ReadWrite-grogsgamut

By and large the coverage of the Budget in the newspapers today was very good.

But it became clear that the theme for the day was who is rich (well actually there was another theme of the day, but that was only from Matthew Franklin of The Oz who seemed hell bent on getting the PM or Swan to bag the Greens).

It all stemmed from the grossly horrible and vicious cutting back of welfare for people earning over $150,000. Well actually there isn’t much cutting back at all. The Govt is merely freezing the Family Tax Benefit A and B thresholds for a further two years until 30 June 2014 in the following areas:

• the FTB Part B primary earner income limit will remain at $150,000;
• the income limit for receiving dependency tax offsets will remain at $150,000;
• the Baby Bonus eligibility limit will remain at $75,000 family income in the six months following the birth or adoption of a child (equivalent to $150,000 a year);
• the Paid Parental Leave income limit will stay at $150,000 for the primary carer in the previous financial year before the birth of the child; and
• the higher income free area of FTB Part A will remain constant. For example, this means the income cut-out for a family with two children under 18 will be limited to around $113,000 in 2014. Each family’s income limit depends on the number and age of their children. 

This led to the media asking Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan if they thought $150k households were “rich”. Yep, we’ve got to that level of stupidity in the media. Abbott of course was all over the “issue”; coming out with this horsesh*t response to these budget measures:

SABRA LANE: Ok and the phasing out of assistance payments and benefits to families earning $150,000 and more? Shouldn’t families that earn that kind of money pay their own way?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, you know, this is a government which thinks that a policeman married to a nurse is part of a super rich family. This is a government that thinks that two school teachers living as a family in Sydney are super rich. Well, sure there are people who are worse off but why is this Government always targeting people who want to get ahead?

Not just rich! Super rich!

The newspapers were onto this idiocy even earlier though. In The Daily Telegraph we had the wonderful situation where its leading opinion writers Miranda Devine, Andrew Bolt and Simon Benson were heaping scorn on the budget for being weak (Benson calling Swan “Mr Punniverse”) and meanwhile on the front page it was the most evil thing going – due to it pickpocketing families on $150,000. We even heard from “the Grays”:

THE Grays are the quintessential so-called rich Australian family squarely in the crosshairs of the Gillard Government.

Victims of Labor's war on middle-class welfare,

Did we discover who was actually calling them “rich”? Of course not – no one is, it just crap reporting (you can always tell when something is crap reporting when there is no one actually quoted with saying the negative thing).

And so we get to the sob story:

The problem is, Rob and Kerrie Gray certainly don't feel very rich - despite the family earning more than $150,000 a year in combined wages.

Well no joke. But whoever said they were rich? And here’s the other thing (the much more important thing) whoever said you should get welfare until you are “rich” (oh , right, John Howard and Peter Costello, sorry forgot that…)

Middle class welfare is not upper-class welfare it is “middle class”, not rich, not poor, but just doing OK, watching the bills, have some money to spend, doing better than others, not as good as some etc etc.

And guess what – if your household income is over $150,000 this Budget contained no surprises. The flood levy was known. Ditto the Medicare rebate means testing. And everything else? Err well… You weren't eligible for the Family Tax Benefit A anyway. I know this because my household income is in this nice “middle class” bracket. The only welfare we get is the Child Care Rebate. And guess what? That wasn’t touched.

You wouldn’t know this is you were reading The Oz and hearing of the plight of Allardyces:

AT first blush, Julia Gillard should have nothing to fear from Marie-Louise and Phil Allardyce, working parents of two young girls living in Melbourne's inner-west seat of Gellibrand -- the safest Labor seat in the nation.

Like three out of four of their voting neighbours, they plumped for Julia Gillard's ALP at last year's federal election.

An angry Ms Allardyce last night said this budget would make her reconsider her vote.

"She is a woman and I thought she would understand the pressures in the workplace," she said of the Prime Minister. "Maybe Gillard should have a child.

"We have made the choice to better ourselves. When I came to Australia I worked my way up and sacrificed a lot.

Oh charming, Julia Gillard needs to have a baby, am sure Ms Allardyce loves how that comes across (seriously, this whole article is yet another lesson that  the journalist is not your friend).

So they’ve lost her vote. Why?

"We have made the choice to better ourselves. When I came to Australia I worked my way up and sacrificed a lot.

"But the government are making it bloody hard. We need people who want to better themselves and I thought that is what Australia stood for."

The Allardyces both work full-time and together earn about $200,000 a year. That makes the Dutch-born working mum rich according the federal government.

Uhuh.

So they think that Australia stands for people getting ahead and then still getting welfare from the Government? Really? Wow – puts an interesting spin on what “un-Australian” now means.

And as for the journalist writing  “That makes the Dutch-born working mum rich according the federal government.” I would love Anthea Cannon to show me the quote from anyone in the Government saying that. But of course she is merely using the Liberal Party view that welfare should go to everyone until they are rich (and also the media’s view).

But what exactly has hurt the Allardyces in the budget?

"We're paying $2000 a month in childcare and $3000 a month in tax," Ms Allardyce said. "If they changed the $7500 childcare rebate our only other option would be to get a nanny and share with two other families, but we chose childcare for the interaction, which makes starting school easier.

So the thing that would hurt them most is the one thing that was not included in the budget!

What incisive reporting. Yeah we really got some insight into how people are coping with the changes from the budget…

Wayne Swan then after his National Press Club speech said something stunning:

“I don't believe those people [households on $150,000] are rich but there are plenty of families out there on incomes of 60 thousand or 70 thousand a year.

This apparently was deserving of this from Simon Benson in The Daily Tel:

TREASURER Wayne Swan has fended off criticism that the government now considered families earning $150,000 were rich.

Now who was suggesting the Government considered such families as rich? Why, as we know, the media and Tony Abbott.

Yeah, Lindsay Tanner was way off base with “Sideshow”…

Joe Hockey’s reaction to the Budget has been just as confused and bizarre. Last night he was saying this to David Speers:

JOE HOCKEY: Well because the Budget deficit is getting bigger, the debt is getting bigger, we have stronger economic growth and lower unemployment and life is getting harder for Australian families. What hasn’t been picked up is a cut in family payments of $2 billion including a real reduction in family tax benefits of families on $45,000 a year. We’ve seen the Government…

DAVID SPEERS: I’m sorry, for families to be on $45,000 a year?

JOE HOCKEY: On $45,000 a year, if on Part A, which applies in full to a family on $45,000 a year their payments are in real terms being cut over 3 years because the government is freezing the supplement. So the government is cutting $2 billion from families. It has got a $1.7 billion blowout in border protection in managing the boats alone. Over the next four years -

DAVID SPEERS: Hang on just to go through those. It’s the upper income threshold in the family benefits?

JOE HOCKEY: No, no, I’m sorry, this is wrong. The family tax benefit -

Poor, David Speers. I can well understand his confusion – he must have been thinking, geez I was in the budget lock-up for 6 hours and I missed that??

Hockey repeated this again in an interview with Michael Rowland:

MICHAEL ROWLAND: We saw last night that the Government effectively highlighted the family income figure of $150,000 as what it deems to be high income or wealthy in term of the family tax benefit and the baby bonus being phased out. Do you as a Coalition agree with that definition?

