-up to Saturday’s Federal Election.This latest post brings alarming news – judge it as you will, but if ever the idea of “cheating” could be levelled at a political party for its election campaign behaviour, this is it.
The Liberal Party has always nosily trumpeted it economic strengths, but in this instance it has excelled only at avoiding a confrontation with reality – it’s primary opponents, the Labor Party, has clearly done well at managing Australia’s economy in rather difficult circumstances, but in treating electors like dills, the Liberals have not given us accurate figures, rather we have been taken up the garden path.
This
what The Monthly editor, Nick Feik, wrote:
FIGURES
IN HIDING
The Coalition has been remarkably adept at avoiding scrutiny of
its economic policies and rhetoric throughout the campaign, and this continues
today.
It won't release official costings, and has no intention of releasing any before the election. Instead Hockey will present an isolated set of figures purporting to list policies that will marginally improve the budget position, reportedly by $6 billion over the next 4 years.
Nevertheless, voters around the country are today seeing headlines such as 'Coalition savings hit $40 billion,' and articles suggesting the Coalition's costings will all be revealed.
The people voting – and the 2 million who have already voted – are poorly served by ongoing coverage such as this.
The bottom line is that the Coalition is promising to make no major cuts to the budget. Ironically, after years of 'debt and deficit' talk, it is going to the election with a policy platform that entirely sidesteps the 'budget emergency' that it decried.
One final point: the Coalition's excuse for not releasing even these costings until the last days of the campaign was that it couldn't do so until it had announced all of its policies. The Coalition hasn't announced any policies that would have any serious fiscal impact for over a week. Voters are being played for mugs.
It won't release official costings, and has no intention of releasing any before the election. Instead Hockey will present an isolated set of figures purporting to list policies that will marginally improve the budget position, reportedly by $6 billion over the next 4 years.
Nevertheless, voters around the country are today seeing headlines such as 'Coalition savings hit $40 billion,' and articles suggesting the Coalition's costings will all be revealed.
The people voting – and the 2 million who have already voted – are poorly served by ongoing coverage such as this.
The bottom line is that the Coalition is promising to make no major cuts to the budget. Ironically, after years of 'debt and deficit' talk, it is going to the election with a policy platform that entirely sidesteps the 'budget emergency' that it decried.
One final point: the Coalition's excuse for not releasing even these costings until the last days of the campaign was that it couldn't do so until it had announced all of its policies. The Coalition hasn't announced any policies that would have any serious fiscal impact for over a week. Voters are being played for mugs.
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