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Canberra Today 16°/19° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Macklin / Pants are safe, despite the Budget’s red ink

Dish ItI’VE seen a lot of Budgets in my time, but Joe Hockey’s second turn at the crease this week was easily the most confusing.

There were times when watching his stroke play that he seemed to be batting for the other side. The debt and deficit emergency that scared the pants off us last year had magically disappeared, even though the bottom line of the score sheet was a blaze of red ink.

Now, instead of tightening our national belt, it was “spend, spend, spend”. The wonder is that only his Coalition confederates rose to applaud him back to the pavillion at the end of his innings. The Labor fielding team just looked bemused.

In fact, when Opposition captain Bill Shorten opened the batting on Wednesday night he was moved to offer a couple of beers with PM Tony Abbott in the changing sheds to figure out a new tax system for the nation. But while that seemed like a refreshing bipartisan change, the truth is it was a calculated tactic to highlight the difference between Abbott’s take-no-prisoners opposition style and the less confrontational Shorten.

HOWEVER, Labor pulled no punches on the Government charges of mothers “double dipping” in the PPL, especially when it turned out that the wives of two of the Budget architects, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg were “guilty” of what their senior colleagues called a “rort”. Even former Abbott staffer, our own Guilia Jones MLA (best known for her round-the-world crusade on the plight of sex workers), said she was “appalled” by the charges.

In today’s media landscape where trivia rules, it’s just such stumbles that get the nation’s attention… almost as silly as the rumour planted by Coalition flacks that an early election is on the cards.

CLOSER, to home ACT Education Minister Joy Burch copped her own birching from the teachers under her stewardship when they called for her to stand aside while they negotiated their pay deal with Chief Minister Andrew Barr.

The pedagogues are not happy with her pay offer of a 12 per cent rise over four years, which would give half of them a six-figure salary by the end of the agreement.

Sounds fair, but unfortunately it would not be based on the individual teacher’s quality. Truth is, while most Canberra teachers are terrific, the second-raters are also along for the ride.

GREAT to see Australia’s Robin Hood rascal, the bushranger, Johnny Gilbert, remembered at nearby Binalong last Saturday. At a time when Australia was fiercely divided between the big landholders and the convict descendants, Johnny and his leader “General” Frank Gardiner hit back supported by a bush telegraph of the have-nots.

FINALLY, a reader, Carol Lynn, who is opposed to the kangaroo “cull” wrote to tell of the time she helped her husband untangle a big ‘roo caught in a fence on their farm.

She held him in the back of their truck, took him home to shelter and gave him a feed. Next morning she took food and water.

“He looked at me,” she said, “postured again, then suddenly he reached out, took my hand in both of his and licked it.”

No wonder she’s opposed.

robert@robertmacklin.com

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Robert Macklin

Robert Macklin

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