Albo’s handouts a threat to mortgage holders
The big political news of the week was undoubtedly the Reserve Bank’s decision to lower the cash rate for the first time in nearly five years.
It’s been a long wait for mortgage holders, who’ve had to endure 13 consecutive rate rises since the last cut, 12 of those increases since Labor won the 2022 election.
Not that rising interest rates over the last three years has been all Labor’s fault. Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers did inherit higher than normal inflation in the post-pandemic environment of 2022 – an inflation rate of about six per cent and rising.
once rates did start coming back down the movement was slow, so the RBA continued to raise rates before eventually leaving them on hold for over a year.
The RBA was never going to start dropping the cash rate until it was brought back down to its official target range of two to three per cent.
The headline rate is now within that band and the underlying inflation rate isn’t all that far behind. It probably took longer than it should have, courtesy of too much government spending and state and federal levels, but there’s no point crying over spilt milk now.
While economists are divided over whether the RBA did the right thing cutting rates now as opposed to in a few months’ time when (hopefully) underlying inflation falls a little further into the target range as well, the decision to cut rates this week is certainly justifiable…
…as long as we don’t now see a spending arms race on the campaign hustings.
That appears to have already started with today’s Medicare announcement. The government congratulating itself that the $8.5 billion being spent is the single largest investment in Medicare since its creation.
Borrowers breathed a sigh of relief when RBA boss Michele Bullock announced the first rate cut in nearly five years, after 13 consecutive rate rises. But Albo’s big spending could spoil it…
From Labor’s perspective, this rate cut is political manna from heaven, if only to help boost spirits ahead of a tight election campaign. Still, opinions are divided on whether one cut after 13 increases will change votes.
Nevertheless, Labor MPs would have been marching in the streets protesting an RBA decision to leave the cash rate where it was had the board gone in that direction.
Never mind that the loudest voices on the government backbench complaining about rates staying too high for too long don’t hold a single economics degree between them.
In fact, Albo is the only member of the cabinet’s powerful subcommittee that decides all things budget-related (the Expenditure Review Committee) to even have an economics degree.
The rest of them, including the Treasurer and Finance minister (if you can believe that) don’t have an economics qualification between them.
So don’t worry Australia, our trillion-dollar economy is in good (if financially illiterate) hands!
No sooner had the RBA announced its decision to drop the cash rate than the PM hit the airwaves telling anyone who would listen that they should stand at the ready for more cost-of-living relief to be announced very soon.
In other words, during the upcoming election campaign.
A spending arms race on the campaign hustings – sold under the election-friendly slogan of ‘cost-of-living relief’ – could undo all the hard work done to lower inflation. (Pictured: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers at Question Tim on June 5 last year)
Cost-of-living relief is a euphemism for more government spending, no doubt targeted at swing voters in traditionally marginal seats.
It’s also known as buying votes on the campaign trail. Who cares about the cost to the budget, right? Or the risk that more government spending might see inflation stop falling or, worse still, begin rising again?
And never mind that the RBA Governor Michele Bullock, when announcing the rate cut on Tuesday, made it crystal clear that rates will go back up again if inflation does.
Albo, who gleefully told the media he’ll be spending big during the campaign, clearly doesn’t care about the dangers doing so poses for mortgage holders or, indeed, anyone worried about rising prices – even despite Bullock’s clear warning.
He hopes election-eve handouts will buy people’s votes, unconcerned about the medium- to long-term impact such spending could ultimately have.
Put simply, it is deeply economically irresponsible to pledge fiscal profligacy when the RBA is politely asking for fiscal prudence.
But Albo’s political self-interest says spend, spend, spend and damn the economic consequences. Buying votes is more important. As former PM Paul Keating once said: ‘In the race of life always back self-interest, at least you know it’s trying.’
Leaked letter confirms agenda of Labor’s citizenship rush
A furore erupted this week over whether or not Labor’s immigration minister Tony Burke is attempting to flood marginal western Sydney seats with Labor-voting new Australian migrants in a bid to sandbag key seats for the government.
While the theory is so politically conniving that I’m surprised the idea didn’t pop up in an episode of House of Cards, it’s hard not to think something fishy is going on here.
It has emerged that thousands of new citizenships have been approved by the minister at five minutes to midnight before the election is called.
