Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is currently learning the hard way a political lesson that, if he’d bothered to ask, Labor veterans of the financial crisis could have offered him for free: no one remembers that you saved the economy, just the money you wasted in doing so.
The Rudd government, with the help of the Reserve Bank, saved Australia from deep recession of the kind that inflicted misery in so many other countries with a well-designed stimulus program that now looks paltry compared to the Morrison government’s economic support programs. But once political business-as-usual resumed, it became the victim of a political counterfactual — hundreds of thousands of jobs hadn’t been lost, and the people who were the beneficiaries of that were none the wiser. All people saw were the stories of allegations of mismanagement of the school halls program, and the deaths of people employed by shonks and spivs lured into the housing insulation program.
The $16 billion schools halls program turned out to be brilliantly successful — despite an incessant and successful misinformation campaign waged against it by News Corp and the ABC — according to an independent review and an auditor-general’s review. But to this day, voters likely recall only ABC journalists describing it as a “debacle” rather than the 120,000 jobs it supported or the extensive educational infrastructure it left in every school in the country.
JobKeeper, too, was brilliantly successful at keeping people in jobs — hundreds of thousands of them — and if it didn’t save us from recession, it saved us from profound economic dislocation. But it’s likely going to end up being more associated with big corporations and Australia’s wealthiest people taking billions in taxpayer dollars they’re not entitled to. And this time, perceptions of rorting and bungling are well-justified.
Despite the lack of school halls-style ABC or News Corp campaigns attacking JobKeeper, its design flaws have kept returning to the spotlight, courtesy of an assiduous campaign by Labor’s Andrew Leigh, and the public reporting of JobKeeper funds by large companies, many of whom enjoyed spectacular profits in the pandemic, not the 50% drop in revenue that was the threshold for large firms to access the payments.
Joe Aston at the Financial Review has also hammered Frydenberg over and over about the way zero safeguards or clawbacks were built in at the start — and Frydenberg’s apparent insouciance about even finding out how many companies received JobKeeper that shouldn’t have. The contrast with the government’s disgusting and illegal abuse of welfare recipients via Robodebt — for which no minister or senior bureaucrat in Canberra has ever been held accountable — makes Frydenberg’s lack of interest all the more galling.
Despite the treasurer’s complete lack of curiosity, Labor and some journalists have steadily compiled a record of who rorted JobKeeper — and the staggering costs, running into the billions, of companies taking JobKeeper when they enjoyed increased revenue, not falling revenue.
And as a result, Frydenberg can’t afford to be insouciant anymore. The government is sufficiently worried about the issue that Frydenberg fronted 7.30 last night to get a proper grilling from Leigh Sales, and he struggled with his main line, that if some sort of clawback mechanism had been inserted at the start, firms would have been reluctant to participate in the program.
The objection to that is straightforward — a clawback mechanism could have been designed to not deter good faith participation, or with thresholds so that clawback was only triggered by significant diversion from anticipated revenues, or as a percentage of the JobKeeper payments received, so that any firm could have participated knowing they would under no circumstances be worse off, and might even make a small profit from JobKeeper even if they ended up not being qualified.
Whether such mechanisms were discussed within Treasury isn’t clear — it’s hard to believe someone within Treasury didn’t raise the issue, even if nothing was committed to paper.
The only solution for Frydenberg is an inquiry. He could have full judicial review, of the kind that Tony Abbott demanded into the school halls program. If it was good enough for a $16 billion program back in 2010, it’s good for a $90 billion program now. Or he could settle for an independent review by external experts and an ANAO audit, like Labor did. But JobKeeper won’t go away like Frydenberg hoped it would.
Frydenburg also turned up on RN Breakfast radio this morning, to be ever-so-gently grilled by Fran Kelly. He repeated the lie that it was necessary for JobKeeper to have no claw-back mechanism for fear of scaring away anyone who might apply. Even more egregiously he decribed Robodebt as a great success in identifying those who had illegally claimed welfare. There was no hint he was aware the courts had found Robodebt had no legal basis for accusing anyone of owing money to the government. Nothing was said about the consequences of these false accusations against some of the poorest Australians.
Fran Kelly let all this sail through unchallenged.
Absolutely, limp lettuce leaves all over the floor after that one. I had the misfortune of hearing it, having lapsed into occasional RN Morning listing during a Fran absence.
Furious to hear the unchallenged comment about “illegal”l robodebt being compared to JobKeeper. Despite the government being completly eviscerated over that brutal, murderous debacle they are still using it to abuse the unemployed.
I can’t listen to Kelly any more. Her disgraceful caressing of LNP politicians sends my BP up to dangerous levels and I find myself shouting at the radio.
