Tag Archives: treasurer

The Galactic Hypocrisy Of Wayne Swan

6 Mar

The red mist has descended.

Your humble blogger is angry.

Very angry.

Wayne Swan has publicly attacked three local, homegrown Aussie miners.

Ms Gina Rinehart. Mr Clive Palmer. And Mr Andrew Forrest.

Wayne claims that he is fighting for a “fair go”, for “equality”, against “rich” “vested interests” that are “threatening our democracy”.

Oh really?

Wayne Swan did a secret, exclusive deal on the design of the mining tax with the Big Three foreign-owned multinational mining companies, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, and Xstrata, just before the 2010 election.

Wayne’s secret deal is widely claimed to favour the Big Three foreigners, at the expense of the much smaller local Aussie mining companies.

Wayne’s secret deal is alleged to have come about after the Big Three foreign-owned mining companies “gave the nod” for Julia Gillard to knife democratically-elected PM Kevin Rudd, and promised to pull their anti-mining tax ad campaign.

Tell us again, who is a “threat to democracy”?

Wayne Swan accuses three local Aussie miners – two of whom are self-made, from humble beginnings – of being “champions of privilege”.

Oh really?

Wayne is a career political hack, with an Arts degree, and zero business experience.

Wayne receives $346,000 per annum, $6,653 per week, paid for by the taxpayer.

Wayne voted himself an $84,000 pay rise late last year.

Wayne blew $75,440 of taxpayers’ money on empty RAAF VIP “ghost flights” to collect and ferry him around, in just 6 months last year.

Tell us again, who is a “champion of privilege”?

Wayne Swan is a vile, disgusting, public trough-swilling, grossly overpaid, thoroughly under qualified, pathologically dishonest, monumentally repugnant, morally destitute, vomitous, self-serving, bottom-dwelling, anti-Australian, treasonous, galactic hypocrite.

* I have chosen to keep this piece focussed on Swan and his attack on locals in the mining industry. I could write an entire new piece on other “vested interests” that Wayne oh so conveniently neglects to mention, much less publicly attack. For example, the unions who finance (and rule) the ALP, and the clubs industry whose “power” and political activism prompted the Labor government to brazenly renege on a written contract with Andrew Wilkie for poker machine reform. And that’s just for starters.

** The media in this country are deserving of very similar epithets to those attributed to Wayne Swan above. I am not aware that a single journalist has challenged Wayne Swan on any of the above facts.

*** Note well: this blogger is no fawning acolyte of miners, big business, or “free markets”. On the contrary, if it were within my power I would nationalise all mineral, petroleum, and natural gas resources – see “Why I Hang Farther To The Left Than Bob Brown”.

Hockey Pucked: Our Next Treasurer As Clueless As Goose?

7 Jul

Click to enlarge

The latest building approvals data came out a few days ago.

Down again.

From AAP via the SMH:

Australian residential building approvals fell 7.9 per cent to 12,290 units in May, seasonally adjusted.

This compares to a downwardly revised 13,342 units in April.

In the year to May, building approvals were down 14.4 per cent, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said on Monday.

Economists’ forecasts had centred on a 0.5 per cent fall in approvals in May.

So.

The economists’ “forecasts” were not worth the binary code they are “printed” with.

As usual.

And they were wrong … on the “too confident” side.

Interesting.

Could it be that these unnamed “economists”, whose forecast for a tiny fall was (yet again) so far off beam … are connected to the banking industry … which lives and breathes off its lending hundreds of billions into our now-bursting, debt-driven, housing bubble Ponzi scheme?

And could it be that our next Treasurer – the Liberal Party’s Joe Hockey – is just as clueless as the dribbling imbecile currently in the job?

It appears so … if his comment on Twitter in response to the building approvals data release is anything to go by (emphasis added):

@JoeHockey Joe Hockey

Building approvals down for 7th month in a row. NSW and Vict. hardest hit.I can’t believe house prices won’t rise soon on back of shortages.

4 Jul via web Unfavorite Retweet Reply

Joe has drunk the Kool-aid (as they say in North America). He’s drunk the sweet sugary orange Cottee’s cordial, in other words.

He’s bought into the great “housing shortage” myth.

You know. The one that every other country with a housing bubble fervently believed in too.

The myth that has been comprehensively debunked here in Australia, by Money Morning amongst others.

One can only wonder what Joe would make of the following advertisement, that was brought to my attention by Twitter user @iClevercat.

The advertisement was in a magazine insert included with the weekend edition of a major West Australian newspaper. Placed by a major home builder, in our only economic “boom” state.

You know. The state where all the mining “boom” money is supposed to be.  Where you’d imagine that demand for new McMansions should be really strong.  And where builders certainly should not need to start offering incentives like this, just to get people to sign up to buy a house –

Now, what’s the ABS data say about the trend for building approvals (ie, demand for new houses) in our last remaining economic nirvana, Western Australia?

Click to enlarge

So.

The “trend estimate for total number of dwelling units approved in Western Australia fell by 1.9% in May and has now fallen for six months.”

And major builders in that same “boom” state are offering a $14,500 RRP “free” car, as an incentive to encourage people to sign up for a new house.

What say you, Mr Hockey?

Or must we conclude that our economic fate is to be handed over from the Goose to another babbling buffoon who’s dense as puck.

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