BEAZLEY BUDGET BULLSHIT

Well, it is Friday the 13th. Black Friday. Unlucky Friday. And the morning after the born-again leader of the Federal Opposition Bomber Beazley delivered his response to the Costello tenth anniversary Budget.

He tried to play Santa Claus and the Melbourne Herald Sun’s front page led with a paragraph that I could not have put better myself.

It said:

Kim Beazley last night pledged a $12 a week tax cut to middle Australia that he knows he will never have to deliver.

AS I said on 3AW yesterday, come July 1 the Government, in control of the Senate, can pass the new tax laws at one minute past midnight on June 30. And it is crazy that Beazley and his frontbench have put themselves between a rock and a hard place by opposing the 21.7 billion dollars of tax cuts announced by Federal Treasurer Peter Costello this week. This from a party that for months, even years, has accused the Howard Government of being the highest taxing government in the world.

You can’t have it both ways. John Howard and Peter Costello –playing tax tag team – destroyed Beazley in the House this week over this issue. And stunned Labor backbenchers agree with them. So do leaders and treasurers in the Labor held Northern Territory and South Australia.

Beazley said in Parliament last night that he is “drawing a line in the sand”. Well, to keep the oceanic analogy, his sandcastle will be swept away. This is a policy tsunami.

And to use the ABBA analogy that we are “living in a rich man’s world” there are Labor voters, hard workers, like iron workers and miners who are making money in the top bracket who would be hurt financially if the Beazley tax plan ever got into law.

The joke is it was a Clayton’s speech by the Opposition leader. It won’t happen. It can’t happen. It was posturing that could seriously damage his position.

To hear a Labor leader oppose tax cuts is bizarre. Especially when Beazley and his former leaders like Crean and Latham have bitched about Howard and Costello leading the “highest taxing country in the world”.

In my mind this is cynical political rubbish.

Friday, May 13, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005