Tag Archives: ALP

Real Honest Journalism For Times Like These

18 Mar

Bravo Des Houghton!

Election seen through smudged lens

SO WE have endured an election campaign with plenty of mud-slinging.

The conservative protagonist and former Brisbane lord mayor has even been depicted as a spider and his wife vilified.

In the spirit of this campaign, today I would like to borrow from the Labor strategist’s play book:

Queensland’s Labor Government is worm-eaten, inept, rancid, pernicious, dirty, exhausted, dishonest, incompetent and lazy, not to mention mendaciously mud-slinging, ignorant, rotten, flagitious, disreputable, deceitful, unsavoury, unworthy, unsound, unwholesome, unscrupulous, untrustworthy, untruthful, corrupt, insincere and misleading.

And perhaps I should throw in reprehensible, weaseling, miscreant, nefarious, tarnished, ill-mannered, snivelling, expendable, foul, abominable, soiled, shifty, discreditable, improper, obscene, hateful, impure, degraded, grubby, pitiful, dilapidated, shabby, grovelling, flea-ridden, discredited, disgraced, degenerate, depraved, nefarious, toe-curling, perverse, putrid, rotten, unhealthy, faulty, opprobrious and empty.

Not to mention peccant, tergiversating, vituperative and insalubrious.

Hyperbole for dramatic effect, to be sure, but the campaign needs a bit of humour.

Labor should have been kicked out of office at the last election in March 2009.

That would have spared us further misery. And now, thanks to Labor’s campaign of misinformation, we have been hoodwinked again.

I have a horrible feeling we are going to the polls not knowing as much as we should about how an incoming government will handle new challenges such as the soaring cost of living, the collapse of tourism, the failure to protect the choicest cropping land and the terrifying state debt.

We don’t know fully how the parties intend to respond to these challenges.

Perhaps this is how Premier Anna Bligh and her political strategists planned it.

The print, electronic and social media was hit by an asteroid shower of misinformation. Mudslinging smudged the lens through which we view policy.

The good folk of Ashgrove have been forced into hiding from candidates and pollsters.

Some media was so besieged by charges of impropriety against Campbell and Lisa Newman there has been little air time left to truly examine Bligh’s record, much of it studded with spectacular failures.

And little time to fully examine LNP policy, for that matter.

The integrity row was a diversion that left little media time to explain how Labor gouged the workers and mismanaged the economy and how it failed in crucial areas of health, education and transport.

Bligh is at the centre of Labor’s long decline.

She joined the Cabinet in 1998 and has served as minister for families, youth, community care, disabilities, education, arts, trades and innovation.

She has been minister for finance and state development and she served as treasurer and deputy premier.

She has been the premier of Queensland since September 2007.

She was treasurer when the state debt began to balloon.

She was education minister when standards began to plunge.

Bligh must accept some of the condemnation for Queensland’s poor numeracy and literacy rates.

And she must accept blame for the childcare crisis, the debt blow-out and the lack of skilled tradesmen and women.

But perhaps her biggest mistake was failing to hold any of her ministers accountable for serious blunders and rorts in health and infrastructure.

There was a failure, too, to contain the public service, which is hemorrhaging your money.

Then there was Labor’s seemingly relentless attack on local government, first with forced council amalgamations then with the botched takeover of council water assets.

Bligh became unaccountable by not holding her ministers accountable and presiding over a government many now see as inept.

During the Beattie-Bligh era, Labor MPs went to jail for blackmail, rape, perjury and bribery, and Bligh’s own integrity was called into question.

She used government aircraft like a personal taxi .

Bligh broke promises on the fuel subsidy, asset sales and on power prices.

Car rego fees have soared 30 per cent since 2008.

Under Treasurer Andrew Fraser, Queensland has lost its AAA credit rating in a mining boom, racking up a debt of $85 billion.

Bligh’s Labor wasted $220 million on a health payroll system that denied doctors and nurses their pay at the same time as the department was being defrauded by a fake Tahitian prince.

When there were mistakes, Bligh’s Labor lied and attempted to cover them up, as in the Commonwealth Games cost over-runs.

Bligh’s Labor is politically obsolete.

Great survivor that she is, she will need a miracle to come back from here.

From Cairns to Coolangatta, Labor heads will roll.

And if Newman’s daredevil bid for power comes off, he, too, will have a lot of explaining to do.

Please feel free to have your say.

And remember that even as Labor heads for political oblivion, there is a place for a little humour.

