Tony Abbott hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory on his overseas trip. But he has found one ally: Canadian PM (at least until next years election) Stephen Harper, also a climate denialist. They made a joint statement denouncing carbon taxes as “job killing”. I didn’t notice any massive destruction of jobs when the carbon price/tax was introduced in 2012, but rather than do my own analysis, I thought I’d take a look at the government’s own Budget outlook, to see how many jobs they claim to have been destroyed by the carbon tax, and what great benefits we can expect from its removal. Here’s the relevant section of the summary (note that the outlook is premised on the Budget measures being passed)
The Australian economy is in the midst of a major transformation, moving from growth led by investment in resources projects to broader?based drivers of activity in the non?resources sectors. This is occurring at a time when the economy has generally been growing below its trend rate and the unemployment rate has been rising. During this transition, the economy is expected to continue to grow slightly below trend and the unemployment rate is expected to rise further to 6¼ per cent by mid?2015.
In this environment, the Government is focused on implementing measures to support growth and jobs while putting in place lasting structural reforms to restore the nation’s finances to a sustainable footing. The timing and composition of the new policy decisions mean that the faster pace of consolidation in this Budget does not have a material impact on economic growth over the forecast period, relative to the 2013?14 Mid?Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO).
Since MYEFO, the near?term outlook for the household sector has improved. Leading indicators of dwelling investment are consistent with rising activity, while household consumption and retail trade outcomes have improved recently, consistent with gains in household wealth. This is partly offset by weaker business investment intentions, particularly for non?resources sectors.
The outlook for the resources sector is largely unchanged from MYEFO. Resources investment is still expected to detract significantly from growth through until at least 2015?16, as reflected in the outlook for investment in engineering construction which is forecast to decline by 13 per cent in 2014?15 and 20½ per cent in 2015?16. Rising resources exports are only expected to partially offset the impact on growth. Overall, real GDP is forecast to continue growing below trend at 2½ per cent in 2014?15, before accelerating to near?trend growth of 3 per cent in 2015?16.
The labour market has been subdued since late 2011, characterised by weak employment growth, a falling participation rate and a rising unemployment rate, although outcomes since the beginning of 2014 have been more positive. The unemployment rate is forecast to continue to edge higher, settling around 6¼ per cent, consistent with the outlook for real GDP growth. Consumer price inflation is expected to remain well contained, with moderate wage pressures and the removal of the carbon tax.
The reference to the CPI effects of the carbon price (around 0.4 per cent) is, as far as I can tell, the only mention in the whole of the Economic Outlook statement.
John Quiggin 
Is it the case that:
or is Abbott (and Gina, Twiggy, Bolt and Jones) seeking transformation of the Australian political-economy in the interests of Capital?
Capitalism is for Capital, not the environment or for future generations.
I think it’s funny, John, that you are reading their documents hoping to find some kind of measurable reality. It’s like reading the instructions that come with a pack of Tarot card to find out why their predictions aren’t working out.
@David Allen
I am in awe of that analogy and will shamelessly steal it from now on.
@Ivor
One should be wary of abstractions. A lot of people have been killed by the devotees of (and enemies of particular) abstractions.
So may I take you as meaning by Capital actual people who have large savings? (Savings being money and assets which could be turned into money which are not being currently or in the near future used for consumption).
If so, please consider the age distribution of the major holders of that capital. Is it remotely plausible that they don’t care for and listen to their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren?
Is it indeed plausible that they don’t actually care more for the environment than people who live hand to mouth, including marginal farmers, and, if one understands the reality of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, anyone with typical earlier level priorities?
But, assuming you are not as carried away with abstractions as a Wahabi preacher, perhaps your acquaintance includes such a number of crass Philistine multimillionaires that you can reliably generslise about those with the big savings.
An afterthought. You could be referring to the capitalism which transformed the world (with reciprocal help from the beginnings of modern science and maybe religious reformation) from its Malthusian miseries to what we enjoy today however little we may have contributed personally to prosperity.
@Midrash
There was no abstraction.
Capital is not savings.
