The Tony Abbott budget reply speech May 10th 2012,  [1] on, if taken literally, indicates that Tony thinks he is the King of Fairyland. That is the fairy land of an always growing economy.

“ . . . With a growing economy, it’s possible to have lower taxes, better services and a stronger budget bottom line as Australians discovered during the Howard era that now seems like a lost golden age of prosperity. . . . “.

The Tony Abbott alternative is to abolish the carbon tax on day one of a Coalition government , and with this wave of his magic wand, reduce the costs of all living expenses. This exemplar of parliamentary hot air should have been spinning around in a Tutu.   Actual appearence may in fact more resemble the economic growth globin, but miracles can be achieved with a sprinkle of fairy dust in the eyes.

The carbon tax has not taken effect yet, but cost of living expenses have been rising for years. The carbon tax has not caused the steep rise in property prices in Australia, which has taken years, a large part over the previous terms of Liberal party government. The liberal party government brought in the GST, which despite compensatory tax changes, resulted in a 2.5% cost of living rise. Inflation has been averaging 2.9% annually between 2001 and 2010, annually, has been eating away at baseline incomes, with abscence of corresponding wage increases. The same carbon tax argument was applied to job security. For Tony the economic growth fairy, whatever the latest Labor legislation comig up is, it has already caused everything bad in the world.

The costs of living do not appear magically from no where. They ultimately relate to the costs of getting energy and material resources from our environment, and distributing the economic necessities of life amongst our 7 billion and still growing human population. Believe it or not, total global consumption is one and a half times more than our planet can sustain, so we are shrinking our planets production capital.

So when Tony Abbott said “Without a growing economy, everything a government does is basically robbing Peter to pay Paul.”, that is a despicable lie. The growing economy is cab-charge vouchers and the family health services credit card on a global scale. With a growing economy, everything a government does is an increase in the robbing the world to pay ourselves, and robbing our descendents of future sources of wealth. We are doing that well enough already.

Initially, Tony the economic growth fairy tells us that the costs of living are slaying us, and its due to the carbon tax which has not arrived yet. Then he tells us that businesses are in greatest need of tax cuts, also known as business handouts, to assist their wealth creation, but not the people, and that Labor means tested handouts are an act of class warfare. Well this does clearly paint Liberal party policy as Billionaires vs battlers, and over the last decade, Billionaires and big mining companies have been booming, while the battlers have been sinking.

Less tax for economic growth is the entire content of Tony Abbotts speech, with a few supporting features such as parental leave, which would support having more children,something like the original “baby bonus”, a Coalition favorite, which also supports “economic growth”. Its not actually a desire to help families as such. Nobody doubts the sincerity of the economic growth fairy. The problems is, like the fairy tale role, she is too good to be true. The economic growth fairy is a moron with a sugar plum brain, and thinks more sugar is the answer all questions, including Obesity from having far too much sugar. Her urgings have got us where we are today, and that is in big looming trouble.

[1] Tony Abbott’s Budget Reply Speech. May 10, 2012 http://australianpolitics.com/2012/05/10/abbott-budget-reply-speech.html

[2] Supporting Australian households. http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/supporting-australian-households.pdf