This was the moment. After the disaster that was the federal election, after all the talk of squat toilets and UN climate conspiracies, it was time for Malcolm Turnbull to get on with the business of governing. His speech yesterday was to lay out the economic challenges facing Australia, and outline a broad vision for how to transition our economy from the mining boom to what comes next.
Turnbull was badly wedged by Nick Xenophon’s economic protectionism during the election campaign, so surely he would acknowledge that Australia has fallen out of love with globalisation.
“Protectionism offers nothing but declining living standards to Australia. Regional Australia in particular has a vital vested interest in our opening more markets — indeed the agricultural export ‘dining boom’ has offset, at least in part, the consequences of the downturn in mining construction activity in many parts of regional Australia.”
That is disingenuous. As Turnbull well knows, protectionism offers more than declining living standards. It also offers the state of South Australia, bought for a $50 billion submarine contract.
And at a time when Turnbull needed to show real leadership, to get the country back on track after all of the nonsense and distractions we’ve had in the past few weeks, this was the most interesting part of the speech:
“We took our positive economic plan for investment, jobs and growth to the election and now returned to Government, we will work to deliver it.
[Interruption]
It’s going to be a long three years.
The Prime Minister (like others before him) has a single primary objective . . . . to retain the Office he currently holds!
This was the day after he and Jethro (members of the Howard – dairy deregulation – government) went to see what Murray Goulburn wanted to do?
Turnbull has learned nothing from his very own near death election.
Being Liberal means never having to say sorry!
Dear Crikey,
is Bernard Keane putting anti-protectionism voodoo in your drinking water? The ‘benefits’ of so-called “free” trade aren’t what reality tells us.
… and while I’m at it, could ‘someone’ start exploring the hypocrisy of “free” markets-lovers who aren’t so keen on “free” markets for human labour. I’d like a lot less protectionism around refugees and a fair bit more protectionism around international capital. Some kind of happy medium, where we as a society decide on human and capital movements based on rational, humane, egalitarian principles.
Weird as Talcum’s blatherings have become, I look forward to how Barnaby Rudge sells the shit sandwich to his electorate.
I cannot see the mechanics of it but surely the rural vote and Greens have far more in common than otherwise.
Even the perceived disagreements are manipulated than real.
Certainly, on current settings, not with the AltLibParty.