JOE HOCKEY: No, and I would say to you that the cuts to family payments can apply to families earning $45,000 a year as well. What they're doing is they're freezing the family tax benefit supplement - as far as we can see in the Budget papers, and we have to peel it back, as far as we can see - that can apply to a family earning $45,000 a year. It is having part of the family payment frozen at a time when cost of living is increasing substantially. Let us just see as we get through the detail of what this Government's intentions really are but they seem completely out of touch.

So Hockey would have you believe the Family Tax Benefit A level of $45,000 is being cut or at best, frozen (and thus you’ll lose out due to bracket creep). But here’s Families Minister Jenny Macklin in her Budget media release:

The FTB Part A lower income free threshold (currently $45,114) and the FTB Part B secondary earner income threshold (currently $4,745) will continue to be indexed, providing support to low and middle income households.

So errr, Joe? Want to try again?

Joe is also pretty sure he can use this budget to force an early election:

“We're going to do everything we can to put the pressure on the government to call an election,” the Coalition's treasury spokesman told MTR radio.

Only two problems – the Independents like the budget, and the Greens are not going to block supply. Sure the Greens will try to get amendments, and sure the ALP might give them some (Gillard loves to negotiate and haggle). But when push comes to shove, what do you think the Greens want more – another election or a price on carbon?

Yep. The Budget will pass.

And so onto Question Time today, which was just too dire for words. I mean really dire.

How dire? The Libs best question was Wyatt Roy asking this:

“I'm about to turn 21. No Labor government in this place has ever delivered a budget surplus in my lifetime. Why should anyone believe you now?"

It got a laugh from both sides – I guess half were laughing with the other laughing at.

Swan replied:

"I thank the Member for Longman for that question because under our youth allowance changes he'd have to keep studying and not go on the dole"

The main problem for the Libs is that was such a good grab for the news that that was all we saw of their attack. As for the six question from Abbott or Hockey. Forgettable and forgotten.

Perhaps they’re still trying to work out that Family Tax Benefit doohickie.

***

UPDATE Via Samantha Maiden on Twitter. She has pointed out that what Hockey is referring to is this :

Reform of family payments — pause indexation of Family Tax Benefit supplements for three years

The Government will pause indexation of the Family Tax Benefit (FTB) Part A and B supplements for three years. The FTB supplements will be fixed at the current 2010‑11 levels of $726.35 per annum per child for FTB Part A and $354.05 per annum for FTB Part B until 1 July 2014.

The supplements would ordinarily be indexed by the Consumer Price Index. The measure is expected to result in net savings of $803.2 million over five years.

In his interview with David Speers Hockey said this:

DAVID SPEERS: This is the lump sum you get at the end of the year. The 720 or 750 dollars?

JOE HOCKEY: The family tax benefit supplement is being frozen in this Budget, which saves the government $800 million. Now, on top of that, they are freezing all of the other thresholds for a whole range of other family payments, so it covers everyone. The fundamental point here is that the $2 billion they are cutting from families, they have got a $1.7 billion blowout on boats.

DAVID SPEERS: Now, just hang on, when you say cutting though, it is freezing, it is not increasing.

JOE HOCKEY: It is money they are not getting over the next four years.

DAVID SPEERS: They’re not having money taken out of their pocket?

JOE HOCKEY: But their cost of living is increasing. This is where the Budget is completely out of touch and where the Government is completely out of touch.

So yes families on $45,000 will not see the supplement rise with inflation for 3 years. A cut? In real terms, yes. But hardly a killing the family budget given a 3 per cent rise over three years would mean the $726 would be around $793 in 2014 were it not being frozen. 

So yep Hockey was right. Egg on my face there. I should definitely have seen that in the Budget Papers.  An inexcusable error. Apologies to all – especially to Joe Hockey. 

***

Matt Cowgill over on We Are All Dead has had a look at the figures for average incomes, and asked: What is the typical Australian’s income?

His answer (and it is not a straight forward exercise) is that for a family with two kids in 2007-08 (the latest figures available) it would be around $75,600.

It’s a good read.

And so after a couple weeks of announcements that the budget would be tough (you know a Horror Budget © ), out came a budget that well… was pretty much as expected.

It was a fairly typical Labor Budget – ie not a left-wing, Ben Chifley budget, but a Hawke-Keating budget. And given anyone under 50 never got to vote in a Labor Government earlier than the Hawke one, I think we can stop looking to the 1950s to frame what is a Labor budget.

For example here was Keating in 1986:

What is being required is a minimal sacrifice when compared with that being asked of wage and salary earners.

There will be a crackdown on cheating and fraud in the social security system.

We will not compromise our deep commitment to assist the genuinely needy.

But abuse of the system will not be tolerated.

Special reviews will be conducted by teams of officers to identify and disqualify those wrongfully receiving unemployment benefits.

Additionally, reporting requirements for all unemployment beneficiaries will be tightened and it will be much harder for New Zealand citizens who are visiting Australia to qualify for unemployment and other benefits.

There will also be reviews of sole parent beneficiaries to verify continuing eligibility.

Wow! A crackdown! On cheats and frauds!

Then again in 1987:

Madam Speaker, the Hawke Government has always believed that only those in genuine need should be entitled to social security payments.

We have systematically implemented measures to exclude welfare cheats from the system.

In the May Statement I described a range of further initiatives to crack down on fraud and abuse.

More crackdown on those “welfare cheats” (Not one for using weasel words, our Paul).

And so too was Swan in the budget casting his eye over welfare:

To remove incentives for young people to leave study for the dole queue, we will extend Earn or Learn requirements to 21 year olds and create new pathways to full‑time employment for early school leavers.

To get the very long‑term unemployed into work, we will invest $233 million in new support programs and 35,000 targeted wage subsidies — encouraging employers to hire those who have not worked for more than two years.

To slow the growth of Disability Support Pension numbers and get more people in the workforce, we will bring forward strict new work tests, update the definition of incapacity, introduce new requirements for younger recipients, provide more wage subsidies, and allow more hours to be worked before payments are suspended.

To address entrenched disadvantage, we will introduce participation plans for teen parents, new requirements for jobless families, extend income management, and develop new place‑based programs to support local and regional employment.

Certainly his language is a lot more milder than Keating’s. And hardly vilifying.

About the only “new” thing in this (ie that hadn’t been announced) was the “strict new work tests” and “update the definition of incapacity”.  This will be interesting to see in detail – and no doubt will be attacked as Gillard and Swan being cruel, but given the increase in the numbers on DSP it is hardly unsurprising that a Govt would want to take a closer look at it. Also given the Government has allowed those on DSP who can work to now work up to 30 hours instead of 15 suggests it is not exactly beating them with a stick. Will such people be able to get that extra work? That is perhaps a deeper question.

How else was it Labor-like? Well Keating back in the 80s was also big on training. For example in 1985:

First, job training.

Presently, about 100,000 of our young people leave school each year and receive no further systematic vocational training.

It is this group which finds it most difficult to get jobs.

