Gillard outraged over Greek comparisons

Cartoon: By Pickering 

The PM Julia Gillard has expressed outrage at Opposition Leader Tony Abbott over remarks by Future Fund former head, David Murray.  Murray stated that he believed that it was possible for Australia to suffer an economic downturn similar to what happened in Greece.  Tony Abbott is guilty of agreeing with him on the issue. 

Under this government Tony seems to be frequently guilty of comments made by third parties.  Labor would look a bit more credible in their Allan Jones outrage if they were not so determined to insist that Abbott apologize for what Jones said.

Essentially all that Abbott said was that Murray’s statement was a timely warning, however this statement is seen by the government as an irresponsible attempt to undermine the nation’s economy: 

The former head of the Future Fund and the Commonwealth Bank, David Murray, believes it is "easily possible" for Australia to suffer an economic downturn similar in magnitude to the one experienced by Greece. He told ABC's 7:30 Report that Australia's net foreign debt is too high and the country's productivity levels are too low. 

The Opposition Leader described the comments as a "timely warning" from someone well placed to consider Australia's economic performance in comparison to the rest of the world. "The lesson of Europe is that countries can go very quickly from a strong position to a parlous position if things aren't well managed," Mr Abbott told reporters in Melbourne on Thursday. 

"At the moment, we've got a Government which has completely mishandled the mining sector which is the one sector which above all else has kept Australia going. "With its endless taxes, this Government is putting the economic future of our country at risk.” 

But the Prime Minister has slammed the comments, arguing that they have the potential to undermine the confidence of financial markets in Australia's future. "It is absurd to be saying that our economy is in the same circumstances as the economies of Europe or Greece," Ms Gillard said in Tasmania. …

Labor has run the nation into massive debt from a clean slate when it took office during a period when rivers of gold flowed into the country from an unprecedented mining boom.  After an initial scare with the advent of the GFC, the Australian economy barely paused for breath before going back to business as usual owing to the boom in China and the ensuing massive demand for coal, iron ore and other minerals.

Despite this, the government has spent most of the period since 2007 engaged in a massive spending spree in the names of stimulus, and social equality.  As result, instead of lowering taxes and creating investment, the entire profits as well as 230 billion in borrowed money has been pissed up against the wall, while productivity has been gutted by new regulations favoring unions.

The reason for falling productivity is seen in the following example where a simple issue of disciplining an employee went to the High Court: 

THE High Court has issued a stinging rebuke to Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten for his "partisan" intervention in litigation, at taxpayers' expense, on behalf of the Australian Education Union. In a costs decision yesterday, High Court judge Dyson Heydon said he believed the commonwealth should have been forced to pay 15 per cent of the costs, even though it was not a party, because of the minister's "exceptional" intervention in the case. 

Ultimately, however, the AEU, as the losing side, was hit with 100 per cent of the costs. The costs decision followed a dispute between Bendigo TAFE and senior teacher Gregory Barclay, who was also an AEU official. The High Court last month ruled that Bendigo TAFE's chief executive had not breached Labor's Fair Work Act when she took disciplinary action against Mr Barclay. …

Nobody could act like these idiots, fair dincum, if the Yanks had Gillard as President for a week, Obama would get his wish for the entire population to appreciate him a lot more for what he has failed to deliver.