“If so” – is if not.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is subject to morality, equity, social justice and ecology.
Millionaires capture savings and use them as Capital. Capital and savings are two different things.
You afterthought was no thought. Capitalism only transformed part of the world to great heights by imposing opposite conditions on the many. Prosperity is unknown to most of the global population including most of the working poor in OECD and OPEC economies.
“Canadia” has voluntary voting and the LNP haven’t figured out how to lock in that “reform” here so Abbott’s high stakes strategy is bound to come up against reality eventually. Although the press is still giving “the greatest opposition leader in history” a free pass the public has wised up to Abbott. The question remains – will the LNP all go down together or will they come to their senses and get rid of this brace of right-wing loonies before it’s too late.
+1
I tell you again, I think the PM has autism.
@Midrash
Rich people may care about their children and grandchildren if they have them (not everybody does), but even if they do (and even that is not automatic) they still may not care about other people’s children and grandchildren.
We need a five year time series to disentangle the various factors that have led to a modest reduction in our electricity sector emissions. These factors include the manufacturing downturn, the physical displacement effect of increased renewable energy, the price effects of subsidies and network ‘gold plating’, the effect of high rainfall w.r.t. hydro and coal mine flooding and finally the carbon tax.
Within Canada a couple of provinces appear to be doing low carbon well. BC has a carbon tax which we are told has popular support and Ontario has emissions intensity as low as France. Shame about the Alberta tar sands which are a carbon nightmare. Obama has perhaps wisely deferred a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline for diluted bitumen imports from Canada to the US. He is pinning his green cred on domestic coal plant emission limits. A possible scenario is not much happens with US coal but the Canadian tar sands keep coming. Harper can then say ‘not my problem’.
Abbott’s comment in Canada that he, like Obama, also believes in a Direct Action policy has been pinged by various commentators as showing his problem with truth-telling. Another example Greg Jericho gave last week at the ABC site “Government’s low blow on higher education”was the policy taken to the last election: “We will ensure the continuation of the current arrangements of university funding”.
Since then, Christopher Pyne has discovered economic religion, and it sounds so elegant, pure and exciting. I wonder how much of his hubris can be put down to his mere two year work experience as a solicitor before entering Parliament.
Policy incoherence, inchoate analysis and lying are deep-seated flaws which look like continuing themes.
@Collin Street
There’s that mentally ill-bashing again. Cut. It. Out.
Page 20 of the latest BREE publication puts employment by the mining sector at 2.3% – hardly a job creator.
I note also that a number of retailers are linking a downturn in activity to the release of the budget. Not much employment growth there.
So he definately doesn’t? Or the hypothesis is beyond the pale? Or it is insulting to those with autism to suggest they have anything in common with Abbott? Please, I would like to know.
@Tony Lynch
It’s insulting to those with autism to “diagnose” a public figure with autism because he or she behaves in a way you don’t like. IMHO, the habit of blog “diagnosis” of public figures (or people who are the subject of media attention) with various kinds of mental illnesses or psychopathologies is offensive. It uses mental illness as a kind of insult.
@Tim Macknay
I agree entirely. It is worth adding that the diagnosis is almost certainly wrong (Abbott tries to intimidate with a glare; someone would avoid eye contact). Second, even if it were true it is entirely irrelevant to Abbott’s flaws (people with autism do not have a deficit with moral judgment).
@Midrash
It seems to me that you really are referring to actual people, even if not known to you, who have large savings in the sense that they (typically the modern CEO) control the use of large aggregations of savings to the exclusion of those savings being spent on consumption in the short or perhaps medium term. In any case you are apparently referring to people who must in practice include a high proportion who care about the environment and future generations. BTW you seem to misunderstand Maslow. His was an empirical observation or hypothesis and, if near enough to true, as most people who understand what he was saying agree that it is/was it does make it prima facie unlikely that the rich would be careless about the environment. The Australian Conservation Foundation was founded by the conservative before the activist left’s “long march through the institutions” took it over. Did you know that?
Midrash in the eighteenth comment accuses Midrash in the fourth comment of misunderstanding Maslow. What’s going on here?