Well Des, I’d not call your article an act of borrowing “from the Labor strategist’s playbook”.

Nor would I call it “hyperbole for dramatic effect”.

I’d call it what it is.

Real honest journalism.

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Owed To Me: Gillard vs Rudd

24 Feb

My thoughts on the Labor Party’s leadership contest. Sing along now:

UPDATE:

Thank you to all who have shared this little video, which has now (midnight Saturday) provided amusement over 10,000 times both here and on YouTube since posting late on Friday afternoon.

Sharing is caring.

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An Average Aussie Unloads On The Average Labor Pollie

30 Dec

Reader “Tomorrow’s Serf” has a thoughtful word or many for modern Labor:

And so this is Christmas, and what have we done? Another year over……

We been forced to watch as our fantastic country has been poured down the toilet towards economic disaster by a bunch of, at best, incompetent, and at worst, treasonous fools and morons.

We have housing going down, retailing going down, mining slowing down, shares and stocks going down, (and up a bit and then down some more) economic activity everywhere going down, employment going down, happiness going down.

And interest rates, they’re going down……but not for long. And when they too start going up, that’s when the S will really H the F!!

Well something’s got to be going up! That’s right, government debt levels (last check, it was $228 billion??), unemployment, mortgage stress, senior executive salaries, politicians salaries (did Craig Thompson get a 40 percent pay rise too for his contributions to the sex industry?). Food prices, fuel prices, electricity prices. Then there’s the increasing number of useless bureaucrats, increasing taxes and surchages, fees and tariffs. Fines and penalties too. Yep, there’s lots of things going up.

I sit here in chilly old Bremen, Northern Germany, suffering from catastrophic global warming (BRRRRR!! NOT), enjoying my front-row seat watching first hand the implosion of that brilliant piece of social and economic engineering, the european union, implode in real time. Who designed this mess? Probably a politician, a bureaucrat or a banker. Probably a mix of all three!! And to think that the silly old Greeks jiggled their books, with the help of our old friends from Goldman Sachs (Hi Mal, we’re watching you) to be allowed in. I wonder if, now that the european credit card has been thoroughly maxed out, and the bill is now due, whether they think, with the benefit of hindsight, that it was such a good idea to join. Anyone for an Austerity Riot??

Which makes me wonder about the wisdom of we Aussies allowing ourselves to be dragged into the next great social and economic experiment, APEC. The Asia Pacific Economic Council. But Julia seems to think it makes good sense. She was recently running around the Pacific somewhere, minding someone else’s business, as she does, bleating about Free Trade, and closer ties. You know, all the usual stuff.

But this is the same woman/politician who thinks other things are good ideas too. Things like NBN’s, Pink Batts, BER’s, MRRT’s (just as the mining boom busts), MDBA’s (because you can’t let farmers have water to irrigate – hell, they might grow some food), Carbon Taxes (sorry, make that a Bankster generated, Carbon Dioxide Derivative Trading Platform), shutting down the live cattle trade in the NT, shutting down the coal mining industry, stopping logging activities in Tassy, flip-flopping on flogging uranium to India, blowing out the Federal Budget to around $230 billion in 4 years, giving cash handouts to support Asian electronics industries, encouraging people smuggling, and appointing a global corporation like Serco (who the hell is Serco, anyway??) to run our Gulags for us, again at considerable cost to the long-suffering taxpayer.

If you wanted to destroy the economic structure and fabric of a nation, you couldn’t make a better choice than appointing the current Labor government.

Not that I think this is really a “Labor” government. Labor was the party of the working man. The guy who rolled his sleeves up and worked hard, played hard, drank hard. You know who I mean. The bloke you couldn’t help but admire. So he voted for his political team, like my tradie mates still do. Fair enough. But they mis-spelt “Labor”. They are being conned by the modern Labor politician. Today’s Labor pollie has never handled a shovel, can’t wire up a house, couldn’t fix an engine, can’t change a washer or a light bulb, and has certainly never milked a cow or driven a tractor.

What he/she can do is think up smarmy one-liners to insult his constituents, he can stare straight into a TV camera and lie with conviction about giving a rats arse about the average punter. Today’s Labor politician is adept at explaining unusual official Credit Card activity at brothels and restaurants (Craig), is not above threatening staff members at hospitality venues with the loss of their jobs if a table isn’t immediately made available for them (eh Belinda), is a master of the “late night meeting” with “business associates” hoping to secure “NO BID” mining leases all over the country side. He is a whizz at lining his own pocket at the expense of the citizen. He/she are charlatans.