Accordingly the Government has decided to support the creation and rapid development of a new system of traineeships.

This scheme will provide young people with a combination of training and work lasting for a minimum of one year.

For example, under the scheme a 16-year old school leaver could become a trainee in the hotel industry or in the retailing industry, receiving at least 13 weeks outside instruction during the course of the year.

Swan, and especially Gillard are very much cut from this cloth of training into work. It has been Gillard’s mantra. And it certainly was throughout her speech to the Sydney Institute last month that was panned by some in the media as showing a Labor Govt without heart.

In this Budget, training was a big item:

Our plan begins with a new approach to training.

Putting industry at the heart of a $558 million National Workforce Development Fund that will deliver 130,000 new training places over four years.

Better meeting the needs of industries and regions with a $101 million national mentoring program to help 40,000 apprentices finish training.

Accelerating apprenticeships, letting them progress as they acquire the right skills, by investing $100 million in more flexible training models.

Plus up to $1.75 billion, in addition to our existing $7 billion investment, to leverage ambitious reforms of the vocational education and training system.

And funding 30,000 more places in the Language, Literacy and Numeracy Program to provide the basic skills essential for a job.

In other words it reflects very much what Gillard was saying in her Sydney Institute speech last month (and which she again repeated in her interview the next day with Fran Kelly) that she was talking mutual obligation – meaning the Government needed to spend money on training (ie the Government needs to do something as well, not just the unemployed). Now maybe this won’t work. Maybe those being trained will just be nicely trained unemployed people. But let’s get past the view that this Budget was all stick for the unemployed, or that it is all about kicking dole bludgers (or please, that getting those on welfare to do training or work is somehow un-Labor).

The Brotherhood of Saint Lawrence seems to be broadly supportive of the changes to welfare:

‘At long last we see policy initiatives that recognise that the most disadvantaged in our community have modest mainstream aspirations and that they won’t shy from increased obligations in welfare if they are matched with more and better assistance.

‘This is the test of the new welfare morality: that increased obligations are commensurate with the additional assistance on offer. It’s a test that the welfare initiatives in the Budget pass.

‘The new obligations on sole parents, teenage mums, youth and the disabled are matched with appropriate financial incentives to take on work and additional investments to improve their literacy and numeracy and vocational skills. My experience suggests if implemented sensitively, most will relish the additional support.

Lines like that make it pretty easy for the Government to respond to criticisms of it being cruel and harsh on the poorest in society.

It also increased the foreign aid budget – something it sure as hell could have let slide, without worry of criticism from talk back radio shock jocks:

New aid investments in the 2011-12 Budget, totalling $1.9 billion over four years, will implement the Gillard Government’s aid commitments on water and sanitation, education, maternal and child health, avoidable blindness, eliminating violence against women and increasing the number of volunteers in the aid program, as set out in the 2010 election statement “A Good International Citizen: Australia’s development assistance”.

This increase has already been derided by Joe Hockey in his post-budget interview on ABC radio as a sign that that Government is out of touch with ordinary voters. So yeah, the debate is going to be a joy to watch…

Is it a lefty-love fest? Of course not. The chaplaincy program will be hated by the left (and I mean hated). The cutting of the solar programs and other environmental programs will not meet with joy from the Greens (and it demonstrates that Gillard is putting all her environmental eggs in the carbon price basket… something that may need to change in the future).

And the right wing? Well the Libs mostly ignore it completely. Specifics? Meh. We don’t want too many of those! Hockey in his post-budget interviews pointed out a $10 million payment to unions to develop a website, but that was about it for measures that he had found in the small print. The Lib’s attack will be the lack of a carbon tax in the budget means it is mostly hooey. This attack will of course ignore the fact that if the Government had put in the carbon tax, which has not been agreed on and would be all guess work right now, it would make the budget complete hooey.

But hey, who needs facts, data, reality…

More importantly the media. What is its reaction? The early reports often mirror the media releases, and can change a bit when the front pages come out the next day, but mostly (as in the past four years) they focus on the Budget not being tough enough. Here are a smattering of the headlines from budget stories from News.ltd papers, The Oz, SMH, The Age, ABC and Crikey:

THE 'NIP AND TUCK' BUDGET

Swan's budget surplus by a thousand cuts Budget delivers $20b in cuts

The great no-tax-cut budget of 2011

Swan makes jobs his budget mantra

Swan's budget as tough as tofu

Budget 2011: Australia on a wing and a prayer

Middle class missed out on biggest tax breaks: budget

Labor banks on no-frills budget to regain control

No chainsaw massacre, just modest cuts from Swan

Enough nasties to make it a tough budget

Wayne Swan hacks away at middle class welfare in budget

Tough times, tough measures

Slim pickings in Treasurer Wayne Swan's budget

Swan's blueprint for surplus

Wayne Swan delivers austere budget to reduce deficit

The general consensus from the hardnosed types is the cuts to middle class welfare – eg the the phasing out of the Dependent Spouse Tax Offset – are good but they wanted more of them.

Alan Kohler went in hardest:

Lindsay Tanner, come back! All is forgiven.

The former finance minister would have been embarrassed by this budget: despite all the stern prime ministerial repetition, it is not tough. Revenue forecasts made just six months ago have proved to be way too high, yet spending has gone on regardless. What's more the optimistic forecasts remain just as optimistic.

Any decent CFO would be embarrassed by this budget.

In the other corner is Ross Gittins:

Taken in sum, there are plenty of cuts and savings that suggest some courage in Canberra.

For four years running, Wayne Swan has warned us his budget would be tough. This year, for the first time, he was right. That's bad news for the victims of his spending cuts, but good news for people who hate interest-rate rises and want a stable, healthy economy.

This budget contains quite a number of nasties aimed particularly at the better-off. None of them is all that major, but there are enough of them to hit most upper-middle families: some of those with company cars, up-front HECS payments, private health insurance, family trusts, salary sacrifice into superannuation, dependent children and stay-at-home mums.

That such an unpopular government would risk annoying so many groups tells us something about Julia Gillard's courage and willingness to do what needs to be done.

As is always the case, the Government will be trying to tell us it was tough but fair for those “doing it tough”, and the opposition will say they were not only not tough they were not fair on “families”.

How will it all play out? The media of course – and the headlines on tomorrow’s front pages will go some way to setting the agenda, but given Swan had the entire media in a lock-up all day, he can’t complain if his message doesn’t come across.

The Budget won’t likely change too many votes (Budget bounces are a bit of a myth really), but that doesn’t mean Swan and Gillard can put their feet up. If they want this to be the start of their comeback, they will have to work hard for the next month or so to use this to incrementally build up a foundation of economic responsibility in the eyes of the voters. The carbon price debate has yet to really heat up, and if they can’t sell this budget as being sensible and fair, that much bigger fight on carbon will be all the more tricky for the ALP to handle.

And so it came to pass that the ALP reached that ever hoped for position on asylum seekers where it has come up with a policy that had Andrew Bolt thinking it had merit.

Oh joy. Oh rapture.

Today was not a good day for Australian politics.

