Wayne Swan’s [remark last month](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-21/swan-attacks-republican-cranks-and-crazies/4273300) that the US Republican Party had been taken over by “cranks and crazies” is notable in two respects.

First, it is true.

Second, it marks a further move towards a globalised politics, in which political arguments routinely transcend national boundaries.

The truth of Swan’s claim is so obvious that few, even in Australia, have bothered to dispute it. The following are just a sample of the lunatic beliefs held by much of the Republican Party base, propounded on its news outlets such as Fox News, and put forward by leading Republican politicians:

* That President Obama is a [foreign-born Muslim](http://www.mediaite.com/online/new-poll-shows-conservative-republicans-increasingly-believe-obama-is-muslim/), a rabid [socialist](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/04/obama-socialist-claim-history_n_1568470.html) and more [sympathetic to jihadists](http://news.yahoo.com/michele-bachmanns-mccarthy-esque-hunt-islamist-infiltrators-guide-182000777.html) than to the United States.
* That scientific evidence on climate change is the product of a global conspiracy aimed at imposing a UN-dominated [world government](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575565,00.html).
* That opinion polls showing Republican candidate Mitt Romney trailing President Obama [have been rigged](http://theweek.com/article/index/234067/the-polls-are-not-rigged–theyre-just-nuanced) in the hope of depressing the turnout of Republican voters.

While not all Republicans believe all of these things, few, if any, have been willing to repudiate these conspiracy theories and their advocates. Mitt Romney, for example, has [equivocated on climate change](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20127273-503544/mitt-romneys-shifting-views-on-climate-change/), [embraced “birthers”](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/30/us-usa-campaign-idUSBRE84S19O20120530) such as Donald Trump and, through his campaign organisation, promoted [opinion poll denialism](http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/09/can_the_polls_be_believed.html).

The view that the Republican Party has been captured by cranks and crazies is not confined to Democrats or even centrists. Leading conservatives such as [David Frum](http://nymag.com/news/politics/conservatives-david-frum-2011-11/), speechwriter for George W. Bush and [Bruce Bartlett,](http://workingreporter.com/wordpress/?p=1053) domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan have said the same thing, in equally blunt terms.

Even the remaining conservative intellectuals who deny the “crazy” claim do so in a half-hearted fashion. New York Times columnist [Ross Douthat argues](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-responsible-republicans.html) that Romney’s success in claiming the Republican Presidential nomination, after half a dozen manifestly crazy candidates had held the lead at one time or another, proves that the Republican base is not entirely crazy. Others, such as [Stephen Bainbridge](http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2011/11/this-country-is-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket.html), engage in _tu quoque_, picking isolated instance of Democratic silliness to suggest that both sides are crazy. Both approaches have proved unconvincing.

Accurate as Swan’s remarks are, it would have been surprising, until relatively recently to see an Australian leader make such comments about US politics. The etiquette that “politics stops at the water’s edge” precluded both comments on domestic politics while travelling overseas, and on the domestic politics of other countries.

Such niceties have ceased to be relevant in a world of massive and instantaneous communication. For practical purposes, any comment, wherever it is made, is addressed to the world as a whole. More significantly, political debate has been globalised. In particular, the “cranks and crazies” who dominate the US Republican Party, along with the right wing of the Tory party in the UK, inform the thinking of much of the Australian right-wing commentariat.

The Republican conspiracy theory about opinion polls was only days old when it appeared on Australian right-wing blog sites. Writing in Quadrant, once the voice of high-toned intellectual conservatism, Steve Kates [called President Obama](http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2012/09/america-s-last-hurrah) “a socialist of the most radical leftist kind”. This is an absurd description of a centrist Democrat who wasted much of his first term seeking a “grand bargain” with the Republican party to reduce social welfare expenditures while modestly increasing taxes. And of course, climate conspiracy theories, recycling material derived from the US, are run of the mill material for the Australian right.

Some on the Australian right are more circumspect, in a manner that might be described as “cafeteria crazy”. That is, they accept a full-blown conspiracy theory regarding climate change, in which Obama, and most other world leaders, scientific organisations and so on, are embroiled in a plot to enslave the free peoples of the world. On the other hand, they indignantly reject birtherism, and get uncomfortable when the list of climate change plotters is extended to include the Rothschilds, the Royal Family and so on.

It’s fair to observe that the globalised Republican brand of craziness is not the only one in the market. Most obviously, there is the mirror-image brand of militant Islamism, circulating on websites and mailing lists out of the view of most Australians. At a much lower level, there are silly ideas propagated in some leftwing circles, from 9/11 “trutherism” to the wilder fringes of the environmental movement. But, unlike the case with the Republicans, neither of these brands of crazy has a significant presence in mainstream politics, either here or in the US.

A globalised world produces globalised politics. At one time, criticism from “overseas” (the very term recalls an long-vanished world of sea voyages), would have been largely counterproductive, producing a united reaction against outside interference.

But the US reaction to Swan’s remarks has been on predictably partisan lines. Democratic-leaning bloggers such as Paula Gordon on [The Huffington Post](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paula-gordon/feint-praise_b_1908595.html) have endorsed Swan. The fact that Australian politicians rarely make such remarks has been cited, not as a criticism of Swan, but as evidence that Republican extremism has gone beyond any normal bounds.

Conversely, right-wing US sites have attacked Swan in much the same terms as they do their domestic opponents. Exactly the same responses, with sides reversed, greeted Israeli PM Netanyahu’s attack on Obama, and, going back a few years, George Bush’s criticism of Mark Latham.

In practical terms, the re-election of the Obama Administration, which now seems highly likely, would constitute a substantial win for the Australian Labor Party. And a surprise victory for the Republicans would be a win for Tony Abbott and his Republican-style politics of culture war.