@Ivor
Somehow my reply to you became a reply to myself, so please see the one above this.
Collin’s opinion is the PM has autism whereas I am almost completely certain that he does not. Now I think that in all fairness since I am without a doubt the sexiest man in Australia, my opinion should count for more but to be fair I will just say that my opinion cancels out Collin’s and we can return to our regular programming. In fact I would go as far as to opine that Tony Abbott’s behaviour is more or less be the opposite of autism, but that would just be encouraging further discussion on this topic, so I won’t say that. If there is a sandpit open I would be happy to discuss autism and schizophrenia there, but only if people promise not the mention the names of anyone living who hasn’t come out as being on the autism spectrum.
Hasn’t covered himself in glory?
Compared to Rudd/Gillard, Abbott is looking like Australia’s Kissinger on the world stage.
@J-D
Your point is incontestable as a matter of logic and it is true enough that rich people may care about their own issue but not that of others. The opposite is also true though not as often.
One of the problems for the rich who want to be and, presumably, to be regarded as, good people is that they are inevitably likely to be in the situation of the judge who is judge in his own case. They tend to be relatively free from the pressure of outside judgment although many, no doubt, are as agonising in the examination of their consciences as devout Christian aristocrats in the earlier centuries. But I would suggest that the empirical truth of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs makes it inherently implausible that the rich or powerful would, on average, not be amongst the leading exponents (especially in public acts) of the conventional, traditional and also fashionable virtues. It is no accident that wives (less often husbands) of highly paid senior executives and leading professional people are found amongst the leaders of charities which care for the environment and other people’s children.
The (rotating) chair of the G20 cancels the meetings he had booked with the heads of the IMF and the World Bank, but finds time for tinkling the bell on Wall Street and having an expansive dinner with Rupert Murdoch. This, after two days of mutual congratulation with the current leader of a country the name of which escapes him and which could hardly be less likely to increase investment here – there’s no diversification in it. If that’s Australia’s Kissinger, then Australia has a Kissinger who covers himself in something rather less attractive than glory.
@ChrisH
He doesn’t manage to insult the Chinese, American, Indian, Japanese and Indonesian Governments though.
@faust
Be fair, he did a pretty good job of offending the Indonesian Government. You can’t take that away from him.
Surely not 🙂 I thought we were “open for business” in this brave new paradise where business was to be unshackled from the dead hand of government. Maybe the Tories might belatedly realise it takes two to tango – business needs consumers more than the other way round.
@faust
I must admit I’m not following here. Abbott has insulted the Indonesians, rattled sabres at the Chinese, and made an idiot of himself in the eyes of the Americans. It’s true he negotiated a worthless agreement with Japan, but so what?
Labor:
1) Called the Chinese Govt “rat-f**kers”
2) Lied about GWB re: G20 comments to the editor of The Australian and then relayed a private conversation overhead between GWB and Putin to Aus press
3) Halted live cattle trade overnight to Indonesia and then in 2009 authorised the phone-tapping of SBY and his wife
4) Unilaterally halted uranium trade to India while allowing the said trade to continue to other countries
5) Sent Japan to the ICJ re: whaling
Oh yeah, that’s right, Labor did a great job in Government managing our foreign relations. JQ you have to be honest sometime in your life!
FYI, talking about sabre-rattling who was in power in the 2009 Defence White Paper that specifically identified China as a military threat?
Please, let’s not kid ourselves here. You are partisan to the point of being so blinded by your hatred of Abbott that you would excuse the worst excesses or idiocies of others just because you passionately hate the man and his party/coalition.
@zoot
Who halted live cattle trade and who bugged SBY’s phone?
Oh yeah, Labor.
LNP is repairing the broken links because of moronic policies by the party that you (balance of probabilities) voted for.
jesus, faust, you’re even a bigger prick now than you ever were at larvatus prodeo. -a.v.
p.s. dear John Quiggin, hope i haven’t violated the code with that remark, but if i have, feel free to delete my comment without further ado. -a.v.
larvatus prodeo? I haven’t been on that site. I know I stole my moniker but it is nice that being Dr Faustus is spreading amongst erudite right-wingers!