It started yesterday when the PM announced a new policy on asylum seekers that involved us sending to Malaysia 800 arrivals by boat, and us in turn taking 4,000 refugees. Officially the policy is thus:

Prime Ministers Najib and Gillard have agreed that core elements of this bilateral arrangement will include:

• 800 irregular maritime arrivals, who arrive in Australia after the date of effect of the arrangement, will be transferred to Malaysia for refugee status determination;
• in return, over four years, Australia will resettle 4000 refugees already currently residing in Malaysia;
• transferees will not receive any preferential treatment over asylum seekers already in Malaysia;
• transferees will be provided with the opportunity to have their asylum claims considered and those in need of international protection will not be refouled;
• transferees will be treated with dignity and respect and in accordance with human rights standards; and
• Australia will fully fund the arrangement.
  …
  Australia and Malaysia are working closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to operationalise the arrangement.

OK. Firstly – “operationalise”. Really?

Now the good part – taking an additional 4,000 refugees (even if it is over four years) is a very good thing. Big applause from most with any sense of decency (yeah, don’t worry we’ll get to the opposition soon enough).

Humanitarian Program grants by category 2004–05 to 2009–10
Category	2004–05	2005–06	2006–07	2007–08	2008–09	2009–10
Refugee	5511	6022	6003	6004	6499	6003
Special Humanitarian (offshore)	6585	6736	5183	4795	4511	3233
Onshore1	1065	1372	1793	2131	2492	4534
Temporary Humanitarian Concern	17	14	38	84	5	-
Total	13 178	14 144	13 017	13 014	13 507	13 770

As you can see last year we took in 6003 refugees. So even an increase of 1,000 per year is a 17 per cent increase. Excellent.

But clearly while this is great news for the 4,000, it is pretty horrid news for the 800. The big point being that Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees. Quite quickly it was pointed out (obviously by Tony Abbott) that neither is Nauru and thus the Government is being rather hypocritical on this issue. And I have to say it’s bloody hard to think how they are not.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen addressed this on AM this morning:

SABRA LANE: Malaysia isn't a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees. That's been this Government's reasoning behind not opening Nauru. Why is Malaysia acceptable and Nauru is not?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well we're talking about very different propositions is the first point.
Secondly Malaysia as part of this agreement has agreed not to return anybody that we send to Malaysia who is in need of international protection to a country that they are fleeing persecution from, and that is the fundamental tenet of the Refugees Convention.

Now, I’ll agree we are talking a different proposition. Sending asylum seekers to Nauru is just a weigh station for them coming here – 61% of those who went off to the Pacific there under Howard and who were deemed to be legitimate refugees ended up here, and the rest went to other countries including New Zealand. Doubtful that it would be a deterrent anymore (now that the facts of the Pacific “solution” are known)

Also Nauru has no asylum seeker problem so there would be no increase in refugees (which as I have stated, I think is a good thing).

But.

Make that: but.

What of the welfare of the 800 asylum seekers going to Malaysia?

SABRA LANE: How will you ensure that detainees sent to Malaysia are treated humanely?

CHRIS BOWEN: Firstly the prime minister of Malaysia has given a very firm commitment in his joint statement with the Prime Minister of Australia that asylum seekers in Malaysia that are sent by Australia will be treated with dignity and respect.

Now we will have of course a relevant oversight with the Malaysian government, with the UNHCR and IOM (International Organisation for Migration) and potentially with non-government organisations based in both Australia and Malaysia to monitor its implementation.

That's something we've been discussing with the Malaysian government for some time and that would form part of the ongoing discussions in coming weeks.

SABRA LANE: Can you give personal assurances or you're leaving it up to the UNHCR?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well as I say the Australian Government has negotiated an arrangement with Malaysia where Malaysia has very clearly indicated that asylum seekers will be treated with dignity and respect.

Oh good. The Malaysian Government has given us their word.

Let’s have quick squiz at some of the Malaysian Government practices with regards to refugees in the recent past:

In March [2007], the Prisons Department handed over 11 immigration centers to the Immigration Department. People's Volunteer Corps (RELA) with its 480,000 volunteers became in charge of management of these centers.

Abuses by RELA continued during the year, with reports of rape, beatings, extortion, theft, and destroying UNHCR documents. RELA raided and burned to the ground the camp of 75 Chin refugees from Myanmar in January. They detained 23 of the refugees, and took everything of value in the camp, including cell phones, crafts made for sale, and money.

…
On April 21, detainees at Lenggeng Immigration Detention Centre rioted, during which an administration building caught fire. Although Malaysian media reported the riot began when 60 Myanmarese detainees were rejected for resettlement to third countries, the incident actually began on April 20 when immigration officers beat nine detainees … while interrogating them about a cigarette butt and tobacco found in the detention center. Immigration officers eventually returned the Myanmarese to their cells after they denied smoking, but continued to beat the other three detainees. When the Pakistani crawled out of the room where he was beaten foaming at the mouth…
…
RELA officials arrested 14 detainees… for possession of dangerous weapons and creating mischief by fire or explosives. Two of the arrested reported being beaten and burned with cigarettes as they were driven away from the detention center.

Warms you heart doesn’t it…

This is who we are dealing with.

Now there are glimmers of hope in the policy due to the inclusion of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). In fact the UNHCR’s response was not entirely negative – though certainly not deserving of this headline from the ABC:

UNHCR welcomes Malaysia refugee deal

Very cautiously optimistic is a better indication of, UNHCR representative, Richard Towle’s response:

"We need to look at the details of how people will be treated and the various rights and entitlements and conditions for them when they go back there

"But most of the world's refugees are today living in countries that haven't signed the Refugee Convention so the fact that you haven't signed the convention doesn't mean that you're not treated properly.

"Having said that, it is important to identify the core protection safeguards that we would like to see in any return arrangement."

"The core [requirement] which I think everybody agrees on and that's what we call the principle of non-refoulement, that's non-expulsion of asylum seekers and refugees out of the country to face persecution," he said.

"We would want to see that and I think we are seeing that as a commitment from both governments."

The UNHCR points to perhaps the best aspect one can point to of this policy with regards asylum seekers:

Mr Towle says the scheme has the potential to improve the way the region manages refugee flows.

"I think it's very important that this agreement is appropriately monitored and is seen to deliver not only outcomes for governments in terms of dealing with human smuggling and trafficking movements but also is seen to deliver improved protection for people in the region," he said

"I think in that sense it has the potential to... make a significant practical contribution to what we're trying to achieve in the region.

"And if it's a good experience other countries can look at it and say 'yes, that's a positive way of managing these issues. Perhaps we want to embark on similar or other initiatives under a regional cooperation framework'."

Now yes that would be good, and is actually the outcome hoped for by the Government's Regional Policy – but geez, this is Realpolitik at its most ugly. This is seen not just in the policy (which as the UNHCR does have some small glimmers of light) but in the “tough talk” of Bowen and Gillard.

First Bowen:

“If people think that the situation for asylum-seekers in Malaysia is difficult, they should endorse the fact that Australia is taking 4000 out (over) the next four years. “There's a lot of focus on the 800 we send and that's perfectly appropriate. “But let's not forget the 92,000 currently in Malaysia (in camps). We take 4000 people and resettle them in Australia and that's a good humanitarian outcome.”

