austerity rationale

Economically moronic or grossly ideological? Which description best fits the Cando Newman government's excuse for massive and cruel job losses and public service cuts? Here is an expose of Queensland Treasury's base and baseless rationale for austerity.

Melodramatic economic rhetoric frankly misleading

The Queensland Treasurer, Mark McArdle, appeared on ABC local radio today. He used the opportunity to re-iterate the litany of abysmal financial debt left to ‘Queenslanders’ by the previous Labor (ALP) Govt. and the attendant need for austere severity by the new Government. In describing this dark legacy he included the debt held by Government Owned Corporations (GOC’s).

Shortly afterward a caller to the station correctly identified the Treasurer’s description as incorrect and misleading. GOC’s hold debt within their balance sheets as a normal part of their commercial operations, as do all private corporations. Such debt levels are kept transparently and within thresholds deemed to be commercially sound and viable.

Government corporation debts generate net income for Government

Importantly, the interest on this debt is fully serviced by the commercial operation of the GOC. It does not bear upon the public purse. Moreover, the financial operations of the GOC that pay the interest bill also, in most cases, generate dividends into Consolidated Revenue. So this sector of the supposed 'problem' is in fact a net income to the Govt, and not a liability.

What proportion does GOC debt comprise within the entire black mass of it that the Newman Government is ululating as the harbinger of impending State doom and a just cause for wholesale exorcism of public sector jobs and services?

If the GOC debt is a substantial proportion of the whole, then the Newman Govt is being either economically moronic or grotesquely and deceitfully ideological. However, is it any better for people to lose their jobs and essential services to gross stupidity rather than to socio-economic eugenics?

Can do what, exactly?

Either way the ‘Can-do’ myth would be resolved in the worst possible fashion. Can do massive fuck-ups - you betcha! And this is just the start of it.