@faust
Abbott didn’t condemn the latter, and I applaud the former. And the Indonesians already had a plan to become independent in cattle.
Abbott is shaming the country before the civilised world. The stuff you cite about Rudd was trivial by comparison.
Rudd’s most shameful acts relate to his border security policy and he shares that with Abbott.
@faust
What are Abbott’s best attributes?
@Fran Barlow
1) Halting live cattle trade was under Gillard
2) Bugging SBY’s phone caused massive problems between the leaders.
You advocate unilaterally banning live cattle? So you don’t want Indonesians to enjoy cheaper and more protein-rich food? That is disgusting. You are enjoying the benefits of living in a rich country and want to deny it to a developing economy. You are not compassionate to the Indonesians because your policies will make it too expensive for Indonesians to enjoy the type of food we take for granted.
You think that Abbott is shaming Australia? What the hell makes you think Rudd and Gillard made Australia look respectable? Do you even know anyone who works in foreign governments to take their soundings? Seriously Fran, pathetic.
@Megan
Difficult to say… being underestimated.
About money and its morals.
I think, Midrash, that it is a mistake to look at the behaviour of money as though it was controlled by the people who own it. Most of us have money in banks and superannuation, and guess what, we don’t manage that money. Someone has a job that involves investing your money, and they won’t be making decisions for the long term good of humanity, they’ll be chasing the best returns.
@faust 35
I think halting live cattle exports, as distinct from humane passage for live cattle, is the wrong objective. Led by populism, Gillard and Ludwig were contemptuous towards foreign buyers for knee-jerk domestic reasons, and their regulatory failure which had to be projected towards the foreign “Other”. The islamic way is slaughter close to consumption site; an Australian analogy would be the practice of coffee bean grinding close to consumption site, the only major exception amongst Australian coffee suppliers being Lavazza (“stale coffee, taking 6 weeks from factory to consumer” as the CEO of a major local grinder described them to me).
It also provides value-adding jobs to destination countries which desperately need them. In Jakarta I would see butchers at local markets doing the deed in public; a low-level tradesman job rather than capitalised factories as in Australia, and gory because on public display. Drop your prejudices Australia: Indonesia is very receptive to encouragement; don’t close them down from education and improvement.
Faust
Fair enough. One positive thing about Rudd moved to the Gillard column.
I would have opposed this, but let’s be clear — Howard would have done the same. The embarrassing thing was being sprung.
Yes. The live cattle trade is brutal and needless, even if one wants to eat meat, which is for the vast majority a lifestyle choice. In Indonesia, and in most developing countries, it is a luxury of the rich rather than a staple of the poor.
Strawman and also specious dichotomy. I don’t want humans torturing animals, even for food. It is not necessary because cheap quality protein is already there.
In any event, it was and is the Indonesian regime’s policy to phase out live cattle imports by 2015 so apparently the government there doesn’t think stopping Australian live exports will have the consequence you suggest.
You can’t show that Abbott is respectable by arguing that Rudd and Gillard were not. That really is pathetic. It is however the case that Rudd was fairly highly regarded amongst the imperialist allies of this country. That is of little interest to me, and rather shames him IMO, but right-wingers ought to be impressed. Gillard did rather seem to impress Obama and Clinton of the Hillary variety also spoke up for her. I doubt anyone will speak up for Abbott. Even ex-Tory cabinet ministers and people like John Key are laughing as Abbott lies on a world stage about matters like carbon pricing and his DAP.
@kevin1
That’s appalling. Simply dreadful. The live animal trade is an exercise in systemic cruelty. It simply has no warrant. Raising cattle in the Northern Territory is also an environmental disaster, worse than raising cattle in general at commercial scale.
We ought to end it without delay.
@faust
So your argument is that Abbott didn’t offend Indonesia because Labor did?
Logic’s not your strong suit, is it?
