The incompetence of the Abbott govt is way beyond what even I thought and I never had any illusions about a govt headed by the worst of Howard’s cabinet ministers. Howard frequently protected Abbott who rarely put forward a decent cabinet submission and never could argue cohesively and cogently in favor of whatever submission he did put into Cabinet.

No surprises then that a hallmark of LOTO and then PM Abbott is announcements about policy made before the matter had even been raised by shadow cabinet or cabinet. Easiest way—short circuit discussion—for an incompetent LOTO and PM. The PPL nonsense, sirs and ladies nonsense re-installed.

If you watch Question Time, and that is getting harder and harder to sit through but do it a couple of times, you will see a pattern to Abbott’s answers. There is no clever repartee, no clever off the cuff turning back the question on the questioner. Abbott merely delivers a set little speech, usually of little relevance to the question and sits down as if he has answered the question. No brilliance there!

You can tell how uncomfortable Hockey is by his screaming and shouting in QT.

No surprise his main acts have been wrecking, Carbon Price, MRRT, Gonski, cuts to ABC, Australia Network. The University changes will reinstitute a class basis to University admissions. No surprise their only positive act, the Budget, has been a disaster. Abbott lies are all through the Budget. He was going to keep the compensation from the Carbon Price but in fact the effective cuts to the pension, the withdrawal of the dole for 6 months for the under 30s are all designed to actually claw back the compensation.

Swan was rightly scathing and contemptuous of Hockey for not having all his Budget Bills introduced even months after the Budget was handed down. This was and is a spectacular failure and incompetence. Not even Costello was that lazy and incompetent—and he let the Asst Treasurer introduce all the Bills bar the main Budget one he was that lazy.

Now we have learned that the cuts to the pension and availability of the dole will not be proceeded with! How big a hole has that blown into the Budget bottom line? Now the idiotic, open ended, no clear aims and strategy, no exit plan Iraq adventure is going to drain the Budget even further. $400m this year at this stage but bound to increase as this ill advised and ill planned adventure continues. Note that we sent 8 rather old fashioned planes and some SAS contingent—nothing major and our commitment is going to make no real difference to the total campaign. So all that money for what? Crawling to Uncle Sam?

Now we are in the last few months of 2014 and the Budget is in absolute tatters. The usual suspects are still backing the LNP as always, save a few who knew Abbott was going to be a disaster. However late Nov or some time in December Hockey is going to have to present the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook statement. This is going to be full of grim news.

Don’t forget the scares pre-election and “debt and deficit disaster” since the election and reflect that the Budget increased spending and so increased the deficit and pushed the surplus back some years. With the incompetence, delays, the cancelling of some major measures that were never going to pass and now the Iraq Adventure the deficit will have more than doubled. If revenue is still coming in below forecast levels, which bedvilled Swan’s last three Budgets, then the situation will be even worse than that! I doubt unemployment will decline but rather increase.

So MYEFO shows the mess the Abbott govt has made of our finances what are LNP supporters going to do? Keep excusing and defending the most incompetent government we have ever had or actually decide enough is enough? But when the main attack on the Rudd and especially the Gillard govt was its supposed poor economic management and MYEFO shows the hash the Abbott govt has made of it—well, they are going to be conflicted.

The only “bright” spot on the Abbott govt record is “stopping the boats” and the usual fanbois are making hay with Morrission stopping the boats. But when Manus Isl has to close? Or gets too full—the fantastic plan to bribe Cambodia to take some of our ASs has fallen through. If ever a plan was based on mist it was that one. There is also a new govt in Indonesia—how will they react to turnbacks and stuff?

In any case, “BOATS!” does not put money in people’s pockets (and it is a rather big drain on the Budget in itself.)

So be interested to see by Jan–Feb how the polls will fare and how some of the usual fanbois will be reacting. Some are pretty mindless and rusted on but there must be some with a bit more intellect.

As to Abbott, remember he is above all a liar, adept at the Jesuit mental techniques and sophistried to pretend the lies he tells aren’t really lies. His rather limited intellect is going to be hard pressed to defend a spectacularly bad performance economically. I think he is probably thinking more of Iraq than the tedious questions of detailed policy so there is going to be policy inertia on top of all the other ills of the Abbott govt so far.

A Leadership change cannot be ruled out IMHO, another source of cognitive dissonance for the electorate and especially for the Lib fanbois. I do remember the Leadership change from Rudd to Gillard, as necessary as it was (policy inertia) caused a lot of anguish in Labor/left ranks.

cont’d

St George of the Garden wrote on Sep 25^th, 2014 at 12:45am:


In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.

Very true, the Abbott govt just do not know how crap they are.

But I meant the cognitive dissonance was in the minds of Lib supporters.