Err yes – the reason we’re worried about the 800 is because the situation for asylum-seekers in Malaysia is “difficult” (though I’d probably use a stronger phrase for getting beaten or burned with cigarette butts). The utilitarian nature of bugger the 800, focus on the 4,000 is pretty stomach churning.

Then the PM (not her finest day, and surely not what she entered politics to find herself saying):

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) what would happen when the next boat arrives and there’s children on that boat. What rules have you set up for sending children back to Malaysia?

PM: Well, as you’ve seen from what we’ve announced so far, there is a commitment between me and the Malaysian Prime Minister to finalise an agreement for 800 people who seek to come to Australia by boat to go to Malaysia. We’ll obviously announce full details of all of this arrangement when the agreement is finalised, but we are intending to take a fairly tough approach – a tough approach to ensuring that we send a message to people smugglers right up the pipeline, that the can no longer say to people that they can get them to Australia. If you get on a boat, then the risk you run is that you end up in Malaysia, and I’m not going to put any conditions or caveats on that.

JOURNALIST: Will they be forcibly removed, if necessary?

PM: Well, as the Minister for Immigration said when he went with me to the press conference on Saturday, this is tough policy, and yes, we expect resistance, we expect protests, and no-one should doubt our determination to get this done.

So it’s a tough policy, that may involve sending children to a country that in the past has done this (again via the UNHCR):

2008 Summary

Malaysian immigration officials continued to sell deportees to gangs of traffickers operating along the Thailand-Malaysia border. The gangs paid from $250 to $500 per deportee. The traffickers demanded fees of 1,400 to 3,000 ringgit (about $400 to $860) to smuggle the deportees back into Malaysia. They typically sold those who could not pay (perhaps 20 percent), the men onto fishing boats, the women into brothels, and the children to gangs that exploit child beggars.

I’d be hoping for some damn good oversight from the UNHCR of the 800. Will there be?

Well the ALP Left seems convinced:

Senator Cameron, who tackled Ms Gillard on the issue at today's caucus meeting, said he'd come to see it as an “innovative” solution after detailed briefings.“I think that this has a positive approach in that we will be taking more refugees and people who need help,” the NSW senator told The Australian Online.

“We will be engaging with the UNHCR. And as I understand this is the first time the UNHCR have engaged at a formal level with the Malaysian government, which I think is positive.”

Geez, that must have been some persuasive briefing.

For mine, that the 800 are in Malaysia is irrelevant – Australia will have sent them there, which I believe means we have some moral responsibility over their welfare – and at the very least to make damn sure the UNHCR has not only oversight of them but also better access to other detention centres in Malaysia. If we don’t at the very, very least get that, then for me the deal is pretty much without defence.

Sure 4,000 extra refugees coming here is great. But if that comes at the cost of some asylum seeker in Malaysia getting beaten, or some child being sold to gangs, do we really want any part of it? I don’t.

So the test for Bowen is to make sure that when the dotted line is signed, we ain’t just a wishin’ and a hopin’ that all will be safe for the 800.

We should be bloody sure it will be, and bloody sure that we’ll be able to find out if that is the case. And a bit more as well…

***

And so to the Opposition. Now the ALP has announced a policy that is so damn “tough” that Andrew Bolt sees merit in it:

Here were Bolt’s first four questions to Abbott on his show on Sunday (and no, for those interested, I didn’t watch it):

• Opposition Leader Tony Abbott now joins us. Tony, what do you think – sending 800 of our boat people to Malaysia, taking 4,000 of theirs back. Is this so crazy it might work?
• But it might work. It might just work. If you are a boat person in Indonesia you might think twice about coming if you are going to end up back in Malaysia.
• But it’s got the Nauru bit though hasn’t it, in the sense of it’s sending 800 of our boat people to Malaysia, or not Nauru to Malaysia. That bit you’d support, wouldn’t you?
• But it hardly matters whether it’s sending to Nauru or sending it to Malaysia, sending the boat people to Nauru or Malaysia does it?

So it’s tough, it has an increase in refugees (which was the LNP’s policy at the election) so Abbott’s on board?

Err no:

Well, it’s a lousy deal for Australia, Andrew. I mean, it’s probably a terrific deal for Malaysia but it’s a hopeless deal for Australia. This idea that we will send them one and get five back, we’ll pay for them to take our one and we’ll pay for the costs of the five that are coming
…
Sending people to Malaysia means that we get five back for every one we send. Nauru doesn’t have any to send back. That’s the point. I mean, if we send them to Nauru they go there, we don’t get any automatically back. If we send 800 to Malaysia we get 4,000 back and Malaysia becomes the back door route to Australia, the open back door to Australia, and that’s why this really is a lousy deal for our country.

And this as ever is the big failure of the politics of the ALP’s plan. No matter how “tough” they go, they’ll never be tough enough for Abbott, and he’ll just keep on driving to the right, and the ALP seems desperate to catch up.  Of course Abbott is going to criticise it, why wouldn’t he when The Daily Telegraph is coming out with these headlines:

Taxpayers to pay $54,000 for every refugee brought to Australia under Malaysian solution

Yep, am sure that was written to make people feel good about welcoming 4,000 “genuine” refugees to our country.

It comes nicely off the back of Scott Morrison’s first media release on the policy:

“Increasing our overall refugee intake will not only further increase costs, but add further pressure to a programme where only one person in three has a job after five years and more than 80% are on welfare.

Ah yes, refugees are welfare bludgers. Nice one Scott. Good to see no matter how low the ALP goes, you’ll always win that limbo contest. Take this effort today on Alan Jones:

JONES:  We get rid of 800 and accept 4,000. How good is that for Australia? We get five refugees, they send us their worst 4000, we get five for every one asylum seeker who is sent back. How is that a good deal for Australia?

MORRISON: Well it is not a good deal for Australia and it is also not a good deal for those who are already here and have come through the front door and we are trying to settle properly now. There was a report last week which showed that after 5 years under that program refugee and humanitarian entrants, 83.5% or thereabouts are still on welfare after five years, only one in three have a job. We have got to do a better job on that and to add another 1,000 every year to that program…

That is the level of the debate – “their worst 4,000”. FOR F*CKS SAKE! These people are refugees! Have we no compassion? None? Has no one?

And today as well the Government announced it will increase the skilled migration level to 16,000. The Greens, the only party with any claim to morality over asylum seekers, reacts like this through its leader Bob Brown:

"We know more than 90 per cent of them turn out to be (refugees) and we should be integrating them into an Australian economy where we are going to see, I think in the budget tomorrow night potentially, queue jumpers being brought in, at the interest of the mining corporations," Senator Brown said.

Skilled migrants are queue jumpers.

Good God. What a horrid day for Australian politics.

A couple months ago I wrote a piece for the Walkley Magazine on 10 Things You Need to Know to Blog Your Way to Success (success, obviously being a pretty flexible term).