This mob is not the Real McCoy. It’s a wolf in sheeps’ clothing. It’s a cobbled-together mish mash of self interested “Save the Worlders” with a bunch of political opportunists with economics and law degrees and stints at the UN (like Craig Emerson our Trade Minister) Anthony Albanese (remember him with his smarmy side swipe at “the Convoy of NO Confidence” calling it instead “the Convoy of No Consequence”.)

It’s a mob trading on the fond memory of probably well meaning and patriotic Labor politicians of days gone by. Chifley, Curtin. Those guys. They’d roll over in their graves if they could see this current lot.

No, I’m afraid this lot aren’t there for us. Nobody could be THIS bad by accident. And if it’s not accidental, then it’s deliberate. And if it’s deliberate, then it’s treason.

And that’s a hanging offense (or should be).

We’ve asked for an election. We’ve demanded an election, and they laughed at us and gave us a Carbon Tax. They’ve lied, cheated, given themselves a 40 percent pay rise whilst battlers who voted for them (and those of us who didn’t) struggle.

Maybe we just have to occupy Federal Parliament and have them arrested!!

It’s time to call a spade a Bloody Shovel. Yes indeed, it’s long past time.

I feel better having gotten that off my chest…

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Funding For Policy Scandal – Australia Is A Kleptocracy

26 Jul

Do you want to know how deep the rabbit hole goes?

h/t to Twitterer @Kmorefive for bringing the following to my attention.

From Business Spectator (emphasis added) –

An ALP funding horror

Robert Gottliebsen

If an election is held in the next few months, Australian banks will play a big role in the outcome. And unless there is a dramatic change in the fortunes of the parties, the banks will still be key players if (as is likely) the next election is two years away.

Australia has rarely seen such a banking/election event in its history and it certainly did not occur in recent elections. The looming role of the banks could force the ALP into a pre-election leadership change and in extreme situations force it to modify its carbon tax.

To understand the pivotal role of Australian banks in the funding of political parties requires a deep knowledge of how the system works.

For the most part, in the vicinity of three quarters of a major party’s funding in most elections comes from the public purse. The ‘public purse’ amounts are allocated to parties after the election in accordance with the proportion of the votes that are achieved.

But there is no forward allocation of money. The distribution of ‘public purse’ money is strictly governed by the proportion of the votes actually achieved.

ALP organisers are not looking forward to meeting with their bankers as the election nears. They are deeply apprehensive that as a result of current opinion polls, their bankers will slash the amount of election funding available to the ALP and lock it into a low vote.

Conversely, Liberal and National Party organisers believe that as a result of their opinion polling they will receive a huge increase in support from their bankers to fund unprecedented amounts of advertising and promotion.

If, theoretically, an election was to be held in a few months’ time, ALP organisers would go to their bankers and negotiate to borrow the money required to fund the campaign expecting to pay it back when they receive their ‘public purse’ money after the election. This might be the conversation:

Banker: What proportion of the votes do the opinion polls suggest you will gain?

ALP organiser: The current Nielson poll suggests we would gain 26 per cent of the primary vote but we know we will do better.

Banker: Maybe you will, but if I lend you money that represents the amount you will receive from the ‘public purse’ if you attained, say, 40 per cent of the vote, I might bankrupt the ALP if you only receive 26 per cent because you could not pay me back. That would not only give my bank a bad debt but it would be disastrous for Australian democracy.

ALP organiser: But it will be disastrous for Australian democracy if we are decimated at the polls because we have only meagre advertising money.

Banker: I am sorry but I have shareholders and I need a safety margin. I will fund your advertising on the basis that you receive 20 per cent of the votes. You will need to be much more skilled in using non-advertising promotions.

The Coalition conversations with their bankers would be the exact reverse of this.

The ALP organisers fear that the party is going to be much more dependent on union contributions than it has been in recent times. This may tend to spin the party to the left, although many unions are opposed to the carbon tax. Those unions opposed to the carbon tax may require modification before they inject ‘rescue’ money. However, if they see Tony Abbott moving to water down industrial relations legislation they may be tempted to dig deep.

In the case of the Coalition, the parties will depend less on contributions from party members and corporate supporters, assuming they maintain the current lead in the polls.

In reality, if the current opinion poll levels are maintained then it will make it very difficult for the ALP to gain the election funding to change its fortunes at the polls.

As the horror of this outcome becomes apparent to party members, they may seek to replace the prime minister with someone who might either lift the party’s ratings in the polls or who will attract more union rescue money. The ALP has its back to the wall.

