When is it wrong to write 5.3% as “around 5 and a half percent”? Not when the Reserve Bank does it. According to Nick Cater and Judith Sloan, the answer seems to be “when the writer is a member of the Labor Party”. Over recent weeks, the duo has mounted a bizarre attack on an opinion article that I had published online in The New York Times at the start of October. The critiques are as fatuous as they are false.
Sloan says of me: “He claims that labour’s share of national income in Australia has fallen, which it has not.” She may wish to discuss this claim with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which wrote earlier this year: “the labour share of income has declined over the past two decades in Australia”. Then there’s Cater’s attempt to revive the discredited idea that tax cuts like those implemented by Donald Trump “frequently lead to a rise in revenue”. According to the independent US Congressional Budget Office, the Republican tax cuts will increase that nation’s debt by $1.9 trillion between 2018 and 2028.
Both Sloan and Cater also angrily fault my October 9 article for its failure to use statistics released on October 18. It’s not clear whether they are clumsy or deliberately trying to deceive their readers. Worse yet, perhaps they just don’t care about the truth — just whether they can score a partisan point.
Apparently it was perfectly fine for Josh Frydenberg to write on the UK Spectator website in 2012 that Julia Gillard was “dumbing down… our foreign policy” and “cheapens our parliament with a trumped up and false charge of misogyny”. But for me to discuss the challenges of the Australian economy on The New York Times website (with no direct critique of the current government) is tantamount to high treason. Cater and Sloan rushed in like Liberal Party stormtroopers; those who firecely defend whatever the Morrison government happens to be saying that day.
In the big picture, Cater and Sloan are really just two bit players in a larger drama. From Breitbart to Fox, America is seeing the rise of “cheer squad media”, whose role is to amplify and repeat their own side’s talking points, and demonise their opponents. The traditional tasks of scrutinising policy and discussing the future are replaced by a daily battle to shield friends and wound enemies. It’s a humourless style that’s devoid of nuance and curiosity, in which the aim is to provoke anger rather than understanding.
It is only because Labor has eschewed “small target” politics in favour of hard decisions that we are able to make a triple-pledge to Australian voters: larger personal income tax cuts for most Australians, more funding to fix our hospitals and public schools, and bigger budget surpluses than the Coalition. Perhaps that agenda evokes the hatred of the far-right. If so, then I welcome it.
But if a Shorten government is fortunate enough to win a mandate at the next election, we won’t fight bile with bile. You won’t see a Shorten government attempting to use race-baiting and fear-mongering to win cheap headlines. You won’t see us demonising union members and fellow citizens who are reliant on income support to feed their families. We’ll create a national integrity commission, and restore stability to government. We’ll work with business, and pursue the proposal of an Indigenous voice to parliament.
Australia faces too many challenges to spiral into negativity. We need to get real wages rising again, play a larger leadership role in the Asia Pacific region, and diversify our economy. It’s vital we reduce inequality, close the gaps, and reverse the decline in school test scores. None of this is possible without a stronger sense of purpose and national unity — a shared vision that Australia isn’t just a great nation, but can be greater still in the decades to come.
Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, and hosts The Good Life, a podcast in which he interviews people about living a happier, healthier and more ethical life.
To the form guide.
Sloan is an anti-left/progressive conservative critic – who just happens to have a degree in economics – which for some reason is supposed to bestow her personal political opinions with gravitas?
Cater caters to the right.
Both “at home in the mud” and both “owned and trained” by Rupert Murdoch – running the stable he does to what political influential end he is – fed for their opinions no matter how unbalanced.
Facts don’t matter when you have opinion to peddle as news.
How does anyone take Judith Stone seriously.?? Her last stint on Q & A was so embarrassing for intelligent women . She didn’t seem to know what she was talking about and then blamed gender issues when she was pulled up on it. ??
One word ? Cringe
Same when she appears on The Drum. I am not an economist but I am an English teacher and it is clear to me that her arguments are illogical.
Damn Auto correct, Sloan
ahh, memories, you had me recalling the fey Judy Stone, a heart wrenching singer from the 60s Sydney.
Good luck, Andrew. I’m hoping that you will be an influential voice in a future Labor government. Keep your colleagues heads on when get a little swelled after thumping Morrison and co. And stick with evidence based policy over populist crap.
Yes, Mr Leigh is one of the very intelligent, quiet achievers sitting patiently in the wings on Labour’s side.
For what its worth, think the average voter is finally starting to smell the stench of desperation emanating from the Murdoch stables, and its public commentary.
The very bizarre right wing reactions to the Vic election as discussed here in Crikey, but very evidently on display over the weekend, just confirms how cornered and desperate they have all become. While the more astute have been on to them for some time, they are now all sounding to average voter as phony as Morrison.
I’m hoping they won’t change, so we will broom them all out as quickly as possible.
Amanda vanstone is another who writes solely on behalf of the lnp. She must be either stuck today or doing a look over here, on about bad Shorten and his republican push (I think, I actually can’t be bothered to read her columns).
As far as I can figure it Liberal govts have cut taxes to the tune of several hundred billions in the last 15 years. Most had few benefits to the medium to lower income hoi polloi. I remember well the three or four ‘pie and coke’ (per week) size cuts compared to ‘a la carte dinner’ size cuts for the higher income set and ‘weekend away’ size cuts for the wealthy that Costello delivered. Thanks mate!
Now we have Labor promising a ‘triple-pledge’ to voters including more tax cuts. I hope they comprehensively articulate just how they will deliver these cuts and provide more funds for hospitals, NDIS, the budget surplus without having to cut services. I keep waiting for the penny to drop because something is going to have to give somewhere…