Rule Number 5 was Be regular 

Ironically, since writing that I have probably been less regular than I ever have in the past 2 and a half years (3rd anniversary comes up in July). The regular irregularity continues tonight, as this post was meant to be a piece on some favourite novels of mine. Life, as it always does, intrudes and so I shall have to hold that over till another week. I wanted to post something however if only to arrest the irregularity of posts. 

And so instead I shall direct you eyes to this rather wonderful idea that someone I follow on Twitter (by the name of Crackers_76) linked to today.

It is the page by a guy known as “Cee Gee” who has redone album titles as though they were books. It is one of those genius ideas that you come across every now and then on the internet.

Now I am on record as believing you truly do and should judge a book by its cover. I’m also pretty strongly into analysing  movie posters. But record covers have never held much magic for me. Perhaps because we never had a record player growing up and so it was just the small cassettes that I had, which never really conveyed a great sense of art.

But if you had to tie me down and get me to answer the question though, I would have to say my favourite record cover is “London Calling” by The Clash:

It just conveys everything you need to know in that one picture. The referencing of Elvis Presley is perfect, but combined with the absolute riotous anarchy of the guitar about to be smashed, it is rendered perfect.

Just as with Presley in 56, this one in 1979 was a real you either get it or you don’t cover.

You’re with us or against us.

And when it comes to The Clash, I’m most certainly with them.

But as I say, record covers have never grabbed me like book covers or movies posters.

I can see an old edition of a book I read in High School and will get a rush of memories more than I would if I saw a record cover from the same period. Probably it is because I am rather obsessive about books and movies, but less so about music (I think I saw those who were music obsessives and knew I could never match them!)

However this idea of turning album covers (or more correctly the album titles) in to books is genius. And I recommend you go to the guy’s page and have a look (and check out as well the cool photos has has taken featuring people holding album covers).

Here are my favourites. I think they perfectly capture what could easily be the spirit of the album’s name (especially when he used the real names of the singers as he does with David Bowie and Prince).

          

Have a good weekend – I’ll try to get back some regularity soon!

Today a Newspoll was released in The Oz that shows (we are told) that the public has abandoned Julia Gillard’s carbon pricing plan:

VOTERS are overwhelmingly against Julia Gillard's carbon tax after a sharp fall in support in the past two months among the young, families, women and even Labor supporters.

As Tony Abbott continues to campaign against the tax, the latest Newspoll survey reveals 60 per cent of voters are opposed to the government's plan to put a price on carbon next year and only 30 per cent remain in favour.

Since the election last year, opposition to a carbon price has been rising and jumped after the Prime Minister announced in late February that she planned to introduce a carbon tax from July 1 next year ahead of a full emissions trading scheme in three to five years.

Feel the joy from Shanahan…

There were a couple things that were interesting about the poll. The first of them is you should bypass Denis Shanahan, and go to a guy at The Oz who actually knows something about polling – Mumble. He notes that the poll questions are slightly different – and also that Newspoll has slightly changed its accounting procedures since the last time the questions were asked.

The poll is not completely horrible for the Government (talk about faint joy!). When Mumble compares the views of voters on the causes of climate change since last year:

He found that 78 precent still believe it is occurring (much the same as December last year), and up a bit from February last year, though down from the climate-change wonder years (pre-Copenhagen) July 2008.

But all in all that’s a good base to work from. This is also the case when you look at the figures when asked whether or not people would be prepared to pay more to help slow global warming.

Mumble has compared like for like by removing those who don’t believe in climate change. As you can see support is slightly down, but is still there.

But the big figure – the one that got trumpeted in the front page was this:

Yep – only 30 per cent of voters were in favour of the carbon tax proposal.

But the real point of the poll is not the result – but the question:

Question: Based on what you may know about it, are you personally in favour or against the federal government’s current proposal to put a price on carbon?

Now ask yourself this – what do you know about the Govt’s current proposal to put a price on carbon? Well not much really. We know they will put a price on, but we don’t know how much, we know they’ll compensate the public and companies but we don’t know how much or who or when or for how long.

In fact we know bugger all. So it is little wonder 60 per cent are not in favour of it. Why would you expect voters to be in favour of something that they know will raise the prices of things but don’t know much more?

It all comes down to the Government's strategy. Last year they brought out the Resources Super Profit Tax (still the worst name in the history of bad Government names). They stated everything – gave out Treasury briefings and details and what not and whosits and yada yada. And businesses cried foul and said they hadn’t been consulted and that it would kill them and capital strike and sovereign risk and my Dad says it’s not fair you big meanies.

And the Government responded by saying – oh did we say this was our final offer, no we meant let’s negotiate and umm yeah all those bright shiny figures we produced for you to use in advert campaigns they’re just our first offer.

And so it all turned to poo.

Yesterday the PM was asked what is the closest we can actually get to a policy question on the carbon tax at this stage:

JOURNALIST: PM: I just wanted to go back, you said something about the carbon tax before. Anna Bligh today has said she doesn't back a carbon tax yet, either. When you’ve got people like Anna Bligh, and last week or the week before Paul Howes, good Labor people, saying they're now feeling nervous about this tax, and we need more detail, I mean, isn't it incumbent upon your Government to actually release more details sooner rather than later about the impacts of the carbon tax, the rate, the compensation that will be available? I mean, is that something on the cards?

The decision to do the Carbon Tax this way and not the RSPT way is a political decision (in a beautiful world you could do it the RSPT way and everyone – the Government, the media, the opposition and business would logically and calmly discuss the policy – but that’s a dream world that never was. So the PM needs to defend her political strategy:

PM: Well, the important thing here is to consult and get the details right, and certainly I understand that many Australians will judge their final view about carbon pricing when they can see all of the details. That's very, very understandable.

What is also very understandable is as a Government we wanted to take a highly consultative approach, to canvass views about the best way of getting this right.

Now, I invite you to consider the reaction to the alternative. If we had walked out and said, ‘Here is the full details of carbon pricing. We've created this in a black box. We haven't talked to anybody. Here it is, it’s immutable, it’s written in stone’, then the business community, trade unions, indeed, State governments, would have said ‘How do we get a voice in this process? How do we get heard?’.

Well, we've taken a different approach. We’ve announced the way in which carbon pricing will work as a mechanism, and then we are intensively consulting - allowing business to have a voice, allowing trade unions to have a voice, allowing State governments to have a voice in the design of carbon pricing. That's the right thing to do.

The details will be announced when they're ready. I know - call me old-fashioned, but I think what Government should do is not march to the beat of the political cycle, but march to the beat of the policy cycle and get policy right.

Aside from the irony of a PM who knocked off Rudd in his first term talking about not marching to the beat of the political cycle, her answer is fair enough. She makes a logical case – but will it work?

It appears from what she and Greg Combet said today that the details will be released in a few months.

That is when the real selling begins. This is all the phony war period. Abbott is laying excellent ground work because he doesn’t have to worry about facts or figures (always a good thing for Tony). He can say pretty much whatever he wants, and if Gillard or Combet or Swan try to say that it won’t happen – even if we are talking the most ludicrous claims such as Whyalla being wiped off the map – they are asked to supply proof, and they can’t (you know, aside from basic logic).