There you have it.

The banksters do have a powerful, direct influence over the direction this nation goes.

Now we understand even more clearly, why a Banksters’ Glee Club comprising a clear majority bank-employed “leading” economists has been publicly barracking for the government’s carbon pricing scheme scam.

Mr Gottliebsen’s revelations on how electoral funding really works in practice are seriously troubling, in their implications for what amounts to a clear opening for the perversion of the democratic process.

And yet, I think he is (perhaps naively?) completely misunderstanding what those implications are, in terms of the most controversial public policy right now.

Quite simply, he’s reading the implications backwards.

Because I suspect that the ALP will not have much difficulty in getting the loans they want/need for their election campaign. Especially whilstever they cling to the bankster-driven “pricing carbon” policy.

And in terms of the Liberal Party, in light of the constant appeals for donations that seemingly appear in all of their public communications collateral (emails, newsletters etc), I suspect that the anti-carbon tax Abbott-led Coalition is not sitting as prettily with their bankers as Mr Gottliebsen seems to believe.

Now, to an interesting and directly related front.

If our basic contention – as implied by Mr Gottliebsen’s article – is that our political parties’ policies can be and ultimately are determined by their financial backers’ willingness to loan (or donate) to their election campaign funding, then we only see further supporting evidence for that somewhat chilling reality check in this news story about another of Green-Labor’s proposed policies (emphasis added) –

About 1800 cement industry jobs are at risk from Labor’s carbon tax and proposed new shipping rules, the federal opposition says.

Nationals leader Warren Truss says the $2 billion a year industry is facing a double whammy under the Gillard government.

He says domestic cement manufacturers could be killed off by “dirtier” imports, made cheaper under the carbon tax.

“The paradox is Australian cement production is a leader in low emission technology and any shift to imports will force global CO2 emissions to rise,” Mr Truss said in a statement.

Mr Truss said Australian cement had the world’s second lowest greenhouse gas emissions behind Japan.

“But the carbon tax will price Australia’s cleaner cement out of the market, giving the green light to our international competitors to boost their higher CO2-emitting production and flood Australia with dirty cement,” he said.

“… the Australian cement industry will be crushed by competitors who will not be paying a carbon tax.”

Mr Truss said Labor was also rewriting the Navigation Act to force businesses that ship products around Australia to use local, union-dominated vessels.

He said “unionised shipping” costs significantly more than current market rates, which would be another blow to the industry.

“Right now it costs about the same to ship cement from China to Australia as it does to ship it from Adelaide to Port Kembla,” he said.

“Under the Gillard government’s sop to the maritime union, our biggest competitors in cement – China, Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand – will dramatically undercut Australian suppliers on shipping costs alone.”

He said a large section of the cement manufacturing sector would not be compensated under the carbon tax plan.

The compensation package only applied to processing clinker, the first stage of making cement, he said.

“The second milling stage to make what we know as cement receives no compensation,” Mr Truss said.

So, the real reason why the Green-Labor Government has been slowly re-regulating (ie, re-unionising) the Australian economy … is because they need their money to finance their election campaign.

The lesson we must learn?

When it comes to the all-important consideration of why a politician or party really adopts the policy/s that they do, the Golden Rule always applies.

Follow The Money.

The following of which will always lead you down the rabbit hole … into the wonderland of global finance.

More honestly and accurately called, “bankstering”.

Ladies and gentlemen … we are not living in a democracy.

We are living in a kleptocracy.

What are you going to do about that?

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Double Double (Labor) And Trouble

25 May

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
from Macbeth

Scene: A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder.

Enter the three Witches…

ALL:

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Yes, double Labor equals trouble alright.

Business Spectator’s inimitable Rob Burgess peeks in on a witches brew quietly a-boiling within Federal Labor ranks, now that the detritus of a decimated NSW Labor party machine has begun belly-crawling into Canberra (emphasis added):

Before the NSW election, a senior Labor figure told me of his grave fears for the party nationally once the most important Labor state machine imploded. Suddenly unemployed NSW MPs, and their long-standing staffers – the real machine – would be turning up on Capital Hill in their droves, creeping from chamber to chamber, seeking new power and influence in the federal sphere.

The NSW model of Labor politics would infect Canberra, he warned me, and it could destroy the Labor Party for good…

…Labor’s battles are, so far, silent – like faceless men in the night. Bill Shorten, Greg Combet, Kevin Rudd (in the mind of Kevin Rudd) and Wayne Swan all get a mention from time to time. Of these, only the first two look at all likely to succeed Gillard. Privately, some Labor figures mention Tony Burke, though he has some major battles looming on the Murray Darling Basis to take care of first.

