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Calliope

Calliope

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I can't wait to see Bronwyn Bishop installed as Speaker by the Coalition. She has a lot of old scores to settle, especially with Anthony Albanese. He will probably be expelled from the chamber at the first sitting.:D

Perhaps the most symbolic appointment Abbott will make in his first six months will be selecting the next Governor-General. Given it will cover the period that marks the centenary of the Anzac landing at Gallipoli, General Peter Cosgrove is a hot favourite.

One of other big jobs will be the Speaker of the House of Representatives. That is a very prestigious and well-paid job and might help Abbott find space in his frontbench. Some have tried to shift Kevin Andrews into the post but he's expected to be Families Minister. Bronwyn Bishop may be in line.
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http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/op...right-experience/story-fni0fheo-1226712362490
 
Lets hope he does what he says in regards to the public service.

Just look at the small Govt public service levels of the Howard Govt :D He really had the after burners running hot.

Reminds me of the graphs for house price inflation under Howard.
 

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The trend in public service numbers in Tony Abbott's first term I suspect will more reflect John Howard's first term than his last.
 
drsmith said:
The trend in public service numbers in Tony Abbott's first term I suspect will more reflect John Howard's first term than his last.
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No Government since WW 2 has managed to reduce the size of Government. He will have to start early and be prepared to cop the flak from the nay-sayers like Newman has copped, mainly from the unions.

While Mr Abbott recognises the nexus between smaller government and economic growth, he has been less forthcoming on the fiscal imperative to cut government spending. It is understandable that Mr Abbott might be unwilling to announce any policies that hint of austerity in an election such as this, but we take heart from his commitment to a comprehensive audit of commonwealth spending should the Coalition win office. Yet we sincerely hope that Mr Abbott and his team are prepared for the scale of the task ahead. They must achieve what no administration has been able to do since World War II and reduce the size of government. The task will be made harder by the Coalition's politically expedient pre-commitment to the school and disability reform packages, not to mention Mr Abbott's private political indulgence of paid parental leave. Each may be justified in policy terms, but they represent recurrent spending liabilities that will have to be offset by cutting programs elsewhere.
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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...ational-interest/story-e6frg71x-1226712357716
 
Calliope said:
No Government since WW 2 has managed to reduce the size of Government. He will have to start early and be prepared to cop the flak from the nay-sayers like Newman has copped, mainly from the unions.
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Judging by the trend from 1998 to 1999, John Howard must have at least given it a nasty shake in his first term. Another factor could be that since WW2, most governments have been elected for multiple terms.

There's no doubt though that an Abbott government is going to face an interesting fiscal challenge made even more interesting by some of their policy mix.
 
Calliope said:
Yes, he would be well advised to do as Rudd says and "cut cut cut" the Public Service to "the bone". There's plenty of fat there.
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drsmith said:
The trend in public service numbers in Tony Abbott's first term I suspect will more reflect John Howard's first term than his last.
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I hope it's not at he bottom end. Over the last 2 decades the front line to management ratio has fallend from 4:1 to 2.4:1

So in theory they could remove a lot of expensive managers without having to great an effect on service delivery.

Whether he has the cajones to do this, will be interesting.

I dare say natural attrition will not remove many at the managerial level.
 
wayneL said:
I find it interesting that Abbott is considered right wing and/or conservative, Seems more along the lines of a social liberal IMO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism
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More along the lines of social populist?

Maybe the "blackhole" he'll discover in a few months will give him the fig leaf to do what needs to be done.

How he argues for the cuts required when he's fought against most of Labors will be interesting. I can see some of his arguments being used against him, especially after his car FBT howls of outrage.
 
sydboy007 said:
More along the lines of social populist?
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We live in a society where the self interested plebs must be bribed for votes. Just the way it is.

There is no way that anyone with a fiscally responsible program will get elected.
 
drsmith said:
That's what usually happens and it won't matter who's in office. The black hole is there regardless.
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The issue I have with the blackhole is a budget is a forecast. The politicians like to make out they're written in stone, but it's just the best guess as to how things will pan out.

Personally I think treasury is still being wildly optimistic with the amount of revenue that will be coming in.

The true test of Abbott will be if the new forecasts are actually more in line with recent history or not. If not then i can see too many more deficits rolling through.

Anyone who believes the "golden" years of Howard will return after tomorrow are in for a rude awakening. Households can't take on any more debt, so I don't see the Federal Govt being able to save too much if the household sector is deleveraging, or at best is holding still.
 
sydboy007 said:
The issue I have with the blackhole is a budget is a forecast. The politicians like to make out they're written in stone, but it's just the best guess as to how things will pan out.

Personally I think treasury is still being wildly optimistic with the amount of revenue that will be coming in.

The true test of Abbott will be if the new forecasts are actually more in line with recent history or not. If not then i can see too many more deficits rolling through.

Anyone who believes the "golden" years of Howard will return after tomorrow are in for a rude awakening. Households can't take on any more debt, so I don't see the Federal Govt being able to save too much if the household sector is deleveraging, or at best is holding still.
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I think the Abbott team are fully cognizant of this point, however I repeat my earlier point, the plebs will not vote for those who tell the truth.

The successful coalition gu'mint will have to engage in some clever subterfuge in rehabilitating the economy while placating pork barrellees.

A tough gig.
 
wayneL said:
...The successful coalition gu'mint will have to engage in some clever subterfuge in rehabilitating the economy while placating pork barrellees.

A tough gig.
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Clearly the reason the libs have retained the Better Schools program and the NDIS. But only time will tell if they can rehabilitate the economy while keeping these large ticket items including their own PPL.

But then, what's the point of paying off too much debt? Labor will one day get back in and go on another massive spending spree - at least that seems to be the cycle.
 
One advantage of having a conservative government is that people will be more optimistic and start spending again. As a self-funded retiree I have a personal interest in bank deposit interests getting back to levels where taxes and rates don't cancel out the earnings. The official interest rates and bank interest rates are at record lows. Low interest rates are indicative of a faltering economy.

People in my situation don't have mortgages and hopefully an improvement in the economy will lead to a rise in interest rates.
 
Calliope said:
One advantage of having a conservative government is that people will be more optimistic and start spending again. As a self-funded retiree I have a personal interest in bank deposit interests getting back to levels where taxes and rates don't cancel out the earnings. The official interest rates and bank interest rates are at record lows. Low interest rates are indicative of a faltering economy.

People in my situation don't have mortgages and hopefully an improvement in the economy will lead to a rise in interest rates.
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I hope you're right, but looking at the current momentum in the economy, I think we'll at best see a small sugar hit, then the continual downward trend unless the rest of the world picks up. We are price takers for pretty much all our exports.

Once the ToT of starts falling again the negative income shock is going to be quite deflationary, which is what we've been seeing over the last 18-24 months. GDP looks OK (per capita is looking sad on a real basis at 0.1% last qtr) but GNI has been stagnant for quite some time (real per capita GNI has been falling).

There's little the Govt can do about this, thought they like to pretend they have some magical ability to "control" a piddly small economy from a global perspective. We had an overvalued currency for an extended period of time that has decimated local manufacturing and domestic sectors, and now we'll face ever escalating petrol prices as the $ has to overshoot on the way down to compensate for the high cost country we've become. It's not a recipe for above trend economic growth.

I fear a bleak future in that we will have to accept living within our means for at least the next decade. It's something neither party has had to deal with for a long time. It hopefully wont be as bad as Europe or the USA, but for a lot of people it will feel like it simply because they're not "equity mate" propping up their exorbitant lifestyles.
 

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