Tony Abbott: Worse than Whitlam

My Grandmother had very little formal education but a great deal of that esteemed quality known as 'common sense'. If a dog started growling at me, she would say 'don't go near the dog, it might bite you.' Then she would say 'the dog is not very smart, you are. If you go near the dog and it bites you, it's not the dog's fault, it's your fault, because you knew the dog would bite. The dog, on the other hand, would be just acting like a dog.'

The same applies to Gough Whitlam and Tony Abbott. The manifesto for the Whitlam government was 'Towards a New Australia', (1972) published by Cheshire for the Victorian Fabian Society. It lays out the Labor program in government. At that time, if you wanted to know where  the Labor dog would bite, you could read this book.

Now, by 1972 the Liberal ascendancy was nearing its end. It was stale and some of its policies, such as paying female employees in the public service two-thirds of male salaries, were guaranteed vote losers for half the population. The fag end of the Menzies era consisted of a series of leaders (or should we say losers) who couldn't come to terms with the office. Gough Whitlam was elected prime minister with the slogan 'It's Time' and the majority of the Australian electorate agreed with him. Labor was in power for the first time since 1949.

The Whitlam government gained a reputation for policy making on the run and it's defining motto came to be 'It seemed to be a good idea to the time.' Were still paying for a great many of these 'good ideas' such as defined benefit pensions for public servants and will be for many years to come.

Tony Abbott also has many 'good ideas'. These 'good  ideas' seem to consist of adopting ALP policies then trumping them, as with the handicapped insurance scheme. This scheme will be enormously expensive, wipe out a private sector that has existed since colonial days and replace family carers with with professional (read paid) carers. Already, over 800,000 people are on handicapped benefits -- scarcely believable, I know. How many more will we get now?  Then there's his so called maternity leave, which is going to pay senior executives $75,000 to pop out a baby before they hand the infant over to a nanny.

Tony Abbott is said to have studied economics. I find that scarcely credible. As an active supporter of Australia's most successful socialist prime minister, John Howard, this should not come as much of a surprise. One day the Chinese will stop buying iron ore and coal and the party will be over. If Tony Abbott is PM when the music stops, as he could very well be, the money for all his 'good idea at the time' programs will stop too, and those people on some sort of government handout -- most of  Australia thanks to John Howard's middle class welfare -- will be very, very angry.

With Gough Whitlam, we had 'Towards a New Australia'. About all we about Tony Abbott's policies is that, like Jake and Elwood  Blues in 'The Blues Brothers' he's on a mission from God -- and we don't know where he's going.