Stimulate This!

I spent the entire day with my ears tuned to the radio frequency broadcasting the live Senate hearing. At the centre of heated debates is the Rudd government’s $42 billion stimulus package (SP). The entire Labour party sang in tune, supporting the PM’s latest economic-crisis antidote and repeated their slogan of the week: ‘support jobs’ relentlessly. On the hand, the Coalition had a field day, deeming today as a perfect opportunity to show-off their sentence re-arrangement skills and threw tantrums like a bunch of five year-old kids during Question Time. One things for sure, what an eye-opener to Australian politics!

Despite the drama and metronome-like boom of ‘Order! Order! *insert name* please remain seated’, the two sides did have valid points. I’m here to summarise what one was able to retain and of course poke fun at the a few comments that were made.

Main Points

1. High emphasis on debt that will eventuate from the SP and repeatedly played the ‘think of the children’ card by Coalition.

Umm.. hello?! Would you rather [option A]: job losses, malnourished industry sectors and record-breaking cues at Centre Link claiming unemployment support. Thus putting enormous pressure on Government social security spending leading to low budget deficit in short term and no swinging punch when the crisis blows over. Then we can all dive into a deep, deep deficit. OR [option B] sustained employment and possibly job-creation, upgrade of education and nation infrastructure and risk running a deficit for the next two to five years and come out of crisis with at least an engine running?

2. A valid point was made (surprised? So was I!) — SP needs to consider injection into Health System and Government agencies in order to keep alive small business, which rely upon them. The late payments have resulted in lack of cash-flow, rendering whatever supporting Government incentive useless because zero dollars could be committed to take advantage of it.

3. Accusation filled with weak shots such as ‘Labour’s budget deficit’ were repeated constantly. The economic crisis was not a result of irresponsible Government behaviour but rather consequences of naughty finance and banking cowboys, majority in the US, EU and UK and domino collapses of once-solid institutions. The nation is taking hits from all over. The projected surplus evolving into a deficit should not be a surprise to the well-educated Senators that fill those big chairs because we are part of a connected global, free trade economy. If they are down then so are we!

Coalition need to accept they have run out crowd-pleasers and have sank to the level of pure politics and debating for the sake of showing Australia they have a fully-functioning mouth and voice box. I understand propositions need to be scrutinised but unless they have a better idea then we should just all get on with it.

Biff of the Day: was no doubt with Senator Coonan (Liberal, NSW). It was her mission to be as ‘wordy’ as she possibly could and just a pain. She has an impressive C.V. though. I was all :O

Links:
For a peak at the SP
A Fair Comment
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