Crispin Hull

The obsession with surpluses

The Federal Government has posted the first actual surplus for 15 years – as distinct from a projected surplus with celebratory coffee mugs just before covid struck.

The essential lesson is not to get stuck on the mantra of “surplus good, deficit bad” and that that is the be-all and end-all of budgetary (or fiscal) policy. Governments are not like households. They do not have to keep spending within the bounds of income or go bankrupt.

Restoring trust in politics

Question Time should be abolished. Its corrosive effect on our democracy was exposed yet again last week – the last sitting week before the long winter break.

Question Time was supposed to increase trust in the institution of Parliament by keeping the executive government accountable. But it has now been reduced to a scripted pantomime.

Nats in blunder over Voice

Nats say No to Voice. Not a smile in sight.

Nationals Leader David Littleproud made an astounding error of fact in his arguments against the Voice yesterday.

But in doing so he inadvertently made one of the strongest arguments in favour of the Voice so far.

Cleaning politics: hopes and fears

The elected Whitlam Government was sacked by Governor-General John Kerr in 1975 for trying to govern and spend money without the approval of the Parliament after Malcolm Fraser’s Liberal Party blocked Supply in the Senate.

In short, spending money by a Government without parliamentary approval is a a constitutional No-No.

Yet, last week the Australian National Audit Office reported that the Department of Health in the Morrison Government did precisely that. But that was four years and two elections after the event.

Nightmare for ‘young people today’

“Young people today!” The Yorkshire-accented words emitted from the narrow-screen television in the Monty Python classic skit.

I was reminded of this last week when the “young people today” were hit with a 7.1 per cent increase in their student debt through indexation. On the average debt of $25,000 that is $1775. It is the highest indexation for three decades, but back in the 1990s wage increases matched inflation. In 2023, very few got a 7.1 per cent wage increase.

Which Australians are more equal?

The Constitution gives some Australians more rights than others. Or in the words of George Orwell borrowed by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, “some Australians are more equal than others”. They are called Tasmanians.

Why is that so? Because the founders thought that the smaller colonies would not have a reasonable say in the affairs of the Commonwealth. They could be silenced or squeezed out.

Calvary and legal glitches

The key to the dispute over the takeover of the public hospital land of Calvary Hospital lies in what is, in effect, the ACT’s Constitution – the Self-Government Act.

Putin and the lessons history

What follows is an instructive parallel chronology, from which one can draw unmistakeable conclusions.

Big Australian lottery loss coming soon

Is Peter Dutton for real? If so, it will be the first time a major political party has questioned the mad high immigration policies begun by the Howard Government in the late 1990s.

If he is not for real, his objection made in his Budget response to the “Big Australia” policy of the past quarter century is just a short-term opportunist grab to attack the Government at best, or dog-whistling at worse.

Wealth to the already wealthy

Here we go again, yet a couple more subtle quiet shifts of wealth to the already wealthy away from middle- and low-income people.

The process can be seen with several announcements in the past week or so: the Reserve Bank’s decision to lift interest rates yet again; the interest cost of government debt to be $122 billion over the next five years; and the finding that in its last year the Coalition Government spent $21 billion on consultancies.

Pin It on Pinterest