The MSM are finally realising (or, at least, reporting) that Wayne Swan has budget problems. He has never been up to the job. Before the 2007 election there was some speculation that he wouldn’t get the Treasurer job.
KEVIN Rudd has been forced into guaranteeing Wayne Swan will keep his treasury job a day after a blunder in which he said all frontbench positions, including his own, were up for grabs.
The Labor leader yesterday said the three “core members” of his economic team would keep their current responsibilities if he won Government.
Everyone else would be judged on their individual performances, Mr Rudd said.
There has been speculation that Workplace Relations spokeswoman Julia Gillard was eyeing Mr Swan’s treasury role and Mr Rudd fanned this talk by refusing to rule out plans on Wednesday to move Mr Swan elsewhere.
As it turns out Rudd’s job was up for grabs.
In addition to the budget still being in deficit and the government having no narrative about what its budget strategy is and the mining tax being a complete disaster, we read yesterday that the carbon tax has a $4 billion hole in it. Here is what the AFR say today:
Take the mining tax. The fact the tax raised only $126 million in the last half of 2012 could not possibly reflect weakness in export prices.
…
If the mining tax can’t raise revenue in this environment, then it never will. Note that this tax was supposed to raise $9 billion in revenue over the next four years, or just over $2 billion a year.
…
Then there’s the carbon tax. As reported in The Australian Financial Review this week, about another $4 billion could be taken out of annual budget revenues from 2015-16 if more realistic forecasts for the likely carbon emissions price are used. Treasury has currently pencilled in a carbon price of about $25 a tonne from July 2015, even though prices will be aligned with that in Europe – which is now between $5 and $6.
…
The Liberal opposition could now more comfortably ditch both the mining and carbon taxes – not because of the damage they would do to the economy, but because they are very cumbersome and inefficient ways of achieving their objectives.
This is all their own fault – we have a government that cannot tell the difference between forecast revenue and actual revenue and framing its spending agenda accordingly. The mining tax and the carbon tax have failed for reasons that were articulated at the time of their introduction. Fortunately there is much ruin in a nation, but little ruin in Wayne Swan’s ideas.
Even if he keeps his job to September, this government will be flung out of office by an appalled electorate. The incoming Treasurer and his team will have a very difficult task ahead of them.
I once thought Swan merely incompetent. But he is nasty, egotistical and a bully. He is immoral – willing to squander taxpayers’ money for his own aggrandisement. In short, Swan is evil. He is a disgrace who taints the Treasury benches. He will never rexign, so it is up to his oen party to remove him, or await the wrath of the people at the next election.
Samuel J
14 Feb 13 at 9:42 am
He is a toad with no redeeming features. May his balls be infested with lice and his fingers turn to claws.
Samuel J
14 Feb 13 at 9:47 am
BUt, but, but…he won an award?!
Toiling Mass
14 Feb 13 at 9:48 am
I still go with Whitlam at #1.
Sure, Julia’s govt has all the same incompetence of low rent unionists given other people’s money to spend…..but for pure comrade scumbaggery how do you top Grassby, Cairns, Connor, Murphy, Cameron….
Alfonso
14 Feb 13 at 9:48 am
I could be wrong, Samuel but I get the impression you’re not especially fond of Swan.
Gab
14 Feb 13 at 9:50 am
The funniest thing is that if the govt had a vaguely competent treasurer, it could at least cobble together some kind of electoral ‘last stand’ with which it could fall back on to, and presumably pray the electorate excuse the blistering waste of everyone’s frickin cash.
As it is, after kicking down ten doors to the house you’re met with little Wayne Swan holding a ‘Little Swingers’ baseball bat and trembling in a puddle of his own piss.
Andore Jr
14 Feb 13 at 9:50 am
Gab if Swan knocked on my door I’d send him on his way with a torrent of abuse. I’m not one to swear but I think Swan would inspire me to a new vocabulory
Samuel J
14 Feb 13 at 9:53 am
Could be worse, Samuel, just imagine if gillard got the Treasurer’s job instead of Swan.
Gab
14 Feb 13 at 9:56 am
The goose, zombet, von roxon, dillbeserk, pieman shortnin’, shagger, conboy, that bloke wrong, the musselman, bandit, oakeshitt, windbore, kevni ruff, etc, etc, etc…
Bloody easily.
Rabz
14 Feb 13 at 9:56 am
Dont scare me so Gab
Samuel J
14 Feb 13 at 9:57 am
‘Bloody easily.’
Maybe, but half of yours would have been routine pillars of rectitude by comparison if transplanted into Gough’s mob.
Julia of course is the exception, a champion in any era.
Alfonso
14 Feb 13 at 10:11 am
The govt also spent $38M advertising the mining tax. This should be deducted from the revenue to get a net amount from the tax.
“The Government plans to spend $38 million on an ad blitz after granting itself an exemption from its own advertising guidelines in a bid to counter the campaign being waged by mining companies against the changes.”
Neil
14 Feb 13 at 10:29 am
Samuel, don’t hold back mate — tell us how you really feel. Don’t worry though, I think the rest of us on the Cat are right there with you
tbh
14 Feb 13 at 10:35 am
The carbon tax and the mining tax could potentially be savings under an Abbott Government, which is better for their budget bottom line.
Andrew
14 Feb 13 at 10:35 am
This should not be underestimated.
DriftForge
14 Feb 13 at 10:38 am
Gillard and The Goose are like two mountaineers, roped together by their respective gross incompetence, somewhere in the death zone just waiting for nightfall.