But when the details come out, then the Government will have some ammunition. But here’s the thing – they will also be giving ammunition to Abbott. There will be people worse off. People will lose their jobs. If the ALP does not grasp this, then they will be dead the minute they release the tax. It won’t be enough to say that when it comes in that all will be OK. Yes it will surely be nowhere near as bad as Abbott and the miners and steel companies say it will be, but that doesn't mean it will be wonderful for everyone.

The Government needs to be ready to defend its policy. And I mean defend it. Not spin it. No weasel words, no hey look over there at the tax cut and ignore the tax hike. I mean defend it. I mean go on TV night after night if they have to and get ready to be put under the grill. The lobbyists will be supplying the media with lots of “research”, so don’t worry about them not having any policy questions to ask. Gillard and Combet and Swan and Wong and Ferguson will need to be advocates for this as though they were defending themselves against the death penalty (which politically they will be).

They need to know the policy, and what is more they need to be able to convey to the voters a strong level of belief that they know what they are doing and that it is good for the country.

Sounds easy, eh.

Luckily they have an economic ignoramus in opposition – so that is where they should start – get the argument on an economic and environmental footing rather than strictly political. While it is political (and lacking details) you get Abbott saying stuff like this yesterday:

An Australia that can't make buses would no longer be a first world economy and yet that is the kind of prospect that we face if the carbon tax goes ahead.

I guess I skipped the chapter of Adam Smith’s A Wealth of Nations that pointed out the crucial thing for an economy is making buses. 

Today as well in his big pre-budget speech to the Victorian Chamber of Commerce, he was dolling out the economic idiocy (though this time echoing that by AWU leader, Paul Howes):

What Australia needs now is a steady, orthodox government which doesn’t over-promise, which treats respectfully the people its decisions will affect, which builds incrementally on our country’s strengths and which understands that its first duty is to do no harm.

and later:

The government should be able to give the guarantee sought by the Australian Workers’ Union that the carbon tax must not cost a single job

Do no harm? Guarantee no single job lost? Sorry, but economics is not medicine. If we had that attitude in the 1980s we would still have high tariffs and and second rate backwards economy. The measures done by Hawke and Keating were not painless – they sure as hell did hurt people. But they were for the good of the nation (the Liberal Party back then recognized this). Adopting the economic attitude of “first do no harm” is a way of saying – do nothing.

Later in his own speech he contradicts himself when he says:

The forecast return to surplus is not the result of tough-minded cuts to government spending like those implemented by Peter Walsh in the late 1980s or Peter Costello in the late 1990s. It’s not the result of tough-minded economic reforms like those of the Hawke or Howard governments.

Think no one was first hurt by those cuts? Think no job lost was guaranteed?

Sigh. Yeah there is a sideshow, as Tanner has written, but there also needs to be a Government that can cut through the crud through the force of its argument.

The polls at the moment are not good for the Government on the carbon tax. But the fight is still there to be won.

***

Episode Number 1,743 in the Series of “Shite Questions asked by Journalists at press conferences”.

Julia Gillard gave a press conference today. The topics ranged across the spectrum, and they went to Osama bin Laden’s death. Then this one was let rip:

JOURNALIST: Has there been any suggestion that the operation on the weekend was delayed until after the royal wedding?

Now first of all. What the hell?? The US Govt has been waiting until the right moment to be ready to take out bin Laden (or “capture” if you want), and you seriously think they’d give a damn about the Royals? I think operational aspects like the weather and moonlight might have been a bit more important to the timing of the mission than what the 2nd in line to the monarchy of another country was doing.

Now talk of them delaying their honeymoon due to the bin Laden mission is much more believable – though I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt the US would have given the UK Govt (much less the Royals) any more detail than “major security/ terrorist risk” – unless you think after all the news about the Royals’ phones being bugged etc that the CIA would trust them with the biggest secret they have (well this side of the moon landing being fake). And in any event that is the US telling the Royals to do something, not the US doing something because of the Royals.

And secondly, what did this journalist think Gillard would answer? Did s/he (not sure which) think Gillard was going to say “yes”?

Who asked it? No idea, I just hope it wasn’t the same person who asked this question of Tony Abbott yesterday:

QUESTION: Mr Abbott, a more personal question. The town where Osama was shot is named after a Major James Abbott. Any relation?

Well there’s that journalist’s Walkley entry right there….

Sigh.

Given that next week is to be a Horror Budget ©, the one thing the Govt needs to get across is why it needs to be such.

The simple maths the Government can try and get across is that inflation is rising and a flabby budget will increase this pressure – and thus “horror” is needed. It’s true that any budget deficit is by nature “expansionary”, but that doesn’t automatically mean it will increase pressure on inflation – it depends where the spending is and what it is spent on, it also depends on what is happening elsewhere in the economy (and outside the economy).

The biggest reason why increasing inflation is bad – there are others, but mostly we don’t care too much about them – is that of course interest rates will rise. The RBA today announced that the cash rate would, for the six month in a row, stay at 4.75 per cent.

Now the media pretty quickly seized on the Governor's statement to suggest that the next interest rate movement will be a rise (not earth shattering news) and that it could be sooner rather than later.

However, the RBA Governor's statement can be a bit of Rorschach test where interest rate hawks and doves will both see what they want to see. So too with this one:

The natural disasters over the summer have reduced output in some key sectors and the resumption of coal production in flooded mines is taking longer than initially expected. It is likely this caused a decline in real GDP in the March quarter. Production levels should, however, recover over the months ahead, and there will be a mild boost to demand from the rebuilding efforts as they get under way. Over the medium term, overall growth is likely to be at trend or higher.

The cyclone has reduced GDP – so no rate rise, but there will be a boost in demand in the months ahead – so a rate rise. But the RBA knows this is just because of the lag effect of the cyclone rebuilding – no rate rise.

Growth in employment has moderated over recent months and the unemployment rate has been little changed, near 5 per cent. Most leading indicators suggest further growth in employment, though most likely at a slower pace than in 2010. Reports of skills shortages remain confined, at this point, to the resources and related sectors. After the significant decline in 2009, growth in wages has returned to rates seen prior to the downturn.

Employment growth moderating and slowing – no rate rise. Skills shortages – rate rise. Skills shortages only in mining so far – no rate rise. Growth in wages returning to pre-GFC levels – rate rise.

The exchange rate has risen further and, in real effective terms, is at its highest level in several decades. This, if sustained, could be expected to exert additional restraint on the traded sector.

he exchange is hurting, but this is also reducing pressure on inflation – so don’t expect a cut (not sure who would be)

Recent data on inflation show the effects of production losses due to the floods and Cyclone Yasi. The affected prices should fall back later in the year, though substantial rises in utilities prices are still occurring. The Bank expects that, as the temporary price shocks dissipate over the coming quarters, CPI inflation will be close to target over the year ahead.

Yep, bananas went up, but we know why. (So no rate rise). CPI will be close to target (which means a rate rise if you are the type who thinks mention of the target means bumping above 3 per cent. Or no rate rise if you are the type who thinks the RBA is happy for it to be close to target).

