The budget been delivered and so far comments have been largely positive. I’ll ignore the idiotic ramblings of people like Andrew Bolt. No government can deliver on the wants of everyone. It's about balancing fairness. On that point I believe Scott Morrison has done a good job.
I’ve said on many occasions that my assessment of the Turnbull Govt would be based on a couple of key measures.
- 1) Budget 2016
- 2) The Treasurer, Prime Minister and key cabinet ministers ability to sell the budget
- 3) Election policies
I’m comfortable with the budget. I was pleased to see Treasurer Morrison resisted the urge to open Pandora’s Goodie Box. I mentioned in a recent blog that the Treasurer should steer clear of ripping the guts out of school and hospital funding. He did. Big tuck for that. Changes to superannuation are reasonable. The removal of the works test for over 65 year olds who want to make a contribution should please self-funded retirees.
Over the coming days we will be subjected to more and more analysis and sad people like me will plow through the budget papers. But, so far so good.
The Treasurer and the Prime Minister hit the airwaves today, as they should. But, the real test will come over the next week or two. Labor and the Greens have already flagged they will block certain initiatives around tax cuts. We expected that, so no surprises there.
Now we sit and wait for an election to be officially called followed by various parties delivering election promises. This is where the real test begins for Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull will lead the party to the election. He has 50-days to convince the electorate that his government deserves another run. He’s starting behind the gate but that is often a good place to be. It's certainly advantageous if you are a fighter. We’ll now see if Turnbull is a fighter. I suspect he is and I suspect he will enjoy the challenge. It won’t be ‘fire and brimstone’ but I expect we’ll see restrained determination. I’m comfortable with that.
The real highlight of the day was the announcement by Clive Palmer that he won’t be re-contesting for the seat of Fairfax. He cited family reasons. He made a complete ass of himself in QT yesterday but don’t be fooled by his hollow gesture. He makes his intentions clear in his valedictory speech at the 7min27sec point. He wants the balance of power in the senate and you can bet your life he’ll be running for a senate spot. Note, despite family reasons he HASN’T ruled it out. I just pray to heavens voters are wiser this time round and give Palmer and PUP a very, very wide-berth.
(link to) Palmer's valadictory speech
So now the hard work begins. The LNP are off to a good start. They’ve performed strongly in the parliament over the last two days. The budget has been reasonably well received and for me I can tick off my first point. I hope I can tick off 2 and 3. Time will tell.