Yes, and I too might have reached my Kelly limit now. It is truly bizarre that for years now so many government ministers refuse any invitation to appear on RN Breakfast, apparently in fear of Kelly’s ferocious interrogation technique. More realistically they should worry about being licked to death.
A bit of the Sarah F would be better….
Thanks for making the connection with the two worthy Rudd Schemes and the following untruthful trashing. If polling can be believed young Joshy will be hard-pressed to hold onto his seat even without this escalating scandal. Delightful.
I’d like to see a replay of Josh, with a fixated smile on his dial, getting eviserated by Jay Wetherill in Adelaide over his lying concerning blackouts and storms. Because of where his seat is he puts on the act of being a ‘Llberal while dusting his portraits of Thatcher and Reagan. Nail him Labor.
Great stuff BK. Two really great articles today – on their own they justify an annual sub.
Answer me this, please: Do those who join the Liberal/ Nationals coalition start off with the intentions of dping good for their country, or do they climb on board with tne ontentions of ripping of their constituents – are they turned rogue by those surrounding, or is the way they always were?
Daibhin, there’ll be people falling into both categories no doubt, but i can share this with you, from personal experience:- i was brought up in the leafy north shore of Sydney, was educated at a very exclusive grammar school, and we were absolutely indoctrinated with the belief that we were born to lead, and therefore justifiable recipients of wealth, status etc. No question. In fact, you don’t even realise that that is your belief system, such is the profoundly deep nature of that idea planted within you. You can even somehow convince yourself that you are a self-made success story, even as you move up the ladder of the law firm or financial institute your dad’s mate runs.
When you unquestionably think you have all this wealth and privilege because you’ve earned it, it’s a simple jump to thinking that those who don’t have any of it, are lazy and/or stupid and not only deserve no help, but deserve to be punished.
I escaped from that world back in the early 80s, and even though I can’t bear those born-to-rule types, I can still remember exactly what it felt like to be one, and how their minds work, and what their underlying motives are. And their mission in life is to maintain and fortify the natural order of things ie superiors ruling the inferiors, and they genuinely believe that this is a good and just thing that they are doing.
The role of certain private schools in creating the ethos you describe is extraordinary and deserves a lot more attention.
Perhaps the most successful of them all is Eton College in the UK. There are 55 Prime Ministers of England / the UK to date (Robert Walpole was the first) and 20 of them were schooled at Eton. Training the ruling elite is fundamental to the place. A clue about what that involves may be found in a question included in its entrance exam in 2011. This is what the 13-year-old boys taking the exam were asked:
‘The year is 2040. There have been riots in the streets of London after Britain has run out of petrol because of an oil crisis in the Middle East. Protesters have attacked public buildings. Several policemen have died. Consequently, the Government has deployed the Army to curb the protests. After two days the protests have been stopped but 25 protesters have been killed by the Army. You are the Prime Minister. Write the script for a speech to be broadcast to the nation in which you explain why employing the Army against violent protesters was the only option available to you and one which was both necessary and moral.’
The clever thing about having those kind of exam questions is that later on, when they are PM, they already have their inaugural speeches ready to go.
Was it Shore that Morrison acolytes – Abbot, Hockey et al went to.
I’m sure frydo went to a suitable equicvant LNP school in Melbourne . .
It happens here too!
From Wikpedia:
Abbott attended primary school at St Aloysius’ College at Milson’s Point, before completing his secondary school education at St Ignatius’ College, Riverview,
Hockey attended St Aloysius’ College, Milsons Point
Neither of them a great advertisement for the much vaunted rigour of a Jesuit education.
For the record, Abbott and Hockey were both educated by the Jesuits – St. Ignatius, Riverview and St. Aloysisus Milsons Point respectively. Frydenburg’s schooling was at Mt. Scopus College.
Christ!
or Jehovah!!
We’re you imbued with casual racism like Boris Johnson of Eton?
I think the only people who would join the LNP are people already connected to the LNP, like the children of politicians*. So the answer is they always had intentions of ripping off their constituents (and everybody else’s constituents, too).
*What duds they are – the only thing worse is 3rd generation Libs.
“start off with the intentions of dping good for their country,” I know it’s a genuine typo, but being ‘dp’d’ describes something else completely, but the end result remains the same, someone gets F…..d!
Guessing that even though the Jobkeeper program met its target (more money to the shareholders), admitting the program was set up as a money dump breaks the neoliberal illusion that enriching the wealthy is the unintended outcome of programs that keep society together as a whole.
Though I’m sure Frydenburg knows that the electorate won’t punish them for this, like they haven’t punished massive rorting or outright corruption, so it’s just a matter of riding out the criticism until the news cycle moves on. The rich get richer, those in power are rewarded with 3 more years, and there’s sure to be some class warfare to be made of a poor person getting a few dollars too many soon enough.