Tony Burke has been doing a pre-election blitz of citizenship ceremonies in crucial western Sydney seats. (Pictured: Mr Burke addressing new citizens in Blacktown on Tuesday)
Nearly 13,000 new citizens have magically appeared in key Labor-held seats under threat. (Muslim women clad in the burka are pictured in Lakemba, western Sydney, in November 2018)
We are talking about nearly 13,000 new citizens suddenly approved who just happen to live in key Labor-held seats under threat – including the electorates of Parramatta and Werriwa.
Daily Mail Australia can also confirm the immigration minister even wrote to mayors (who are outraged by the decision, by the way) explaining that he had asked his department to do this. So it was a political decision, not one made independently by bureaucrats.
And when it comes to internal party politicking, Burke isn’t exactly a nobody. He’s long been a numbers man with powerbroker credentials.
Burke used to work for the greatest numbers man of them all, Graham Richardson. He also holds a western Sydney seat himself. And Burke is part of the powerful NSW Right, which has been known to do a bit of political head-counting now and then.
Electoral research data tells us new migrants tend to vote predominantly Labor, not Coalition – especially new migrants based in Sydney’s west.
And I suspect that’s even more the case when they have gratefully received their citizenship at the hands of the Labor Party at the last minute.
Is this a stack on steriods?
Of course, Burke claims there is nothing to see here so we should all move on without questioning his decision.
But even if that’s true, surely now is the time to press the pause button on new migrants, even if, as Burke said publicly, those whom he approved had passed their citizenship test and were waiting in line.
So did that male nurse from Afghanistan who featured in the horrible video alongside a colleague claiming he’d killed Jews at Bankstown hospital.
Non-citizens who do the wrong thing can be deported, but if they have already been signed up, we are stuck with them.
Obviously few new citizens fall into that category, but it can happen. Most, of course, are law-abiding new Australians who pay their taxes and enhance our communities.
Like both my migrant parents did, for example.
But in the current climate, what’s the rush if it isn’t to stack electorates with newly minted Labor voters? Even if Labor isn’t cynically performing such a targeted stack to save its bacon at the election, it shouldn’t be rushing through new citizens in a climate where we know passing the character test doesn’t guarantee good behaviour.
The Bankstown nurse preaching antisemitic hate speaks to that.
Forget Airbus Albo, meet Private Jet Peter
The other week I had a crack at the PM for using his taxpayer-funded private jet to fly from Townsville to Brisbane for a party fundraiser before heading on to Alice Springs for what was supposed to be his real job the following day.
That would be fine if the public wasn’t picking up the bill for the Brisbane stopover.
Well, in the spirit of bipartisanship, it turns out the Opposition Leader is no better – and might even be worse.
Peter Dutton made a very short stopover in flood-affected North Queensland last week before jetting off to Darwin for a party fundraiser. I’ve watched movies that lasted longer.
I called out Albo last week for using his taxpayer-funded private jet to attend a private fundraiser. But in the spirit of bipartisanship, it turns out Peter Dutton (right, during a visit to flood-affected North Queensland last week) is no better – and might even be worse
He was also a late arrival in North Queensland because the night before Dutton was the main act at a $25,000-a-head dinner at the home of billionaire beef producer Trevor Lee in Brisbane.
So, did Dutton make these flights on private jets? Of course he did! Because had he chosen cheaper commercial flights, he simply couldn’t fit all the fundraising into his tight schedule.
Dutton couldn’t be reasonably expected to cut short his time on the ground in flood-ravaged Queensland… but he also couldn’t afford to miss the fundraiser in the lead-up to an election.
The whole saga must have been a logistical nightmare for Dutton’s PA: private jets, helicopter transfers, contract flights using border force planes…
Thank God the taxpayer was there to pick up the tab or the Libs might have needed to squeeze in a third fundraiser just to make money out of the trip.
We could easily just throw our arms up in the air and say both sides are as bad as each other. But the Liberals are demonstrably worse on this occasion, because not only are they wasting taxpayers’ dollars, but they are hypocrites.
When we exposed Albo’s fundraising stopover last week, the Liberals quickly jumped on the story and used it for a Labor attack ad on social media.
Hypocrisy is thy name!
