A high price for Kevin’s Security Council seat. Kevin Rudd’s ambition to secure a seat for Australia on the United Nations Security Council is causing the first serious public rift for years within the Labor Party over Israel. The UN votes are in not siding with Israel but the Labor Party pre-Rudd has voted with Israel and the United States on matters involving a Palestinian state. The then Rudd government switched back in 2007 and the Foreign Minister wants to exercise the same “independence” again. The Prime Minister is unlikely to agree.
Clever at the time? The repeated commitments to return the federal budget to surplus by 2012-13 seemed like a politically astute thing to do when Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan made the promise first time around. This morning I detected a little irritation from the Treasurer when he was asked would he still give the same assurance. Given the turmoil in the financial world, the prudent politician would now be realising that there is always a downside to trying to get an advantage on the never-never.
Mumbo jumbo from the financial administrators. Finance ministers and central bankers speak a language all of their own. Goodness knows what they mean. Have read for yourself of the pronouncements overnight from the European Central Band the G7. I’ve posted them in full on Crikey’s The Stump blog.
Take this extract from the ECB:
It is on the basis of the above assessments that the ECB will actively implement its Securities Markets Program. This program has been designed to help restoring a better transmission of our monetary policy decisions — taking account of dysfunctional market segments — and therefore to ensure price stability in the euro area.
I have no idea what that means but note that the “expert” pundits say the European central bank is about to start buying up Italian government bonds as fast as it can. If that actually reassures anyone at all I will be staggered.
It’s moments such as this that I don’t mind not having fortune to worry about.
Listen to political scientists not accountants. There’s something strange about accountants from ratings agencies purporting to make a judgment about the financial security of the United States government. Whether the country can afford to pay its debts is not really in question. The US is still the richest country in the world. The money to get the budget back into balance can easily be raised. The doubts are about whether the politicians have the will to do so. So look for guidance from the political experts not the money men.
Democracy is sometimes a slow-working system but eventually voters will correct the madness.
Supporting a Palestinian state – let alone abstaining as Rudd wants – is not a high price to pay for a seat on the UN security council but is the only fair policy, as most of the world correctly believes.
Richard
In a functional political system, with a media that was even-handed, it would be quite legitimate for the promise about a return to surplus being “broken”, due to changed circumstances – apparent even to the most ill-informed.
Given that Australia currently has neither of these pre-conditions, we can expect a “gotcha” moment, when the return to surplus is inevitably delayed.
Tactically, the Treasurer and the PM cannot retreat at present, and should defer that “gotcha” moment as long as possible.
Time enough for them to be crucified later.
>This program has been designed to help restoring a better transmission of our monetary policy decisions — taking account of dysfunctional market segments — and therefore to ensure price stability in the euro area.
I think this translates into English as: we keep telling people X yet they keep believing Y. We think this will help make them believe us, and thus keep inflation down.