H B Bear
14 Feb 13 at 10:39 am
Business Spectator:
Australian mining tax debacle intensifies pressure for deep budget cuts
Neil 14 Feb 13 at 10:29 am:
.
.
So it was $126 million
Then it was $88 million.
And now it’s $50 million?
JamesK
14 Feb 13 at 10:40 am
At least Whitlam had the good grace to be chopped liver after only three years. Six years of Rudd/Gillard/Swan or three of Gough et al? It’s getting harder to choose which is worse every week.
Craig Mc
14 Feb 13 at 10:43 am
JamesK – plus the growing liability to refund the State Royalties – that is growing at the risk-free rate plus 7 percent.
Sinclair Davidson
14 Feb 13 at 10:46 am
Alene Composta’s publisher and moose knuckle aficionado, Jonathan Green, tries to stick his finger in the dyke on Your ALPBC (courtesy of Mr Ann Summers and The Dumb of course).
H B Bear
14 Feb 13 at 10:49 am
Dennis Shanahan has a neat little column, Waiting for Godot, which I take to mean waiting for Swan et al to actually answer questions in an absurd theatre that is Labor during Question Time.
Gab
14 Feb 13 at 10:52 am
The MRRT was about Ms Gillard looking like a great negotiator and better than kevni. She’d be more than smart enough to know it was faulty, she was looking for popularity in the polls to justify herself as the new PM, in my opinion.
candy
14 Feb 13 at 10:59 am
I’m starting to think even watching Michael Kroger rip The Goose a new one on election night isn’t worth all this pain.
H B Bear
14 Feb 13 at 11:01 am
Mind you, that clip can be watched repeatedly.
DriftForge
14 Feb 13 at 11:05 am
Could this be the reason competent governments don’t sit down with taxpayers and ask them to design the taxes they are going to pay?
H B Bear
14 Feb 13 at 11:10 am
Spot on Candy. That’s been the MO right down the line…
“Whatever works today, never mind the fact that we know it is going to blow up in our faces down the track. Hell, we might not be here down the track.”
The only resemblance to actual governing is purely accidental.
mct
14 Feb 13 at 11:16 am
It’s the new
working familiesrelentless negativity.Shanahan nails it in that column.
C.L.
14 Feb 13 at 11:36 am
Gillard couldn’t negotiate a three point turn on an airport runway.
Splatacrobat
14 Feb 13 at 11:42 am
If Keating was the Placido Domingo of treasurers, Wayne would be the Tiny Tim.
blogstrop
14 Feb 13 at 12:32 pm
Niki Savva‘s take on the goose has some real pearls:
Cold-Hands
14 Feb 13 at 12:36 pm
Who wants to take a bet Swan will “retire for family reasons” rather than face
a) not winning his seat in the first place
b) having to sit in Opposition and be forced to listen to Abbott and Hockey talk about Swan’s failures on a daily basis and
c) the possibility of being on the BACK BENCHES – after all who would give him a front bench job after his failures as Treasurer?
Plus he can brag about saving us from the GFC and being the World’s Best Treasurer who stepped aside after leading us all out the wilderness -
Winnedge
14 Feb 13 at 1:31 pm
HB Bear
I read Greens article at the Drum and the pro-ALP comments underneath. Apparently this is the best of all psiible governments and it is that evil Murdoch who is brainwashing the people, presumably with some sort of secret mind twisting , so that they cannot see.
But it’s alright. Green and his online pals have got their tinfoil hats on, and can therefore resist the diabolical schemes of Murdoch the Slayer.
After all the ALP is only preceived as a failing rabble because it can’t get its message out. For example a new report by some economist or other has now shown that the Insulation Subsidy scheme was a howling success. Like the school computer scheme it came in on time and on budget, whilst increasing regulation in the naught unregulated insulation industry. it also saved us from the GFC.
Rococo Liberal
14 Feb 13 at 1:45 pm
As with Rudd, or indeed Gillard, what sort of a “business leader” would be intimidated by a phone call from any of these sooks?
Pickles
14 Feb 13 at 1:46 pm
The Goose is cooked. He is a laughing stock. Even the backbench now see what a buffoon he is.
Weeks not months, I suspect. And he is taking gillard with him.
I am the Walrus, koo koo k'choo
14 Feb 13 at 2:04 pm
If it really is $50 million taken by the tax after reductions in company tax and offset by the costs of establishing the tax, consider this.
If there are 10 million working age adults in Australia, that would be equivalent to each of them dropping about $5 in a year. If you add up all the dropped coins, lost notes and things that fall out of your pockets, it would add up to more than $50 million.
It really is a very bad joke. Destroy the mining pipeline by making new investment undesirable, yet fail to collect any real revenue, and destroy the political capital of two prime ministers in the process.
As thieves they are utterly, utterly hopeless. They might as well have taken the political hit and increased the petrol tax by 1c. It would have raised more money, been mostly forgotten by now and not affected sovereign risk or the investment pipeline.
brc
14 Feb 13 at 2:08 pm
I just heard Goose say that Labor doesn’t go down on bended knee to the miners like the LIbs do!!!!!
Excuse me…isn’t that EXACTLY what Goose and Gillard did and why we have this mining tax that doesn’t pay any tax!
And every time Gillard gets up and rants and raves, all I can see is
Olive from the On The Buses.
Winnedge
14 Feb 13 at 2:19 pm
Nothing else left for him to say, Winnedge.
I am the Walrus, koo koo k'choo
14 Feb 13 at 2:28 pm
All of which brings to mind the Liberty quote:
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. — Marcus Aurelius
Sirocco
14 Feb 13 at 3:07 pm