In a globalised world, there is no meaningful “water’s edge” and politics no longer respects national boundaries.

Alan Jones is in a heap of strife for his tasteless and offensive attack on Julia Gillard. He’s suffering the same effects of social media that Rush Limbaugh encountered when he called a student advocate of access to contraceptives a “slut”. Limbaugh’s show has survived, but his leading advertisers are gone, and his power over the Republican Party (so extreme that anyone who criticised him was forced into a grovelling apology) has dissipated. It’s too early to say for sure, but Alan Jones may be in even more difficulty than Limbaugh. Unlike Limbaugh, whose audience and local advertisers are scattered across the US, Jones depends critically on 2GB and Sydney. That makes things simple – until Jones goes, any company that advertises on 2GB is effectively supporting him. Advertisers seem to be jumping ship fast, to the point where the station must be hurting pretty badly.

In both cases, the response to the comments might be seen as over the top, if it weren’t for the track record of getting away with such appalling stuff in the past. Leaving aside his consistent nastiness, of which the latest was just an extreme example, Jones should have lost his job for the cash-for-comment scandal and then again for his incitement of the Cronulla riots. He got away with both of those, but it looks like he might have run out of luck this time.

Of course, as a private citizen, Jones has the right to say hateful and offensive things. But we don’t have to listen to him, or contribute to his wealth by buying the products of his sponsors.

If you haven’t signed the petition yet, its here

Fresh from announcing that Queensland is on the brink of bankruptcy, and sacking 14 000 (“non-frontline”) public servants Premier Campbell Newman has announced plans to demolish the Executive Building (where he and his Ministers have their headquarters) and Public Works Building, to replace them with spanking new ones. Apparently, the front line is in George Street.

The proposal is wrapped up in such a way as to make it impossible to determine true cost. It will be run as a PPP, a bunch of heritage assets will be sold, doubtless in a way that reduces their protection and increases their market value, and a casino license will be thrown into the mix. But, it’s blatantly obvious that if you tear down a building and put up a new one with exactly the same purpose, you are taking on additional debt, whatever the accounts can be made to say.

This kind of shonky deal is precisely what Commissions of Audit are supposed to investigate. And fortunately, we have one, due to report early next year. I’m confident that Peter Costello, Doug McTaggart and Sandra Harding, backed up by a strong secretariat will be able to unravel this deal and show how much harder it will make the task of reducing state debt.

And of course, if there’s anything really dodgy going on, we have the Crime and Misconduct Commission. At least, we do for now.

I did an interview on all this with the Queensland 730 program, which may go to air this evening.

Me! At least according to Shadow Treasurer, Curtis Pitt, who observes, of Queensland Treasurer, Tim Nicholls:

there is one name the Treasurer won’t dare speak—the Treasurer’s own Lord Voldemort Professor John Quiggin. He does not want to draw attention to the analysis by the Federation Fellow, because it is a truly independent analysis—one which puts a sword to the Costello audit.

Seriously, I do seem to have this effect on Treasurers. Nicholls’ predecessor, Andrew Fraser was equally unwilling to speak my name or face me in debate. And Peter Costello, admittedly an ex-Treasurer, but one who held the position for twelve years, declined to respond to my critique.

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If I had just won an overwhelming election victory by defeating a government that had
(i) dumped its election commitments in an effort to reduce public debt and restore a AAA rating
(ii) made a mess of the public hospital system

I could think of lots of things I might do after taking office. But there are two things I definitely wouldn’t do …

The sum of money isn’t huge[1], but if you want to sum up the Newman government in a single policy decision, it’s this: to save $200k, they could either scrap the Premier’s Literary Awards or withdraw a promised grant to fund the next series of Big Brother. Of course, they went for Big Brother, and boasted about it.

Update Although the funding is gone, the Premier-free Queensland Literary Awards have gone ahead, with a win for Frank Moorhouse, who has just brought out the final volume in the trilogy that began with Grand Days. I’m very keen to read this – the first two books were superb.

fn1. Compared, for example, to the $100 million they splashed on vanity projects for the racing industry which could have saved the jobs of of 1000 or so nurses.

Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls has just brought down his first budget, following the announcement by Premier Campbell Newman of massive public service job cuts justified by apocalyptic rhetoric. Yet apart from those job cuts, the budget (in combination with measures announced previously) doesn’t show much in the way of fiscal discipline. Among the most glaring examples

* An $80 handout to all households, with no targeting, nominally to offset water bills
* A previously announced freeze on electricity prices for households, paid for out of general revenue
* The replacement of the $7000 first home buyers grant with a $15 000 grant for buyers of new homes
* Handouts to tourism, racing and other sectors

Measures like this are par for the course for state budgets, but not what you’d expect from a government faced with a fiscal crisis, comparable to Greece or Spain.

The government has fiddled at the edges on revenue, but is doing nothing (or even adding to the distortionary concessions) on payroll tax and land tax.

In essence, the government is relying almost entirely on cuts to the public service, focused on the health sector. This is a high-risk strategy to put it mildly. It may well be that the health bureaucracy is bloated and inefficient, but that doesn’t mean that creating a new layer of regional management is going to improve things, especially when their first task is to implement arbitary cuts in the number of nurses and other employees. Campbell Newman says his promise that “frontline jobs are safe” now means “frontline services won’t be affected by job cuts” but this is just wishful thinking. There hasn’t been any analysis of how to improve efficiency, just an edict that numbers need to be cut.

In these circumstances, it’s virtually inevitable that waiting lists will blow out. And inevitably, when you have long waiting lists, people will die waiting. At that point, the question will be whether the government can hold its nerve and admit that it was lying about the frontline services, or whether we’ll see expensive panic measures to fix the problem.