Opinion- 30 April 2008 |
Harry Robinson
Asks:
"Where are the Head-Kickers"? |
Who
would like to be Wayne Swan in this budget month of May?
He will have the exhilaration of standing at the dispatch box in brilliant
light while the House listens in decent quiet and even the Prime Minister
sits mute. He will deliver his document, his claim to arrange our money for
the best. It will be his hour.
Later he will have to endure slings and arrows from critics, some well
informed, some dopey, some muddled, some fair and hurtful. Not to mention
the howls of rage from those who have to lose jobs or income.
Which will prevail -- the glory of the hour or the slings and arrows and
howls of rage? He will probably keep his feelings to himself.
This treasurer has come to his job from Academe: he used to teach
Government/Public Administration at QUT in between assisting Wayne Goss and
pushing policy notions to the Queensland establishment. He seems well
prepared for federal treasurer -- well, sorta kinda. Better than some
earlier treasurers at any rate.
He has tangled web to sort out. To help him are the cashed up dollops of
money piled up by Peter Costello -- some billions as starters. Then he has a
buoyant export market for iron ore and coal with China apparently willing to
order the stuff even in the face of rising prices. From exports flow
corporate profits here and consequently tax in big dollops for the lucky
Wayne Swan. Sad to tell, not everything is hunky dory. Spoilers come from
the frightening uncertainties of the US-caused sub-prime mortgage debacle
with horrible uncertainties for global banking. Into the tangle comes the
knot of rising inflation at home.
No force is plain, nothing is simple. It would be easier to pick the
trifecta of the next Melbourne Cup.
In the background stand the mandarins of the
Treasury Department who urge the treasurer to grab every possible cent of
public money and spend not one cent more than absolutely necessary.
To further bedevil Swan's way come the special interest groups each of whom
claims priority on the spending side of the budget.
The Australian Defence Association will be pressing the idea that the armed
forces are crucial to our continued existence, without them we are doomed,
therefore the services must have first call and a loud call on billions. The
ADA has former military notables to spearhead its attacks on our cash. Wayne
Swan will have to listen to them.
Farmers have a handful of special interest groups to state their claims. If
they don't get some subsidies, some help with the water business, some
relief from diesel tax .. If they don't get their teeth into consolidated
revenue then Austrlia's exports will fail, farming families will have to go
on the dole, millions of people around the world will starve and start food
wars. It takes a strong man or woman to stand up to the cockies.
More discreetly but also more powerfully enter the special interest lobbies
for big business, big miners, big industrialists, those friendly folk who
talk in billions and think in trillions. Give them tax cuts or give the
nation a fit of depression.
ACOSS joins in the pressure game to speak up for the clients of CentreLink,
the millions of people who benefit from social service payments and tax
breaks. Each client is a mere dot, all the clients add up to millions of
voters. Can Swan resist the force of votes by the million?
Most articulate are the arts people. They don't amount to much in numbers or
in monies demanded but what a noise they can make! They practice rhetoric on
stage and in print. They know how to embarrass and they pull out all stops
at budget time -- deny us funding and Australia will suffer spiritual death.
Swan might well be tempted to give them a hundred million or two to shut
them up.
Perhaps worse than the formal armies of special interest are the
opportunists. We have one running at present in the person of Steve Price of
the 2UE radio network (now part of Fairfax). Price sits in the time-slot
previously the home of John Laws. It's a power point in media land.
It's also a power place for a campaign in favour of pensioners. Steve Price
all but chokes when he talks of pensioners doing it hard, too scantily paid
to 'buy a bit of steak for dinner.' He is running a campaign for more money
in pension pockets, a plea likely to win support from 2UE listeners. They
don't do their sums or they'd see that an extra $10 a week for more than a
million recipients would cost Treasury oooooohhhhh, well, it would run into
$billions a year. Wayne Swan cannot splurge on pensioners but he will feel
hard pressed to make some gesture their way.
So many bunches of voters who want big slices of the cake. This list is not
exhaustive. Frinstnce, Sharon Burrow, president of the ACTU, argues cogently
for work safety expenditure.
We could go on but why re-invent the wheel? And what is the point of this
poor prose? To raise sympathy for Wayne Swan? No. He wanted the job and now
he must do the best he can with it. We need shed no tears for him.
What we do need to do is consider the position of higher education and
scientific research -- the Ed-Sci community. Very little has been heard for
Ed-Sci in the run-up to Mr Swan's first budget. Has Ed-sci come to
understand the kind of market it is in? That it is a babble of voices
shouting that they come first, they must have grants and great gobs of
money? That decency and morality and logic are non-starters? That guile and
noise prevail? That the scramble for dollars is a boots and all, a hoplessly
undignified scrum? That sober and reasonable statements by university
vice-chancellors have little chance of being heard?
In short, is the Ed-Sci community ready to see that it needs; repeat needs,
a force of head-kickers to do the nasty noisy work?
Harry Robinson -- for 25 years worked in television journalism in Oz and the US and was for several years air media critic for the
Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun-Herald.