How long does one have “below trend growth” before it is recognised as the new trend? What is Australia’s supposed “natural” trend growth? Why do conventional economists (not JQ) assume that growth will always sooner or later return to “trend” (whatever that means exactly)?
Does “trend” mean “well things aren’t so good now but we assume without any evidence that they will get better sooner or later”?
Does anyone at all in conventional economics and the broader community realise that growth cannot go on forever in a finite land or on a finite planet? Are they making any preparations for steady state economy not an endless growth economy? The latter of course (endless growth) is an oxymoron under the known physical laws of this universe.
Finally, I will pose and answer one question. Is there any end to the blind stupidity of conventional capitalist economics? Surprisingly, yes! That which is unsustainable will collapse… eventually. In human time it might take a while. Why, it might take another 50 years. In geological or cosmological time, the collapse of endless growth capitalism is due in the blink of an eye.
so you weren’t “faustusnotes” once, even here? then you’re a prick without a pedigree. -a.v.
Throwing Putin out of the G8 worked quite well: it pricked his vanity while leaving substantive diplomacy unaffected. I propose ejecting Tony Abbott from the G20 if he doesn’t accept the communiqué in favour of motherhood-sustainability-and-apple-pie.
@Fran Barlow
So the live cattle trade is “systemic cruelty”; are you suggesting purposive intent? I’ve joined this discussion late, but what aspects of the “system” necessitate cruelty, and can nothing be done about these aspects? (Not consistent with Left Reformism).
And raising cattle in the NT is an environmental disaster? (previously we were talking about treatment of the animals not the environment). Perhaps you have explained this before, but please elaborate for this latecomer. Do aboriginal-run stations agree with you? Why or why not?
Regarding the phone tapping of the president’s wife, if you concede that legitimate intelligence is about finding out who your targeted threats are talking to, and what they are saying, then surely you do what you have to do? (The niceties of personal relationships are less relevant.)
Ms Kristianto’s relationships with the numerous power brokers are of legitimate interest. Sorry folks, but this is not Australia: experts say she IS a political player and the back-room negotiations and pillow talk are not off-limits!
Indonesia is a notoriously opaque political environment and family dynasties, as elsewhere in Asia, are closely scrutinised. With one of the two major Presidential candidates being Prabowo (who is banned from entering the US as a presumed war criminal in Timor Leste), the stakes are too important to get squeamish. Time to get real!
@Midrash
This was generated by some for of random phrase generation device, right?
@faust
I enjoy cheap protien rich food. Unlike you I don’t feel the need to inflict unecessary pain on the animal whilst you slaughter it in your back garden.
@Patrickb
I presumed you were being rude and deserved to be told that I was providing brain training exercises for slow learners but I will take it that you are referring to my accidentally appearing to reply to myself.
If you have ever tried tapping out a contribution with thumb or one finger on a smartphone you will have no trouble understanding how easily the slip can occur. Does that answer your question?
@Ikonoclast
In writing of the inevitable collapse of perpetual growth capitalism you are, I suspect, one of the many doomsayers who have a vision of the economy which is stuck in the past. Setting aside the real problem of population growth in the poorest countries which may not add much CO2 to the atmosphere but devastates aspects of the natural envirionment that our descendants might enjoy what’s wrong with growth which consists of the production of things made out of renewables or the recycled, miniaturised almost everything, renewable energy, robotics etc.? Keynes’s 1929/30 “Prospects for our grandchildren was unreasonably optimistic but gives some idea of how growth might be sustained and enjoyed in a much changed world.
Kevin1
As I understand it, the commercial viability of the trade in live animals entails resort to cramped conditions over a long period of time, on roads, at docks and on ships. Maybe we could fly them in business class direct from farms from which they had been conveyed in horse trailers, but I suspect not.
And the slaughter system at the other end is a developing world system in a context where cost saving is prioritised over welfare. It’s worth noting by comparison that the Reagan era deregulation in the US meant slaughterhouses became far less humane both to their animals and those unfortunate enough to be working in them.
see for example
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2011/06/22/live-cattle-ban-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-pastoralism-in-the-northern-territory/?wpmp_switcher=mobile