Looking through these short-term movements, however, the recent information suggests that the marked decline in underlying inflation from the peak in 2008 has now run its course. While the rising exchange rate will be helping to hold down prices for some consumer products over the coming few quarters, over the longer term inflation can be expected to increase somewhat if economic conditions evolve broadly as expected.

Inflation looks to be going back up (rate rise for sure!!).

 At today's meeting, the Board judged that the current mildly restrictive stance of monetary policy remained appropriate. In future meetings, the Board will continue to assess carefully the evolving outlook for growth and inflation.

Future meetings?? Assess carefully?? Rate rise! (or not!)

One of the biggest interest rate “hawks” is Rismark International's Christopher Joye. He wrote last week when the inflation figures came out:

But the much more concerning story was around core inflation. The trimmed mean printed at 0.9% (or +3.6% annualised), significantly above the market estimate of 0.6-0.7%. The weighted median printed at +0.8% (or +3.2% annualised), also way above consensus. The average was obviously +0.85% (or +3.4% annualised). Even the CPI ex volatiles measure printed at a stunning +0.9%.

 Joye likes to annualise the quarterly inflation figures, whereas the RBA adds together the most recent 4 quarters. It could be argued that the quarterly figures give a better indication of what inflation might be than the RBA measure which is a look at the past. But as you can see from below – the annualised figure does jump around a bit and is not for the skittish:

The jumping up and down gets even more exaggerated when you focus on the short term – say since the 2007 election:

You can see that the annual inflation rate (I’m using the RBA’s underlying inflation measure, not the CPI headline rate, which really jumps around) has been nicely declining since July 2008 – because, well the GFC not the begeezus out of inflation.

Joye would have you focus on the red line jump. The RBA for the moment is saying, let’s wait till we see what the blue line does.

Swan will be trying to tell us that the red line is the warning – and that is why the budget must be a “horror”.

An interesting graph to look at is inflation versus the cash rate over the last 10 years (cash rate on the right axis, inflation on the left)

As you can see in the last 2 years for pretty much the first time the cash rate has been going up while inflation is going down. The RBA has done this because it was worried that not acting early after the end of the GFC would have seen inflation start going up too soon. If inflation has actually bottomed out, at least it has bottomed out nearer 2 per cent than 3 per cent. That 2-3 per cent band is whee the RBA wants it to stay. It has only been under 3 per cent for the last 13 months – and was above it from July 2007 to March 2010.

Swan will have to be aware that if his Budget is judged by the commentators as being flabby, it will be easy for any future rate rises to be pinned on him. If his budget is shown to be “a horror” any rate rises will still be pinned on him but at least he’ll have a stronger case to make that the rate rises are due to a strong economy, outside pressures etc etc. (whether he can sell this is another matter).

Bear in mind though that the RBA already considers interest rates to be mildly restrictive, but historically it is still under average. The rolling 10 year average cash rate is currently 5.13 per cent, which, given the current rate is 4.75, means a couple rate rises would still have it around the average. When Howard lost office, the 10 year average cash rate was 5.29 per cent. But of course don’t worry – interest rates will always be lower under a Liberal Govt…

***

Last year during the election there was an announcement by Tony Abbott of disability education funding. The press conference after his announcement was not particularly edifying. Not one question was about the policy – it was all politics and trivia. I wrote a blog about it. A few people noticed, so too did a few journalists.

Today Julia Gillard revealed some new disability education funding that will be in next week’s budget.

The press conference this year was slightly better.

There was one question on the policy.

The first few questions were about the selling of the budget, and whether or not Wayne Swan was giving out mixed messages. In other words, stuff that I as a political tragic find interesting, but which is of zero importance to the real world – and certainly not to parents of kids with a disability (which I also am).

But when Dan Harrison the education reporter from The Age got to ask a question that focussed on the policy well it was a cracker:

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, or Minister Garrett, can you tell us how will the funding, the $200 million, be divided or be allocated between the schools, and secondly, a theme that's emerged in submissions to the school funding review is that students with disabilities who go to non-government schools aren't able to get the same levels of support, levels of funding, that students with disabilities in Government schools can get. Do you accept that that's the case, and if so, what do you intend to do about it?

The question had particular relevance to me because yesterday my wife had investigated enrolling our daughter, who has Down Syndrome, in the very school in which the press conference was being given because it has a great reputation for dealing with kids with intellectual disabilities, and the nearest school to our house – a non-government school – does not receive the same amount or funding for intellectually disabled students.

Julia Gillard immediately handpassed the question to Peter Garrett – as sure sign that it was a good policy question – the PM wanted nothing to do with it – give it to the guy who is actually responsible for the policy.

Garrett gave a bit of a non-answer – mostly broad brush strokes – but at least gave us some information:

MINISTER GARRETT: Thanks, Dan.

The national partnership will deliver the funding to the States on a proportional basis according to the equivalent enrolments of each State, and then the national partnership will provide for the States those opportunities into Government schools to deliver funding on the basis of those student identified with disability, and in the non-Government sector, across those other sectors, in the same way.

My expectation is that they will be decisions that will be taken both by sectors and the States, as they do now in terms of do now in terms of making sure that there is provision for services and support for kids with disabilities in those schools.

Harrison didn’t let him off the hook and followed up:

JOURNALIST: On the question of, do you accept that there’s a disparity between the levels of support that students with disabilities can get in non-government schools compared to those in Government schools and, if so, do you intend to fix that?

Garrett responded:

MINISTER GARRETT: Well, I guess the point to make about this is that we've already got significant investment which can potentially be delivered to kids with disabilities in Government systems through some of the national partnership money that’s already out there.

So, if you want to try to disaggregate where existing investment at the Commonwealth level is going, in terms of supporting students with disabilities, that's an exercise which will happen over time as we review those partnerships.

What I'm confident about is that this will make a significant difference to schools in both sectors, government and non-government, and that the education authorities or the school system drivers will make sure that they focus on kids with disabilities in a way which assists them in the teaching of those kids in their school systems.

Which is nice and all, but you could see in the vision that it was not an easy question. He got through it OK, but was not totally comfortable (and the PM sure as hell was not going to jump in and help him out!).

After that, the questions went back to non-education issues. I will say that most of the questions that followed were pretty good and on issues that are definitely news-worthy. But none of them troubled her, and few elicited any more information than we already knew from interviews she had given earlier in the day.

But at least this year there was some good reporting on the policy. Malcolm Farr for news.com.au gave an excellent summary of the announcement – who it affects, why, how, when etc etc (you know – stuff parents would like to know).

It would help pay for:

* New services such as speech and occupational therapy delivered at school by health and student welfare professionals

* Access to special equipment in classrooms such as audio and visual technology so that students can more easily learn and engage with their classmates and teachers

* Additional hours of in-class support from staff including teachers aides, health and allied health professionals as well as enhanced support through team teaching

* Adapted curriculum tailored to their needs based on the latest research and expert advice.

From July 1 July, eligible children under six year with sight or hearing impairment, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy or Fragile X syndrome will get access to up to $12,000 for intensive early intervention therapies and treatments from allied health professionals.

A good policy. A small step perhaps, but welcome nonetheless. And at least it got some coverage this year!