Monday, May 16, 2011

Inside the Treasurer's head before the Budget

This was the Treasurer’s week and always wanting to be near the action The Blowfly attached his grubby little feet firmly to Wayne Swan’s shoulder and went for the ride of his life.

The Member for Lilley and Deputy Prime Minister has always impressed The Blowfly as one who has good taste in ties and, if anything, undersells his capacities----especially his economic ones!

Initially I found him in the ante-room of his office doing his morning brain exercises so he could be prepared for those tricky questions from the journalists.

He is working his way through some discussion questions in a study guide to a standard text on Microeconomics. He is wrestling with one particular question. Question 9.

“How can present resource allocation decisions influence an economy’s rate of economic growth?”

The Blowfly tunes into the Treasurer’s innermost thoughts.

“Well let’s see now………… a government is able to allocate resources in its budgetary process……….that much I know………….so I suppose if we need growth we could allocate some resources to training………...especially for the mining industry……….. that’s going gang-busters presently……….although Treasury is telling me that we might have to import some Indians to cope …………it’s a pity that we can’t train all those asylum-seekers who want to come here………..although we don’t want too much growth because that will cause inflation………and then the Reserve Bank will put interest rates up…….so I don’t suppose we want too many asylum-seekers………...and then with high interest rates and too many asylum-seekers our electoral prospects will plummet………….further………….if that’s possible?...........so perhaps we need to find some ways of reducing productivity by allocating resources………….…….those free set-top boxes for pensioners should do the trick there..............that will get us the pensioner vote and at the same time reduce inflation………..and growth……………especially if Gerry Harvey can do it cheaper………..I love getting up his nose…………talk about a technophobe…………….God I’m brilliant…………stuff those public servants and economists……….these questions are too bloody easy for an intelligent Queenslander like me………….”

He then turns his thoughts to a more pressing matter.

“How can I make the budget speech more interesting?”

“Dancing girls?..........Powerpoint?..........wear a pink tie?.........”

“Maybe I just leave it as it is and let that wanker Abbott spice it up a bit?”

“He doesn’t know anything about economics…………so much for being a Rhodes Scholar……….. when he gives his budget reply he’ll probably just go on with all that negative crap as he usually does…….. he’ll probably concentrate on his vision for Australia……….heh!heh!heh!.........I reckon those Liberals are just putting him out there to wear us down.”

“It’s interesting that Malcolm is more popular than he is as Opposition leader……….. those guys really do want to win……….. it wouldn’t surprise me that they are wheeling Abbott up as the negative bogey-man blazing away at us and then just before the election when they need to annunciate their policies they will replace him with that silver-tongued Turnbull……... he , at least, can put two positive words together.”

The Treasurer, still thinking about the Opposition leader, recalls the words of Abraham Lincoln: “Abbott can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I ever met.”

“God, this week is going to be a hoot! I feel so excited I could break a glass.”

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