But the point is this: with so many displaced NSW, and now Victorian, Labor operatives on the loose, and with Julia Gillard’s opinion poll figures taking the low road, it is only at a matter of time before we begin to see as much leadership intrigue spilling over on the government benches as we are now seeing on Tony Abbott’s side of the house.

To my mind, a challenge to Gillard’s leadership before the next election would all but finish the Labor Party. But then Labor pessimists tell me that the pent up ambition in the Labor’s factional units is too great to contain. The Bracks/Carr/Faulkner review of Labor’s appalling 2010 and the party’s ‘undemocratic’ structure is yet another source of conflict within the party – a good half of the party wish it had never been conducted.

Certainly the knives are being sharpened for a time when, if miracles do happen, Labor scrapes home to form government again. But that is two years away at least. In the meantime, watch for fault lines – now on both sides of the house.

UPDATE:

From the Age:

Labor in crisis as disenchanted desert the party

Labor fears up to one in four of its Victorian members will not renew their memberships after last year’s devastating state election loss and disenchantment with the Gillard government.

And union heavyweight Joe De Bruyn warned that Labor – and civilisation itself – could cease to exist if the party overhauls its platform later this year to accept same-sex marriage.

Mr De Bruyn, national secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Union and a powerful figure on the Labor Right, has criticised his party for allowing debate on gay marriage to ”fester”.

About 4700 of state Labor’s 12,000 members have not renewed ahead of a deadline on Tuesday. Labor insiders are predicting less than half will make the effort…

One Labor source blamed the federal government for ”trashing the Labor brand”.


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Turning Back The Tide

18 May

Paul Kelly finally calls BS on the green “cargo cult”:

Let’s tell the truth about the past half decade. The green agenda has corrupted Labor values. It has seen Labor governments embrace fiscal irresponsibility, regressive income re-distribution and treat their supporters as too dumb to understand they were being played for mugs. For too long the idea that any green scheme was a good scheme was sanctified as a compliant media cheered such initiatives.

Repentance will take many forms and have multiple consequences. The electoral backlash from defective pro-green policies and the arrogance towards ordinary voters embedded in such schemes will haunt Labor, state and federal, for many years. Perhaps some tolerance for mistakes should be extended. The bigger point, however, is that Labor’s culture abandoned fiscal discipline and social equity for what became the climate change cargo cult.

Bravo!

Well said.

Took you long enough Paul.

Next time, do the public a real favour.

Grow a pair, and call BS before it’s obvious to Blind Freddy that the tide is going out.

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Julia, Things Have Changed

27 Apr

UPDATE:

Essential Research’s latest polling confirms it.  We used to care.  But things have changed.

Via Crikey’s Poll Bludger –

Seventy two per cent of voters believe “will promise to do anything to win votes” applies to Labor, up nine points since March last year, while 66% believe “divided” applies — a massive 30-point increase since last year. “Out of touch” has increased 13 points to 61%, and “moderate” has dropped 12 points to 51%. Even otherwise uncharacteristic descriptions such as “extreme” now garner significant support, up 12 points to 38%. And whereas even last year 52% of voters thought Labor had a good team of leaders, only 34% now feel that way.

For the Liberals, however, it’s all positive: a drop in the number of voters who think they’ll promise to do anything to win votes — down from 72% to 65%; a rise in “moderate” perceptions by five points to 55%; “out of touch” down to 54%, “divided” down from 66% to 49%. There was also a big improvement on “good team of leaders”, but off rather a low base, up nine points to 40%. The Liberals lead Labor on nearly every positive indicator and trail on nearly every negative indicator. Labor still has a one-point lead on “looks after the interests of working people.”

Full report here.

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Barnaby Attacks Julia’s BER

12 Apr

Last night Senator Barnaby Joyce appeared on Channel 7’s Sunday Night program, and blasted the massive waste in Julia Gillard’s “Building The Education Revolution” program (click here for the shocking video) –

The Building Education Revolution (BER) has become the Blatant Enormous Rip-off. This is money borrowed from overseas and off other Australians that you, the taxpayer, are going to have to repay. You repay it by going to work and paying your taxes, which are then sent off to the people we owe the money to.

When the Government does not control costs on these projects you end up working a lot longer than you needed to, to pay the debt back.

It is well worth the question whether many of the BER projects stacked around school yards are needed at all.

Are they really going to make your kids better at mathematics or english? Are they going to help them learn a second language? Or are they, in many instances, just over priced trinkets?

The big black signs that are adorning the perimeters of these schools where these projects are, say that this is part of an “Economic Stimulus Package”.

Now I don’t know whether you are getting stimulated by it but you are certainly getting touched.

People have seen the Labor Government coming and they are taking them for all that they are worth.

A fool and his funds are soon parted friends. Every week our nation borrows a billion dollars extra. When you look at projects such as these, it becomes really frightening as to where the management of our nation is off to.

While travelling around the countryside and in the cities, I am shocked at how easily we have been ripped off. It appears that no one in the Government wants to ask the hard question as to whether we are getting value for money and because others know the Government are not asking the questions, the bills for these buildings go unchallenged.

Like quarter of a million dollar shade cloths over playgrounds and millions of dollars in demountables.

Local builders are asking why they did not get a better go at the major contracts, rather than having to build them second hand, as subcontractors.

P&C’s are asking why the Government did not listen to them when they said they would prefer some other form of expenditure rather than a hall. Many are saying we just didn’t need it at all and we are really worried of the debt we are getting because of this.

On a positive note, it is good to see that Australians do care about the waste of money. Australians truly understand that there is something wrong with the mindless throwing of money to the wind for the shrewd and the cunning to take advantage of. This is what happens when you do not properly control costs.

How on earth is this waste helping any body?

How will you feel about it when you are sitting back late at night stacking shelves or driving cabs or stacking bricks in real buildings for real people or shearing sheep or driving earthmoving equipment, to pay off this complete waste of money where even in the waste you have been ripped off.

Barnaby is right.

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Wong Wastes Water Money

31 Mar

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 30 March 2010:

Reports in the Australian Financial Review today confirm that Penny Wong is presiding over a water buy back scheme that is frittering away money. Senator Joyce said “reports suggesting that Penny Wong has overpaid to the tune of $40 million and that some water sellers are getting special deals fuel the confusion and uncertainty surrounding Senator Wong’s plan for the Basin. Who expects irrigators to invest in water-saving technology in this climate of confusion?”

Senator Joyce spoke yesterday to a number of irrigators and farmers. These initial discussions have confirmed reports in the media today. The Government is not providing sufficient feedback on the status of some farmer’s tenders. As the Productivity Commission reported last year, Senator Wong’s scheme has also failed to recognize the effects on local communities of farms closing down. Senator Joyce will be travelling along the Basin over the next few weeks to get first-hand experience of these impacts.

Senator Joyce reiterated that he has no problems with the buying of water, or moving towards to a nationally coordinated use of water from the Murray-Darling Basin. “We need a water policy that provides jobs in regional areas, guarantees food security for all Australians and protects the environment. Current policy appears to ignore this triple-bottom line approach,” Senator Joyce said.

More Information- Jenny Swan 0746 251500

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Global Turmoil Looms: Keating

27 Mar

From The Age:

Paul Keating has delivered a bearish assessment of the world economy, warning that another bout of global turmoil is possible if trade and capital imbalances go unaddressed.

The former prime minister and treasurer last night argued current account surplus nations such as China and Germany must urgently shrink their surpluses by lifting the role of domestic demand.

Failure to do so could trigger another sharp deterioration in global economic conditions, he said, damaging Australia’s growth prospects.

Mr Keating also casts doubt on China’s ability to continue growing at recent rates of near 10 per cent. He said this rate was being artificially supported by excessive investment and its pegged currency, which makes its exporters more competitive.

“Our biggest customer China is growing for the moment… but only on investment steroids,” he said.

The former prime minister also highlighted risks to foreign countries with large debts, such as the US and Europe.

In the event of a double-dip recession, Mr Keating said the developed world would not have the funding to support massive fiscal packages.

“If a financial crisis comes in the future there won’t be the method to deal with it as we’ve seen in this crisis,” he said.

Keating is correct.

Thanks to Rudd Labor’s panicked, massive “stimulus” spending – tens of billions of borrowed money wasted on pink batts, foil insulation, and Julia Gillard Memorial School Halls – Australia no longer has a safety net.

And despite the daily warnings of crisis dead ahead – now coming even from former “world’s greatest treasurer” Paul Keating – Rudd Labor is continuing to borrow well over $1bn a week.

When the next wave of the GFC comes, everyone will know that Barnaby is right.

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